If you have having guests over for Thanksgiving dinner, you will want to take a peek at our Settle In Place lesson which teaches your dog to settle in a comfortable place until he or she is released.   This is a great command that will help keep your dog out from under Grandma or Grandpa’s feet and might keep your dog from licking the kid’s face and plates clean.  You’ll want to start training this command a few weeks in advance with short daily training sessions.  Gobble, Gobble!

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Before the Trick-or-Treaters arrive, give your dog a quick brush-up on his  manners at the door with our Stay at the Door Lesson.  If you have trained this before, but perhaps haven’t been as consistent as you would like to be, it should only take a few short sessions for your dog to be proficient again.  If this is a new lesson for your dog, be sure to train your dog in short sessions every day this week.

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Tonight we got together for dog agility training followed by a French potluck dinner. The training focus was on s’asseoir séjour – which is French for sit stay. Teach your dog to sit and train your dog to stay to help with control in a multitude of situations. 

Agility Training

Ryder sits and stays, waiting for his next command

Today Ryder and I worked on sit-stay. A good sit-stay is important in agility for two purposes – the start line and the table. At the start line, the dog needs to stay in place so the handler can get into a good position to start. At the table, the dog must sit or down-stay for five seconds before continuing. 

Ryder doesn’t do a sit-stay very well. To get him under control on the agility course I need to be consistent with the sit-stay. It refocuses him. After every couple of jumps I tell him to sit-stay and walk away so he knows that he needs to listen no matter where he is on the agility field. If he gets up, I return to him and have him stay before moving on. A successful stay where I release him means he gets to take some agility obstacles. Obstacles are a reward for Ryder – this method will not work with a dog who is not motivated.  

Since this has worked with Ryder in the past, we are working on it again while he gets back into agility after a medical leave of absence. 

French Potluck Dinner

This was a colorful and healthy dinner. When we picked the “French” theme, many of us wondered if you can make a French dish without a lot of butter and cream. Turns out, we found some great dishes. Some of the recipes can be found under “more” below. 

Provencale Potato Gratin – 240 calories, 7.5 g fat from Cooking Light. A new twist on potatoes with cheese. 

Crustless Spinach, Onlion, and Feta Quiche - 142 calories. It disappeared quickly and we didn’t miss the crust. A crustless quiche reduces the calories by more than half! 

Provencal Salad – We loved this salad and everyone had seconds. 

Canberry-Apricot Chicken Cutlets – 213 calories, 2.7 g fat. The most outspoken carnivores in the group had seconds of this colorful dish. The recipe is from the Weight Watchers 15 Minute Cookbook – which is a lie. It took significantly more than 15 minutes to prepare! 

French Vanilla Almond Ice Cream and Chocolate Cake – “Oh my gosh, that’s good!” “That ice cream is perfect with the cake.” Need we say more… 

Next week, join us for Jewish food. But don’t bring gefilte fish.

Try our recipes and let us know what you think by clicking on “more” (more…)

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With a busy weekend of fun activities with our dogs, we decided not to get together for dinner. Here is an update on how our dogs did  on the camping trail and at agility trial!

Maggie will continue training in dog agility

Diane takes Hunter and Maggie to Compete in Agility

Hunter had a 40% success rate. My goal is always 50%. He and I are just not connected right now. I think lack of practice is our problem.

Maggie had one perfect Jumpers run, but in all other runs, she shut down. Still the lack of confidence rears its ugly head. Practice, again, at home and in other locales.

The good news is that my arena is now open for classes and personal practice. Today I included my own training with my dogs in my weekly schedule. If you don’t schedule it, it doesn’t happen.

Brianna and Aaron Take Rankine Camping

With training and practice, our dog will come when called

Although we did not trial this weekend, we had a wonderful time in Estes Park. Rankine was excellent all weekend, he was a pleasure to take camping (ok RVing) because we have invested the upfront training time for reliability off-leash even withstanding the urge to chase after wildlife.

Rankine managed to get pet by several dozen small children, most of whom asked permission before approaching him. Interesting side note, he’s still a little skittish around 3 to 10 year olds. He has grown used to the younger ones and will take an untold amount of abuse. I suppose this will change as our baby gets a little older. We also discovered that our baby knows what the phrase “give Rankine a hug” means. Very cute!

Suzy and Kalee Stay Home

Please follow the rules so we can keep playing!

While I did go on a hike, Kalee stayed home since her old body can’t handle the heat any longer. Instead, we went for a walk around the neighborhood once the sun went down and the temperature dropped.

On both walks, I noticed many people out enjoying the holiday with their dogs. Unfortunately, some were breaking leash laws – consequently scaring off the wildlife in the state park – and failing to pick up after their pets – making the walk a bit hazardous. While out enjoying your dog in public spaces, please remember to keep your dog on leash and pick up so that we may keep the privilege of taking our dogs along on hikes, camping, and to the local parks. At parks where off-leash dogs are allowed, make sure your dog has a really reliable recall – like Rankine above – before unclipping that leash.

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We have everything from tricks, to agility, to manners. View a complete list of dog training lessons or choose a dog training class set of video lessons organized by sport. We have…

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