Gino is a sweet, very young, Cane Corso boy who is here for two weeks of training. I rarely take dogs this young but at 14 weeks he is ready for some foundation work and basic commands. I am also hoping to introduce him to a remote collar if he is ready for it during his stay.
Today we started with the basica. Walking on a leash. Gino likes to put the brakes on and so we introduced him to a slip leash and started building up his confidence walking with a tether on. He did great and he is a love sponge so he is easy to praise.
Gino is settling in well. He is not a fan of sleeping in the training room but other than complaining for a while at bed time he has been a quiet and polite house guest. He gets along well with Ace. Dana scares him a little but I can tell he wants to play with her.
Tomorrow I hope to introduce Heel/Autosit and Implied Stay. This cutie pie is in for a big two weeks and I’m looking forward to it!

My pal Allen is all done and going home tomorrow! Teresa helped me take his go-home video yesterday to help show his owners all of his new skills. He knows his commands well and while he might not have the most dignity about some of them he understands what his job is and correcting him is a simple thing.
Most of his commands will will not need practice. They just need to become part of his daily life. However I am going to recommend he get some practice with staying on his Placemat when his owners leave the room and that he work on Down from the Front without trying to ooze onto his handler’s shoes. Other than that he really has a good grasp of his new rules.
I’m gonna miss this sweet fellow. He has been a joy to have around and very rewarding to train. I hope I get to keep up with him. I always enjoy watching my younger students grow up into really stellar adult dogs. This training is all designed to give the dogs more freedom and he certainly enjoys having a job but also the ability to enjoy himself without a rope on is a great thing for these gentle giants who very much need a chance to stretch those legs now and then.
Good job, Allen!

Alan is nothing short of impressive. The weather has been beautiful the last few days and so we have been walking a LOT and his radius training (sticking close while off his leash) is beautiful. His obedience is really really good. He gets a little nervous sometimes and needs reassurance that he is doing it right (and he really does know his commands. He just gets in his Great Dane head about things). I think I may have corrected him three times total today.
Tomorrow we are gonna keep working his obedience and spend more time on Placemat. He likes his Place but if the other dogs start playing he forgets his job (he’s a baby so we forgive him a little. Playing is still his main job right now). Right now he is playing with his banana toy in his kennel before settling in for bed.

Alan keeps making good progress. We spent a lot of time today on Implied Stay and Come today and he did very well. He is trying th lay down a lot when he is supposed to sit so I’m working to correct that but as problems go, that’s a small one.
Tomorrow morning we are going to take a long walk and work on causal come command while he is running around playing and then the afternoon will be spent in the house on Place. He is a rock star.

Alan LOVES being off leash. We have been off leash for exercise and play time since Thursday and we started off-leash obedience today. He is taking to it with enthusiasm though the collar did confuse him at first. He is having a good time for sure.
His obedience today was sloppy but he did get around to doing all his commands. He mostly needed to adjust to not having the leash there to guide him. Keeping him on task will get easier as he ages but it’s important to have high expectations now even though he is just a puppy.
Tomorrow Alan is getting an easy day because we have family plans but he will get at least one good workout and then on Monday we are gonna hit the ground running cleaning up his obedience and trying to neaten it up. He is doing great!

Young Alan is going to be introduced to his remote collar tomorrow! He has a good grasp of all of his commands and he is DEFINITELY ready to play with the big dogs off leash. He is still a little sloppy on the finishes for his commands but he gets the basic idea and he is improving with every work out. 
He toils with Implied Stay the most and with basic distractibility but he is working around chickens and the other dogs a few times a day to really test him and he is getting better at focussing. He is so big it is easy to forget how young he is. 
He has developed a very cute friendship with the other great dane who is here this week, Bonnie, and watching them play is a real joy. Bonnie also likes showing off and following us around doing all of Alan's commands for him. 
I am excited for tomorrow. He has really wanted to play this whole week and even his 20' lead frustrated him. We will likely just be on-leash with his remote tomorrow but if it goes well he could be off-leash by tomorrow afternoon or Friday morning. He is more advanced than I expected him to be on day 3 which means we will get lots of practice with the remote collar and lots of proofing time for his commands which is exactly what he needs.
Tomorrow should be a fun one!

