I love the idea of Honey bopping the car handle – bless her!

I’m not a very precise trainer either. For me, the joy is in doing something fun with my dog, seeing how she learns, and watching her confidence grow. 🙂

I try to see what the landscape suggests for teaching Honey. Yesterday, we passed a basketball on the street and I taught her to push it with her nose.

Maybe you have some driftwood in the dunes the pups could leap over?

I don’t think it matters much if the behavior is useful. I just find the Honey enjoys the training process and it builds her confidence. I wonder if you’d find that with your more cautious greyhounds?

When I was teaching journal-keeping workshops, I would assign timed writings where no one was allowed to lift the pen from the page. If they didn’t know what to write, they should write “I don’t know what to write.”

You’re so right that just moving your fingers on the keyboard typing junk can get your mind working and lead you into serious work.

Did you ever notice that the only people who don’t think writing is hard work are those who won’t do it? 🙂

I am totally imaginging Hurley booping light poles like Monk with a case of OCD. 🙂

My last dog, Shadow, also would not have experimented with other behaviors to get a click. She’d just start sniffing. We did a lot of luring with her too.

Isn’t every dog so different?

Hmmm, didn’t you just finish a huge project, Ms. Calendar girl? Seems to me you’re pretty good at doing important things. 🙂

I can so see you doing this, Clowie. Making your second sit even prettier than the first.

Sometimes Honey will lift her butt off the ground a few inches and plop down again just in case I didn’t notice the first sit.

You dogs are very clever.

I discovered clicker training with my last dog, Shadow (the dog in my header). I was amazed to find how well it helped us deal with her dog reactivity.

If you had told me that clicking and treating would keep her from barking and pulling every time a strange dog walked by, I wouldn’t have believed you. So even though we never did any trick training with Shadow, I consider it a life saver.

Good that you start with a plan. Even better that you can stop the planning and move forward in action.

That’s where I get stuck. 🙂