We have a new helper at the Club, Matthew who has been helping me on a Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Matthew has trained his Springer Spaniel up through the club since a puppy so has really good experience and knowledge of how we do things at the club and is a great clicker trainer, he also has a great natural ability and understanding of dogs and good empathy with people. Matthew took Teal his own dog through his Kennel Club Good Citizen Bronze, Silver and Gold before he was 12 months old with us, has experience in gundog training and is now doing agility. Matthew has been looking at some courses to help with his development.Jayne has started her Dogwise course with COAPE and is really enjoying it, she has access to the Waggawuffins library of over 200 dog books which is proving quite useful.
I’m halfway through reading Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor which I would highly recommend to anyone. I’m trying to get it finished before I get my reading list next week when I start back a college for my final year.
Next weekend we have a staff training day on Saturday afternoon where we will be covering training equipment, operant and classical conditioning, learning styles, understanding stress and practical instructing.
This weekend is packed with dog stuff, The Kennel Club contacted Stewart the other week to supply some dogs for the Good Citizen Scheme Assessors workshop on Saturday in Atherton, so we are all off up there Saturday afternoon with dogs after morning classes. Sunday it’s a Clicker Sunday with Lynda and then our first bronze good citizen tests at Waggawuffins on Sunday evening.
I also have to get some dogs together for a photo shoot for a large pet company’s advertising, this is still in negotiations though at the moment.
We have set up a youtube channel where we have already uploaded some videos, there will be more to follow. http://www.youtube.com/user/WaggaWuffins
As a member of the APDT I received some free samples of James Wellbeloved and money off vouchers for my customers. Four boxes arrived this week, WOW there are small sacks of food, training treat bags, carrier bags and treats!! This alone is worth my membership costs. I have also ordered some clickers as I’m running out.
We started a new agility course and again have some really nice dogs, Sarah and Samson who came to our puppy classes joined to have a go at agility, Sarah is competing in Bury’s Got Talent on Saturday with Samson, we are sure she will do well and are wishing her the best of luck.
That’s all for now!
I just finished the Pryor book you recommended. It was very interesting and useful too. I particularly liked the bit in the book where the crab that was taught to ring a bell!
ReplyDeleteI didn't quite understand with clicker training that you had to be totally positive or neutral all the time. Xanthe must be able to sense when I was getting fed up and frustrated through my body language, though I never verbalised it. And Stuart picked me up on poor body language today - poor Xanthe.
But I'm really pleased with the way Xanthe's turning out.Thank you Jane! Thank you Stuart! Thank you Matt!