Bella is doing great. For such a young pup she really tries hard to get her commands right. She still needs occasional corrections when she has puppy moments but for the most part she is being an excellent student. She has done well with Placemat tho her staying power isn't as great as it will be when she is just a little bit older. I've not gotten her to stay on her mat longer than an hour so far because honestly the sweetheart simply forgets what she is doing. But she is very easy to correct and usually just a firm "No" will have her hopping right back to her mat.
Her leash manners are good. Her come command is very cute and her Down is great tho she sometimes is a bit of a firecracker about it and needs a little boop from her collar. Her attention span still gets the better of her with the Implied Stay but it improves all the time. Really the most important thing for Bella is high expectations for her behavior. She happily meets them and wants to please but if you don't expect her to be  obedient she will also be very pleased to bounce around and play and get into mischief instead. But she is a soft natured girl and she isn't ever truly trying to be disobedient and so usually just a small correction and reminder of her task gets her back to her work.
We are working on proofing all of her commands and working around bigger distractions now and my big goal is to try to improve her staying power and self restraint. She is still a very silly puppy though and so a sense of humor is a must when we work together or else it just wouldn't be any fun.

Cruising right along with Ms. Maisy. She is doing well with her obedience and her Placemat skills are getting better. She is impulsive still and her instinct is still to run at whatever she wants with full force. That will be a habit that takes a while to reset in her brain and so the very best thing her owners can do to curb that extremely strong pulling is to leave her pinch collar attached to her leash. Whenever she goes outside for a walk, even just to potty or to go to the car, she should wear her pinch collar so that she can always be corrected for impulsive pulling. Eventually she won't need her correction collar anymore but the fastest way to get there is to not let her pull ever. 
Around the house she only needs her collar when she is getting riled up. When the house is hectic I will have her wear her pinch collar with a short "training tab" (think like a 8" leash) so that I can grab it, correct her, and let her go again without her tripping on her leash the entire time. But when the house is calm she hasn't needed much correcting inside.
Her commands are going really well. She still needs occasional corrections for Down and sometimes for Implied Stay if she gets distracted but she is easy to correct and she loves praise so she isn't a difficult dog to set back to task. She loves praise so much that I have to keep her praise very warm and calm or else she throws herself a little celebration for getting the answer right. 
We are in proofing stage now and so we are working around distractions and for longer periods trying to get her as experienced as possible before she goes home this weekend.

Sweet little Bella. She is doing so well for such a young pup. Her Heel/Autosit are coming along nicely. Her Down is pretty good! Though she doesn't like laying down on the gravel road. She is also getting better about Implied Stay. She struggles with this the most because she is such a follower and she is young enough to still forget what she is doing if, say, a fun leaf blows by or the kitty darts around. But she is trying hard to get the answers right and we can't ask for more than that.
Tomorrow we are going to get her going on Placemat and I want to really push her Implied Stay and her Come command. This can be tricky because if you over work one you can negatively impact the other. But with balance we should be able to prioritize both.
She is a cutie pie and she knows it. Sometimes it seems like she gets extra cute when she would rather not do something and it puts her out a little to be asked to do it anyway. But she sure does love that warm praise when she does it so we are slowly raising the value of physical praise to give her incentive to listen the first time we ask her to do something.
For now she is snoozing quietly in her kennel after spending the last maybe 35 minutes playing with her dish. Such a goof.

Maisy is making progress! We worked on her basics again today; Heel/Autosit (she sits automatically a little over half the time without help), Down, Implied Stay and Come. She still toils with Down. She doesn't like it. But she isn't arguing much anymore as she is pouting or feigning deafness. She definitely needs her prong collar for now. Without it she still throws all her weight into her collar and pulls hard. Until that habit is broken it will be best to walk her on her prong collar to help remind her that there is a person attached to the other end of her leash. 
In the house she has been polite if not a tiny but of a bull in a china shop. Not really meaning to upset anything but she is impulsive and strong. But we are introducing Placemat tomorrow and I hope that that helps her setting in the house a little even when the kids or her dog friends are around. 
For day two she is doing really well.

Cute little Bella. It's no secret that I love gun dogs. While I don't hunt personally I've always enjoyed working with pointers, retrievers, setters and spaniels. The latter of which I see the least often but I really love getting my hands on. Bella is a young and very soft natured English Springer Spaniel who is here for one week of basic training. When I say soft natured I mean she isn't brazen or dominant at all. She is shy at first but once she comes out of her shell she is a little spitfire. But if something scares her she goes right back to her softness which is exactly what I would expect from a spaniel. I can tell she is going to be making me laugh all week long because she is a silly girl when she gets going.
Today we started with the basics of basic. We fitted her with a dainty little pinch collar to help with teaching her in a way she understands and we started with loose leash walking, Heel and Autosit, Implied Stay and Come. She is distractible and I kept her workouts short but we made progress in pretty much everything. I even got a few automatic sits without needing to help her! 
I have a feeling she will learn fast and then start being a goober and seeing what she can get away with. For now she is making friends with the other dogs and playing very nicely. I'm afraid my girl Akita, Dana, frightened her pretty well when they were playing because Dana got excited and let out a very loud, booming bark which Bella was not expecting and she jumped out of her skin and scooted back to her kennel. As soon as she realized Dana just has a big voice the game resumed and her feelings weren't hurt for long. I'm excited to see how far we can take Bella this week. It should be fun!

