First of all, is it Guber? Goober? I just am convinced  I am spelling this girl's name correctly. On her tag it is spelled one way and on her food it is spelled another. I guess we can have fun with it!
Today was FANTASTIC for our friend Goober. We had our first lesson with her dragging her leash in the training room and she only bolted once when a leaf got caught on the loop of the leash and started chasing her. Leaves- they're only fun until they bite back. She has shown many instances during house-time when she restrains herself from jumping on furniture, people, or Ted (FSK9's "Grumpy Grandpa").
Tonight she had her first completely off leash lesson, again in the training room) and she did really well. Bolted to the door twice but I did not have to go get her. She came back to me willingly with a "No!" and a repeat of the command. She is VERY sensitive to tone of voice. I do not know if I would trust her off leash outside at this point but we are going to start trying it in the (fenced) garden and on our walk with a tether on her which gives her 20 feet of mistake making opportunity.
All in all, I've seen a very different dog over the past 2 days but still our cute

Whew! What a day. Guber and I pushed each other today and I think I won. It may not seem like much to say that all we worked on today was the Down command but with this little girl that is the pace we need to take. We just finished the 3rd workout of the day and it was almost 25 minutes long doing nothing but circles in the training room doing Heel/Auto Sit and Down over and over again. She was finally laying down (from exhaustion?) without a correction or being helped. She is now sound asleep in her crate, hopefully forming some memories of today and I am on the couch coming up with the "lesson plan" for tomorrow.
Heel/Auto Sit is pretty much done.
Implied Stay is understood. Owners will need to keep up on the practice for this as she matures.
Down (crosses fingers) we will continue to work on tomorrow.
We are going to introduce Recall and Place tomorrow if all goes well with the Down.
I need to get a tab to send home with her so that her owners can bust her for shenanigans in the house.

Guber's day today started fast and intense and then lulled for a while in the afternoon. I had some lessons in town and so between 7:30am and 12:30pm Guber got 2 workouts and an exercise walk. Then she was crated for the bulk of the afternoon. She will get one more workout this evening and some house time with the family. The family cannot get enough of this little girl! We are a Golden Retriever and German Shepherd family and so she fits right in with everybody's dog sensibilities.
She pretty much gets Heel/Autosit already but only in the training room. If something scares her she still will break and try to run off. I don't think she would bolt very far, just away and then back to your legs for some comfort. We started with the Implied Stay with the sit and she understands the concept- unless you are going somewhere fun. This girl needs to learn some self restraint! We'll work on that tomorrow.
We started down today also and she isn't getting it yet but she isn't arguing as much as some dogs do.
I think I am going to try a pinch collar on her tomorrow because her leash manners when we are outside really are abysmal. She seems to be so used to pulling on the leash that she isn't feeling the corrections with the slip chain. This is the exact same problem that Kylie had and I found that as soon as we put her on her pinch collar I was able to cut her corrections in half and use half the force that I did with the slip chain. I picked up a very fine small pinch collar for her today and it will fit her just fine. Usually dogs graduate from the pinch collar and don't need it anymore if their owners are good about making obedience a way of life.
Pictures soon!

This girl is sweet! Purebred Golden Retriever female nicknamed "Guber" is really the whole package when it comes to the breed. She is a little shy, quiet (for now, we will see if she doesn't find her voice in a day or two), and has a very gentle spirit. She will be a joy to train but her Board and Train will not be without its challenges.
What will those challenges be? They all stem from one source. She is only 5 months old. About a month younger than I usually recommend starting formal training but after talking to the owner last week it was clear that starting her a little early would be better than waiting. She has absolutely no leash manners to speak of. This lack of leash manners seems to have been inadvertently worsened with the use of a retractable leash. She has learned, up until now, that by pulling on the leash she gets more room to walk. The first thing she tries when pulling softly doesn't work is to lunge forward, assuming the leash is broken or stuck. 
Another challenge is her complete lack of an attention span. During our long walk today around the big pasture she was nose to the ground the whole time; bouncing from leaf to leaf to mystery animal scat to slug and back to the leaves. It wasn't until we got to the final stretch of the pasture that I convinced her to walk with her head up. We also worked in the training room which is relatively distraction-free and she did much much better but whenever a water pipe gurgled or a kitty meowed outside, she would get distracted. 
However, even with the challenges of training a younger dog, I am happy with the progress we made today. By the end of the second workout she was heeling nicely and sitting when I stopped with just a little bit of help. I have to be careful not to over-correct her OR to over-praise. If I get too happy when she gets something right she comes down with a fit of Wigglebutt syndrome (you Golden Retriever people will know what I mean). 
We are going to give her one more workout today and some time with the family. Family time is pretty low key but we will be working on house manners like staying off of furniture and not jumping up on people.
All in all, I love this girl! I am thrilled to get to spend 10 days with one of my all time favorite breeds.

