Honey is a sweet pudding of a golden doodle. She has a very soft personality. Honey is here for 2 weeks of advanced obedience to reign in her lingering puppy behaviors and help her enjoy more freedom.
Today we just got to know each other and did some easy stuff like Sit and Stay. She is pretty intimidated by Kylie who makes scary noises when she plays but she is getting on well with Ace, our resident baby sitter. Ted has no time for her so they haven't interacted much.
Tomorrow we are taking our first real workout walk and starting on some leash manners and confidence building. For now she is snoozing in her kennel with a nylabone she took from Ace's stash in the yard. Don't worry, he is happy to share and will steal it back later.

My pal Clint goes home tomorrow. He has done very well these two weeks especially considering how scared he was at the beginning. He still gets nervous around new people and our work is not done but I feel his foundation in training will be pivotal to helping him through his fear of new people.
He enjoys his freedom now that he can enjoy being off leash in a safe area. Probably the most relaxed I've seen him was during our one on one walks in the woods or in the high pasture. No head ducking or tail tucking. Just a happy boy trotting along enjoying the smells.
I will miss Clint. He has been my shadow puppy for the past two weeks. I look forward to our follow ups and to helping him and his owners reach their goalsfor him. He is a good boy who tries hard and from a working breed we can't ask for much more than that.

Clint is doing fine. He had a good day today and stayed on Placemat without a correction for almost an hour. Tomorrow we are heading to the farm to see how he does on a leash free walk.
An angry toddler is keeping me from writing a longer blog tonight but here is a picture of Clint's take on the "two feet on the mat" rule.

Clint had a good weekend. We let him relax a little and just enjoy the warm weather but we did do some work each day. He had a couple off-leash workouts in the fenced yard and our goal this week is to move him to off-leash with no fence. We will go out for a trial at the farm tomorrow to see how he does around the horses and donkey.
He is still a little controlling in how he moves around people. Constantly rubbing his shoulder on me or moving and darting around my feet. I correct him for this behavior because while it seems affectionate it is not coming from a calm headspace, but an anxious one. He gets affection from me when he is acting calm and not demanding comfort or touch.
He is getting along better with my guys and he will play with Ace a little before the game scares him and he backs off a little. It is nice that Ace is so receptive to this and won't push him to keep playing if Clint says he is finished for now. 
Clint's daily walks have really become peaceful. We have passed other dogs (who always get a look and a bit of nervousness from Clint but he is no longer skirting around), and human walkers and even a jogger or two. We give the joggers a wide birth but he hasn't shown too much interest in them other than being watchful. His Down command is much better and now we are just working on his Implied Stay. He wants to be beneath my feet and so staying put and parking it is difficult for him. 
Once he is doing better with Placemat or Stay I am going to see if I can get some (dog savvy) strangers to come over so that Clint can practice accepting strangers into his home without lashing out. We still have work to do but his foundation is getting stronger every day. 

We introduced Clint's remote trainer today. He is nice and sensetive to it but is having a hard time putting together that if he wants to avoid correction it is faster not to argue about commands. He is roiling with Down a little because he thinks that if he just avoids eye contact he won't have to do it. But by the end of the day he was getting better so I think he will adapt well to it.
Tomorrow we are going to do a little more work with his remote to help him get used to it. We are also going to start using it for bad behaviors like trying to herd people or being pushy on the steps.
Pictures soon!

We mostly stuck to review again today. Not because Clint isn't ready to progress but because today was super busy for me and so I didn't have time to properly dedicate to introducing new and harder things. But is response time is getting faster. He does sometimes try to "cute" his way out of work by showing me his tricks when I ask him to do something boring like "sit" or "down" or "come" and he would rather snuggle and play. But if (when) I insist that he do it he does comply pretty well. He is a little squirrelly about Down sometimes but as I said, he is getting faster.
Tomorrow I have more time to dedicate to Clint and so we will be introducing his remote trainer and doing some more new stuff that I hope he finds more interesting than what we are doing now. Right now my guys are all laying down in the dining room and Clint is walking from dog to dog stealing sniffs and avoiding eye contact. Eventually he will find a soft bit of floor and relax but first it seems he wants to investigate everyone, just in case they are somehow different than they were in the yard. He is a funny guy. He met the house cat today. She was not impressed and made her personal space bubble known very quickly. Clint was pretty respectful but he followed her closely (she does not run from dogs so isn't a fun target for chasing). But if he tried to nose-boop her she would swat him in the face which he didn't like. Jury is still out on whether or not they will be able to relax around each other.

Clint got one more step closer to playing with Ace today. I'm not sure if he realized that Ace was having a good time but Clint would chase Ace around the yard a little and then Ace would play bow and bounce away. Clint seems to also sort of like Kylie. He at least likes to follow her and stick to where she is hanging out. This is possibly because she shows absolutely no interest in playing with him so maybe she feels safest.
His obedience review is going well. We are using a slip leash on him for now and he is responding well to gentle encouragment. Sometimes he still gets overwhelmed and scared but he is not reacting aggressively, more than anything he just gets really clingy and asks for comfort. It is important that I do not comfort him when he gets like this. Instead I move him on from his fear and ask him to do something for me (like "sit" or "down") and then he can gave a chest scratch.
I hope to introduce Placemat tomorrow and to do a little more with his obedience. Somehow tomorrow got extremely busy for me though and so we will see how much work I am able to get done. If nothing else we will get Placemat started and take a couple obedience walks to sure up his skills. He is a good boy and he is settling in, I think. 

Clint is a young male Australian Cattle Dog (a personal favorite breed of mine) who is here for 2 weeks of training. Clint has some snapping/biting behaviors we need to work out as well getting his obedience up to where we want it.
Clint is a bit of a tricky guy so while it is my hope that we can accomplish our goals over the next 2 weeks, his mom and I are prepared to share a working relationship after he goes home to make sure he is on track especially with his acceptance of strangers. At the very least his stay here will give him a solid foundation.
Today we took it slowly. We worked on Clint approaching me and accepting physical praise from me and also allowing me to put a slip leash on him for short walks. We succeeded at all of this and he even started soliciting attention from me which was very sweet.
We also started working on our relationships with other dogs. When we first tossed him out with Kylie, Ted, and Ace he was very overwhelmed and would snap at their polite interest they showed in him. But once they gave up on meeting him he calmed down and exchanged sniffs with only a few grumbles. Ace is trying his absolute hardest to play with Clint but so far Clint is not having any of it. But we will see how long he holds out. Ace has not failed yet to get a grumpus to play with him.
Tomorrow we are laying the groundwork for his obedience and starting our trainer/dog relationship. I am glad Clint is here and that he is already making progress.

Smokey goes home this morning and he has done a very good job this week. He is nice and sensetive to his collar but is still a big puppy boy so he will make mistakes. He likes getting the right answer and he loves praise.
His counter surfing is much better, he even quit trying to thieve from the easy target, the 2 year old! He pushes it sometimes with his obedience but if his dad is strict and fair with him then he should do great. Good job, Smokey!

Sweet Jac goes home today and I am pleased to say he has really enjoyed his off-leash training. He still gets a little spooked now and then and so his owner will want to keep him on a leash if he is in an unfamiliar place but he enjoys his freedom now and comes when called nicely.
His obedience is also coming along quite well. He has a silly habit of laying down instead of sitting but this is easy to correct. He does this out of anticipation of the next command and he sure loves his belly rubs.
I am proud of Jax and I think his owners will be pleased. He has not tried to counter surf at all for the last 3 days!