She’s getting braver both in and outside. It’s funny, just before and after dinner she is her bravest and most proactive – I think her instinct just kicks in sometimes and she overcomes her fears and lets herself be a dog. The only thing she shows a preference for is food. She won’t play with toys or anything. She has really grown to love the dog door and the backyard now. On walks she is pretty independent too and prefers to be off leash as she is a sniffer…but that’s also the time she can become the most spooked and freeze. At that point our only recourse is to head home.

“maybe good training is about helping dogs make better choices” – nicely put. And I think it’s very true.

When we train Honey not to jump on people, we give her a choice: jump on the person and get ignored or pick up a toy with four paws on the floor and get lovies. Unfortunately, I’ve never figured out how to train the people to ignore her when she’s jumping.

I have to figure out how to encourage people to make better choices. 🙂

Thanks for stopping back, Jan, and telling us about how this worked in real life.

In fostering, I’ve certainly learned not to rush a beagle. But Honey enjoys picking up the pace some. In fact, when we have a beagle or other hound in the house, she becomes a little depressed at taking such slow walks.

Too bad you’re not close enough to pick up Honey for an occasional run. She’d love it. 🙂

When the dogs choose a certain path, I always wonder what I’m missing. They obviously smell something interesting in one direction. And I have no idea what it is.

Yeah, I loved Kerasote’s books. They really made me think.

I suspect Honey would be happy to make all the choices as long as I followed her with my treat pouch. Otherwise she wouldn’t bother to get too far ahead of me.

I’m curious about Maggie. Do you find that in the safety of your home she shows strong preferences for things? Or will she always take your (or Jack’s) lead?

I can vouch for the mental stimulation of sniffing. I’ve fostered a few beagles and hound mixes recovering from surgery. I wondered how I would be able to exercise them enough in recovery.

No worry. As long as there are plenty of smells to check along the way, they come home just as exhausted from a short walk as from a long one.

If you can find routes where lots of other dogs have walked before, your pup will probably get a lot of exercise.

Yeah, I guess you’re right that the walk isn’t just for the dog. But I probably wouldn’t do it so much if I didn’t think it was important to Honey. 🙂

Don’t you find the dogs are much more engaged when they don’t know what’s going to happen next? As for getting them to “give back” control, that’s a life long relationship issue. We experience it with people too.

I think that if every dog person recognized how hard our animals work to live in our worlds, we’d have much happier pets. Cookie is lucky to have someone who understands.

Unfortunately, it appears the rabbits and squirrels have more control than you dogs or you mom. They practically run the world.

And those squirrels are so cheeky, aren’t they? I swear they run even closer to the house when they know it will make our dogs crazy. 🙂