Our friend Teddy is almost done! We are preparing for Teddy to be picked up tomorrow and I am very pleased with how his workouts went today. I pushed him pretty hard today trying to "stress test" his new commands. He knows what he needs to know now but he is not acting like the new knowledge is permanent. He still gets flustered and confused sometimes (usually when he is unsure if he is supposed to Down or stay sitting when I do an implied stay from an Auto-Sit) but most of the time he just needs a verbal correction and it becomes more clear to him. His people will need to be very clear and consistent in the first week he is home to make it clear that Teddy's obedience skills are his new way of life and not just tricks.
We used the stroller a lot today. At first Teddy was frightened of the stroller and tried to hop away from it. It did not take long, however, to have him Heeling/Auto-Sitting, laying Down on command, and even doing an Implied Stay next to the stroller while I went and picked an apple and then returned to him. The Implied Stay was by far the hardest thing for him after the initial fear of the stroller monster was overcome. I was able to walk him with the leash draped around my shoulders (keeping both hands free to steer the stroller but also making it easy for me to pop Teddy if he forgot himself and started walking too far ahead of me). He will now be able to take walks with his whole family without putting the infant in danger.
Right now Teddy is curled up on his Place mat in front of the fireplace looking very warm and picturesque. I think I will send him home with a training tab to make it easier to hold him accountable in the home for the first week. A training tab is a small leash about 6" long that the dog wears like a neck tie. It makes it possible to still correct the dog in the house without having him drag a leash. I think this will be helpful in the house where he still struggles with things like hopping up on the couch or slowly sneaking/oozing off of his Place mat.
I will miss this guy. He has been an absolute joy to teach. While he posed his share of challenges he made a shining example of a dog who was bred to work with people. He has been eager to learn but not so fawning that he wouldn't put forth his own...input about the decisions that I was making for him. Plus, he sings sometimes which always makes me smile.
Tomorrow we are working him a few last times, taking his videos and his glamor shots, and running a brush over him to make sure he goes home as pretty as a dog who spent a week on a farm can look. One thing is for sure, Angela the garage cat will miss her snuggle buddy!

There's one in every board and train; one day during which the dog decides to be an argumentative little toddler. Usually it is after the first few days as the dog calms down and starts feeling comfortable. Today was that day for our friend Teddy. Our first workout was, to put it simply, not good. He lagged behind and wouldn't Heel properly. Whenever I told him to Down he would go temporarily deaf and pointedly stare in the other direction. He was pouty and back talking (lightly biting the leash, trying to dart away from me whenever he needed a correction) throughout the entire workout. Because he was being such a snot, the workout ended up lasting a bit longer than it normally would have. I would have been doing us a disservice to allow him to win and dictate when I ended the workout. In the end, he was exhausted but I had him Heeling nicely and I got one good Down out of him. I let him take a break while I got ready for the second workout. 
After the break we geared up for a different kind of workout. Instead of doing the same old stuff we've been working on for days I was going to introduce a new thing. We dedicated the entire second workout of the day to the Place command. In order to teach Place it is necessary to use the Heel/Autosit command but because we were doing a new thing he was happy to trot along nicely and was happy to do the new thing. He picked up the Place command in under 10 minutes and, seeing as he was still tired from this mornings first workout, he was happy to lay down on it and stay put. This gave me the opportunity to praise him early on. Moods were better all around after the second workout.
I let him take a long break in the middle of the day and he slept for around 2 hours. We took our exercise walk and I integrated another workout into the last half. Everything we did, Heel/Autosit, Down at the Side, Down from the Front, he did well. Even his recall was better (he still isn't sitting reliably when he gets to me but he is no longer just walking right by me). He was in a much more cooperative mood in the afternoon and I was even able to do some hands free Heeling with the leash draped over my shoulders. 
Tomorrow I anticipate a good work day. Usually the day after the dreaded Day of Arguments is very productive. We are now simply working on Heeling with a stroller and cleaning up all the skills I know he has. I am hoping to give him 4 workouts tomorrow instead of his normal 3. He has been getting bored and I think his attention span is getting stronger. Even though he was a problem-child this morning I feel like this was actually one of our more productive days so far. It is good for him to push the training and to realize that A. it is not the end of the world to lay down when told to and B. that he really doesn't have a choice in the matter anyway. His mood was much better after his nap. 

