Short and Sweet

I'm trying to keep everything more short and sweet with the J man. It is important to just have fun and be successful. I have been overestimating his ability to focus for any given length of time and I am now taking a few steps back. If I get frustrated it is just hurting the special relationship I have with him. This morning we went for a short walk, all on leash. Later today we played a short fetch session and did some tugging. He kept very good focus for the tugging and fetching. I think I'm going to try to switch his rewards over to a more tug approach vs food after reading Susan Garrett's blog post yesterday. I didn't realize how helpful having a strong tug drive could be. I'm also allowing him to do his smelling on lead and rewarding him for turning to me when I say his name. Lately he has been losing the rapid response that I've always relied on when saying his name or "here".

My Clean Run order came today! I got a rabbit fur tug and two Susan Garrett books. One is titled Shaping Success, and the other is, Ruff Love. I will let you know how they are once I get to them. I'm particularly excited about Ruff Love, because I can see it being something Jasper may need in the coming months. I'm just about finished with the If a Dog's Prayers Were Answered, Bones Would Rain from the Sky. I highly recommend it, as it really makes you examine how you interact with your dog. It is actually my second time reading it, but the last time was around two and half years ago.