September 16: The week in review

By Liz on September 16, 2018

It was a lazy week – see above!

Actually a good week, although not a productive work week due to some domestic items … nothing bad just some things needing doing.

But as always, walks happen and the weather is gorgeous: cool, sunny, blustery Fall weather!

Emmett decided to move his kitchen bed to the office/sunroom, right behind my chair…

Lots of company while I was working, which I love! ***He moved the bed himself!!!

New things this week: a new leash which is thick and soft and I love it. So does Emmett – he took himself for a walk, he loved it so much :)

An orange long line as we begin proofing our recall with distractions. The distractions are deer, Auggie, squirrels and ??? Recall is perfect in the house and in the yard with no distractions so this is the next step.

Emmett is not fooled. He has more freedom on the long line than on leash, but he feels the weight and the one time he started after deer, I slowly applied pressure on the line as I called him. After that, he didn’t venture off the trail. But, this will take time and my plan is that it becomes habit on the long line, then I will use a lighter line which I’ll gradually shorten. I expect it will be Spring before the combination of his maturity and training is fully reliable in the face of wildlife or other very exciting distractions.

BUT, I am very pleased that he does not pull against the line or the leash. Occasionally he will lunge, but then stops. I have the long line as well as any leash attached to a harness so no neck stress. Trainers have differing opinions regarding using a harness. I am going with harness.

Emmett walks nicely on leash with the harness. In new places, he pulls against it, but I just stop. When he returns to me, on we go. We don’t walk when he is at the end of the leash and pulling – pulling gets him nowhere.

I do not do the change of direction thing. We have started some basic “walk to heel” but not at remote (EXCITING) locations. Walk to heel requires his focus on me and a specific position. We do that in the yard but it is too much for exciting places at the moment and right now, the exciting spots are for exploring with the only limits being not pulling and responding to attention noises from me.

Another benefit of working with a trainer and watching other trainers on YouTube is seeing and hearing that all takes time and every dog is unique, so I am working with where Emmett is: his maturity, attention span, experience as well as my own learning experience.

The orange line is very silky and does not get hung up on branches, rocks, grasses – YEA! It is also easy to see. So far, so good!

Auggie gets in on the action, also!

The vegetables took a decided turn to Fall: pie pumpkins! Delicata squash joined tomatoes and lemon cucumber plus cucumber slicers to make an Autumn vegetable “bouquet bowl”…