I really wanted a performance dog. I had been a pet trainer for ages, but I wanted to do more. Visions of agility, freestyle, Rally-O, and other sports filled my dreams. I read enviously of the accomplishments of the other clicker trained dogs on ClickerSolutions and other lists. My Newf, Rain, had been my first performance prospect, but chronic neck and back problems nixed that plan. So all my dreams rested on the shoulders of Pax, a nine-week-old curly coated retriever I brought home in December 2001. He had an impressive pedigree -- both of his parents were titled in conformation, agility, obedience, and hunt tests. I was floating on air with the possibilities.

There was just one problem for Pax: I was bigger on dreams than follow-through. I enjoyed the planning, but the day-to-day reality of training was too small-picture for me. Getting new behaviors was fun, but making them fluent was tedious. We had several off-and-on starts, but each was the same: I started off gung ho, and then ran out of steam within a few weeks -- if not a few days!

Shortly before Pax's second birthday, I attended a couple of shows and got newly motivated. It was time to start training Pax, this time for real. He was old enough, physically and mentally, to do most anything I wanted to ask of him. To help keep myself motivated, I decided to give myself some accountability -- you! So I'm putting the details online for everyone to follow. In this blog -- "Web log" or online diary -- you can read the details of Pax's journey from goofy adolescent to fluent performance dog. Each entry is dated, so you'll know exactly when everything happened.

--Melissa Alexander

• October, 2003 -- Week One
• October, 2003 -- Week Two
• October, 2003 -- Weeks Three and Four
• November, 2003

 

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List and Site Owner: Melissa Alexander, mca @ clickersolutions.com