It's a big week here at Free State K-9. Literally. We have Bonnie the Great Dane visiting again and we are also training my new friend Alan. Alan is a STUNNING young Great Dane boy here for two weeks of advanced obedience training. I love seeing the owners of the gentle giants investing in training early on because when these guys grow up it is a MUCH bigger project, pun intended.
Alan is a sweet natured guy who really is a good boy, just young. He needs a vocabulary to allow his owners to talk to him when he accidentally makes the wrong choice. He is a big ol' puppy and he's a goofball to boot so training him is a lot of fun. He is learning on a pinch collar for a couple days before we introduce him to his remote trainer which will make him extra happy because he really wants to play with the other dogs!
Today we learned Heel/Autosit and Implied Stay and we started the Come command. He isn't autositting yet but he is sitting with very little prompting. His leash manners are pretty good to begin with so he took to Heel nice and fast. 
For now he is snoozing in his kennel next to Bonnie and we will move on to Down and getting slightly better with the Come command tomorrow. We love Danes around here so this week will be a blast.

BOING BOING! Margie is coming along well. She is getting better with her commands and she stayed on Placemat for a full hour yesterday. What she really needs is high expectations and patience. She is still very very puppy and she gets distracted very easily. This means she still needs corrections but it’s important not to get frustrated because this distractibility is not because of disobedience but from a lack of maturity and ability to stay on task. This will improve greatly over the next few months as she gets older. For now we get to enjoy her humor and gently remind her that she needs to do her tasks.

Her leash walking has has improved greatly. Her Down command is so so because she gets a little playful and wiggly but it’s important that we have her stay down until we tell her to do something else. This will help her Implied Stay with the down. Her Implied Stay with the sit is going fine unless a butterfly crosses our path.

Today (day 5) is just a practice day and working on that distractibility.

Little Marge is such a sweet little student. She is trying so hard to get the answer right but it’s difficult when there are friends and leaves and wind and chickens. She had a great day though. We introduced Down and Come today and she did well with both. Down she still toils with a little because she wants to wiggle around but hey, she literally just learned it. She enjoys the Come command but she wants to jump up when she gets to me.
One thing that makes this little spitfire so easy and fun to train is that she is an absolute love sponge. Praising her is an easy task because all she wants is to be touched and loved. We just have to be careful that she doesn’t get too excited and then need to be calmed down.
Her day tomorrow is just moving on with her commands and working on cleaning them up. I hope to give her some time on Placemat since one of my kiddos will be home sick all day. For now she is snoozing away in her kennel. She worked hard today!

So if you took a little baby cow and gave it the most impish personality and beautiful eyes you’d have Marge. She is an adorable little pinto pitbull puppy and a complete clown to boot. I can already tell she is going to have us laughing all week. Marge is a very young dog and it’s great her owners are taking the bull by the horns, so to speak, and giving Marge a vocabulary now so that when she is older any bad habits that form can be more easily addressed.
Today we started with 1+1. How to walk on a leash. We fitted her with a dainty prong collar and she immediately realized I was on the other end of the leash. She is very strong and already used to pulling so that habit needs to be curbed. She threw a couple baby temper tantrums today about her Heel command but she was sitting automatically pretty reliably by the end of the day. She also did really well with Implied Stay though that may have just been because she was pouting.
Marge made buddies with Dana and Ace and she is really curious about the chickens but the rooster, Gilderoy, flapped at her and now she won’t even go into the section of the yard they occupy.
Tomorrow we are starting Down and Come and maybe Placemat if I have time. Marge is charming and funny and loves praise so her learning should go fast. Welcome Marge!