An Aussie Quickie

It’s been a few weeks since our last post.  We have been doing a lot of training with Lilli and Leilani.  What we learned from Susan Garret was a wake up call to our training style and technique. Starting with relationship building, restraint recalls, crate games, tug, and being clear about our criteria.  What we like about this training style is the foundation it creates for building behaviors with layers.  This is a switch from luring which we used to train Lilli to this point.  There are plenty of practical uses for luring, just not for what we want to accomplish in the foundation training.

Other than the trial we have signed up for I don’t expect Lilli to be in another agility event for months.  Our thinking is we would like to avoid reinforcing mistakes due to handling.  We’ll get the handling straightened out, work on foundation skills with clear criteria, and have a ton of fun.

We’ll update some specific changes and results in our training.  We’re learning as we go and enjoying the challenge.