Away from home so we’re working in a different environment. We live in the country so now in an inner city environment which is pretty busy. We do visit often so not totally strange for him. My family visited the other day so learning to keep calm and keep away from the baby (just turned 1) was important. He doesn’t see the baby very often so is inquisitive but so far not intrusive. The biggest issue is there high dog density in an inner city environment! Random Dogs just pop up from around the corner! I took him up to the park yesterday and we had some good sniffs and watched some dog walkers and dogs while in the car. Had one chance encounter with another dog and he lost his brain. But I did manage to get some tug happening after that to work some of that arousal out of the system. I’m going to be away for a couple of days so I’ll be back in a few days!

I keep forgetting to post! We have been training - working mostly out the front of our house where there’s lots of dog distractions. Doing some work on stays and finding that sweet spot of how close is too close to distractions and how far away can I be with distractions. It’s not brilliant work but it’s giving me information. What I am seeing is increased ability work through arousal but only with guidance. If left to his own devices he will default to old patterns quickly.

I think I forgot to post a few days 😬 We’ve got a visitor with a dog so it’s a little trickier to get out and do stuff. But I did do it! Last night we were working on basic obedience - stay, recall, drop on recall. All rewarded with tug. He did an awesome drop on recall, considering he doesn’t do these very often. We had a little wander around the paddock on the long line after and he only barked once at one of the neighbour’s dogs. He was still looking for the nemesis dogs but still very much engaged with me as well. Progress with those dogs.

When you need a break from the chaos what's your favourite way to decompress and why is it doughnuts? 🍩

So short on time today so worked on the whistle. Inside the house because it was pretty hot here today (32C). Some nice responses happening with it. Not sure how it would hold up under distraction but we’ll keep plugging away!