Maisy is a sweet natured, happy-go-lucky yellow lab girl who is here for a week of obedience training. This girl is STRONG and she has no idea just how miserable it is to try to walk her. She has gotten so used to throwing all of her strength into her collar and pulling as hard as she can to get where she is going. Picture an ox yoke and that's sort of how she uses her collar. Until today :)
Today I fitted her with her shiny new prong collar and everything changed. Prong collars work on a psychological level to deliver a familiar correction (one which I do not need to explain to the dog) to get their mind back on their handler in stead of on pulling or other misbehaviors. Once she had her collar on and she could feel me at the other end of the leash her pulling reduced dramatically and she and I could talk. 
She and I worked on Heel with an Automatic Sit, Implied Stay, and Down today. She actually did pretty well with Implied Stay once she was in "working mode", Down was a little goofy and most of the time she ended up on her back being a dork but at least she was down.
Tomorrow we introduce the Come command and keep working towards those good leash manners we know she is capable of. She is getting along well with all the dogs here unless it's meal time then she likes to bark at everyone. But that should stop once she realizes that Dana and Ace are completely unimpressed and uninterested in her food. She is settling in nicely and I look forward to working with her more.

Well my cute little friend Roxie goes home tomorrow. She has been such a fun pup to work with. As big as she is it is easy to forget that she is just a baby. In fact I was surprised to realize that she lost two teeth while she was here! (I found them on my carpet). Her foundational training is complete but she has a lot of upkeep work to do to make sure she keeps her training as she matures. Luckily her Board and Train package came with 3 follow up lessons and, like all of my board and trains, she gets a discount on individual lessons for her entire life so as she grows up we can make sure she is still being the best Roxie she can be.
Something funny she has gotten into the habit of doing is when asked to Down from the front of her handler she likes to ooze around on the ground on her side like a Slinkie until she is comically stretched across the grass or driveway. It's not the most dignified down I've ever seen but hey, she can put her own spin on things if she wants to so long as she lays down.
Roxie has made us laugh for two weeks straight. I have greatly enjoyed working with her and look forward to our follow ups. She is on her way to being a truly delightful adult dog.

My friend Gus went home today. I am very proud of how far he came these two weeks. He was a stubborn buffalo of a pup when he got here and now he is a good worker who enjoys training and listens well. Obedience is becoming his way of life and he will be a more cooperative and enjoyable family pet. Gussy is a sweet guy and I really enjoyed working with him. He loves being touched so much that motivating him was no problem. 
The only thing in his training that I wish I could have gotten a little cleaner was his obsession with laying on people's feet when told to lay down. We can address this in follow ups and we were making progress but goodness he loves shoes and if he can swing it he will always try to plop down on your sneakers instead of on the ground.
Gus is a perfect lab and I hope his owners enjoy his goofy but witty antics for years to come.

Sweet Roxie had a breakthrough! She has been so fidgety and nervous working without a leash on that she would make mistakes just because she was fretting. With a leash on she does very well but when she didn’t have a tether she would toil again. But yesterday and today she has had off-leash workouts with no bolting or pouting or “dropping anchor” (flopping the the ground dramatically and pretending to be dead). She asks for a lot of praise still but since we are building her up she can have all she wants.
Make no mistake. She knows her commands. Her silliness isn’t due to her not knowing what to do. She just gets in her head about there suddenly not being any leash on and she gets excited or makes a mistake. Luckily it is very easy to get her going again. A happy voice and warm praise gets her right back to working mode.
I’m very pleased her confidence is growing when we work with no tether. When she isn’t in a command she is very happy to plod around the farm with the chickens and other dogs. But it’s great that her attitude is staying so positive when we start working now. She is such a happy-go-lucky girl we don’t want her to be pouty while she works. So keeping her training lighthearted and fun has been key to letting Roxie do things Roxie style.
In the house she is a peach. If only she would stay on her Placemat! She has twice now sneaked over to her friend Gus’s mat to lay with him when I left the room while they were practicing.Its very cute but not quite what we are after. It’s very funny to see her act as though I won’t notice she isn’t on her own bed suddenly.
​This cutiepie is a fun girl and I am so enjoying helping her learn.

Gus is just a superstar. His workouts just keep getting better. He loves praise and likes work but he does get his feelings hurt if he is confused so he sometimes needs some love to get his confidence back up. He sometimes gives me the “one minute finger” when he is sniffing something but a little vibration from his collar lights a fire under his pants to get over to me.
This cuddly guy is also doing stellar in the house. He has actually been a very polite house guest once he settles (Placemat helps him settle down for sure). Other than being s bit of a shadow dog and trying to follow me everywhere he is a gentleman. And if I need him out of my way he is happy to laze around on his bed.
We are in full proofing mode now and just enjoying our work and the freedom it gives us to enjoy the farm.