Today was another good day but compared to yesterday not -as- productive. We cleaned up the Heel/Auto-sit and worked on the Down. His implied stay with the Down is not very good right now. I can make it halfway around him right now but he keeps hopping back up into a sit if I leave him down for too long. The technical dog trainer term for this is being a "pop-tart."
We introduced Recall during his second workout today and he didn't really get it at all. He comes in the right direction but then just...keeps going. By the end of the workout he was stopping and looking at me but not sitting. I have a feeling we will get there tomorrow. We are also going to start Heeling to a stroller tomorrow.
We took it a little easy today and so tomorrow I am prepared to push him.

Today was the first real work day for young Teddy. He had 3 workouts today and 2 walks and I am very happy with the progress he has made already. The first 100 yards of the first workout of the day was nothing but argument. He tried EVERYTHING to avoid walking in a nice Heel. He pulled forward, he put the breaks on and refused to move, he pretended he was dying, he even spent 20 seconds bouncing up and down next to me while we walked along. When none of this worked he settled into a nice Heel and walked like a gentleman for the rest of the workout (around 10 minutes remained in the workout). By the end of the workout he also had a rudimentary Auto-sit. Now, at the end of the day, I would say he has Heel/Auto-sit pretty well though it needs to be cleaned up. He still wants to turn his butt and face me instead of sitting at my side. During his last workout of the day he was already getting better with this.
We started his Down command during the second workout of the day. He hated it. Whenever I would start lowering him into a Down he would squirm to the side or behind me trying to avoid it. By the end of the workout (around 15 minutes) he was laying down with a soft touch on his head but he was pretty pouty about it. The third workout he was laying down on command but, like the Heel/Auto-sit, it needs cleaning up.
His Implied Stay is coming along nicely. I can walk all the way around him if I walk slowly. If I walk at a normal pace he will still get up and try to come with. He only needs a verbal reminder to stay put, however, and he then lets me finish my circle.
All in all, not bad for his first day of work! He is eating well and sleeping well. He is getting along fine with Kylie and Ted though he does try Kylie's last nerve when he thinks it is time to play and she wants to nap. Twice today I saw him tease her into playing with him. Ted (my Ted) has taken to Teddy surprisingly well. We don't call Ted "Mr. Grumbles" for nothing. He is usually quite the grumpy grandpa with the boarders but for some reason (maybe it's the name) he seems to really enjoy Teddy's company. Teddy is also getting along famously with Angela, the barn cat, who would run up and rub on his face and neck whenever Teddy would lay down in the training room.
Tomorrow we are going to continue with today's new skills but we are also going to start the Recall command and we will see if we can get to Down from the Front but it all depends on how his Down at the Side looks in the morning. We are also going to start working on Heeling with a stroller either tomorrow or Wednesday. Busy busy busy!

Today we had Teddy get dropped off for a five day Board and Train. I can't wait to put up a picture of him because he is CUTE. He looks like a mishmash of all my favorite breeds. There's some Golden in there, some Collie, some sort of shepherd. He will be fun to work with. He's only been here for a half hour and he has already:
a. made friends with the cat
b. played with the toy poodle
c. serenaded the family with one long mournful note after being in his crate for a few minutes.
I can't wait to get going with this fellow. He is acting very sweet and accommodating right now, which experience tells me means he is nervous and I will see something quite different after a few meals and play sessions.
Tomorrow we start with Heel/autosit and hopefully will be able to start the Implied Stay and Down at the Side. 

Well things are winding down for Piper's stay here with us. We had a couple really easy and nice workouts today with no issues or arguments. She took a nice long walk with me through the big pasture and other than losing her head once to try to bound into the grass after Kylie, she walked nicely with me. Her on leash commands are great and other than still needing a little bit of coaxing to get onto her place-mat I am very happy with where she is.
She is also getting better about not jumping up but if the person she is saying hello to acts really really happy to see her she still forgets her manners sometimes.
Have loved working with this spirited little cutie pie!