January 12, 2025 (Sunday) - Class @ Holly Ridge

Mila has a low threshold for certain environmental stimuli…sadly, barking dogs is one of those and this class featured The Hound of the Baskervilles (the only thing missing was Holmes skulking about in his trench coat and deerstalker)…seriously though, I was so lucky to have this happen in class (although you can imagine I didn’t necessarily feel that in the moment 😂). If I hadn’t had Judi there this likely would not have turned into such a good training session with Mila!

This will show many great lessons that you can glean (my pain will be your gain😁)…Judi will likely comment on the good stuff (you’ll hear her remind me about loopy training and you can see in Mila when my timing is better vs too late). I’ll mention a few other things too:

Notice that when Judi steps closer, I generally start making better decisions. And yes, it’s in part because she’s talking me through it m, but also, though you may not be able to tell in the video, I feel a little more confident with her there and reinforced to continue (hmm, wonder why they sometimes want us closer to our dogs😁). I wish I had walked up the line sooner. Instead you see I had to make the choice to step up when she wasn’t tracking. In that moment though I felt like it was the lesser of two evils.

You’ll see my handling behaviors degrade under the pressure of the situation and you can tell from Mila’s behavior when I’m handling better vs worse. Notice when Judi reminds me about steering and a few seconds later I step behind Mila and she returns to track.

Thanks so much to Judi for getting me through that and the classmates being patient too! Mila is appreciative too 😁.