I just realized that it's been three weeks since my week of training fun that I meant to share with PBT a lot sooner than now. Alas, I am a lazy procrastinator, so I'm just now getting around to it.
So, three weeks ago, I went to Animal Farm Foundation for a job interview and I got to meet Roo and Wallace! If you ever get the chance to visit AFF and/or Roo, do it. I was only there for about a day and a half and I will remember it for a long time to come. It was awesome. They even ordered up a snowstorm so I could remember what it's like living in the frozen North. Roo is such a nice guy, and pretty hilarious to drive through a snowstorm with.
AFF clicker trains all of their dogs, and uses tons of shaping with them. They let me get in on the shaping fun and by the end of the day, my head was about to explode from all the nifty cool things I got to observe and experience. I had so much fun meeting everyone and seeing what they do. They have an awesome set up and awesome people with awesome attitudes. And I loved meeting all of the dogs. They even let me have a sleepover with one of them. He was such a sweetie and once I explained to him that pillows are not dog toys, he was a perfect angel. There were a few in particular that really stole my heart. Roo also let me have a try at clicker training with Wallace. I didn't do very well, but Wallace entertained me with what I called his "squished frog" pose.
Then at the end of the week, I headed off to Charlotte for a seminar by Turid Rugaas, of Calming Signal fame. The seminar was very interesting, and challenged a lot of my thoughts about dog behavior and training. Turid would be appalled at some of the things I do with Renee, and I don't even want to think about what she'd say to Erin and my other dog sport friends. I think I agree with her overall philosophy, I'm just not completely sold on all the details. She demo'ed her technique for loose leash walking, which was neat to see in action. I'm thinking about trying it with Renee, but I don't know if I have the patience to start from scratch.
Just wanted to share my fun with PBT because you guys will understand, and my family gets tired of hearing me go on and on about dogs