Ok maybe it's nothing for most people, but my biggest ones are:

1. Helping Dahlia with her reactivity. She was pretty reactive when I first got her, mainly out of frustration at not being able to greet other dogs. I used the "Look at that" game where seeing the other dog was paired with awesome things from me (treats while she was watching the dog and then a good game of tug after the dog was gone). She's now almost totally non-reactive except in pretty rare cases (e.g. the person who jogs in our neighborhood with his dog who sometimes goes running past us just a few feet away -- it's not often enough that I can really work on it and she sees the dog as a playmate and wants to chase).

2. The other thing was bringing out Dahlia's playful side and increasing her confidence. We're doing agility, all positive training with other fantastic dogs, and all the play and focus and exercises and FUN has really brought out her personality even more.


And I'm also very happy with her CGC title. The other dog in the class who took the test was on a choke chain and trained using force-based methods. He didn't pass.

Jo my young one has learned to rum beside the atv, recall (were getting there lol), shake, sit & down all with positive mainly non adversive methods (adversive being nothing more then a no or a leave it) & progress has been pretty good.

Well done on them all. I picked out this one as I can't possibly imagine a situation where a TDEx dog would have been trained with anyhting other than positive reward.

Interestingly there is a trialsit I bump into who has an excellent collie and she cant work out why the dog wont track (its because she gives the dog a row every time it wont)

Anyway for me, I've now qualified UD with Lady which simply would not have happened with anything other than positive reward

My quickest has been whistle training

At puppy class last week our trainer wanted to introduce a whistle recall. So I bought a whistle and armed with a bag of treats I set to work.

It took 10 mins from getting Ludi to twig what hearing the whistle meant to being able to go into another room and whistle and he was there like a shot At the same time the other 3 dogs also twigged and I can now call all 4 of them with the whistle, 100% all the time amidst distractions/playing with each other etc

Very impressed with them


ETA: it has just taken about 15 mins to teach a down using nothing but the leg tunnel, treats and lots of patience

Well, it hasn't exactly been achieved yet, but we are well on the way. When I got my younger newfie, who is now nearly 3, he was eight weeks old and the breeder told me he didn't like the blaster. I never thought anything about it and it was about 9 months later that I bought one. I got it out of the box and he ran away and hid in the bathroom. That is how scared he was. He did that for the next three or four times I used it on my older dog, then miraculously started to come out into the garden and watch.

He started off in the kitchen doorway, next time moved a little closer and now will sit almost next to us. He gets a piece of liver cake simply for sitting there. He is not afraid of it any more, unless the air points toward him. This is, of course, more a modelling procedure and has taken two years, and I don't know if I will ever be able to use it on him which makes life extremely difficult for me, being such heavy coated dogs. But I am pleased with the result.

Time and patience work wonders

We were on the beach, just about 30 mins ago.... finishing our lovely walk off....

A group of noisy kids, with bikes, plus off lead dogs came barrelling onto the beach....

Dogs were running all over, kids weren't bothered....

Rather than panic, I called my boys to me (they were eyeing up the other dogs), got treats from my pocket, and walked about 600yards with them OFF LEAD at a very close heel, nosing at my hands, whilst completely ignoring the off lead (and very close by) strange dogs....

I put the leads on when we were back on a solid path, other dogs now not interested, calm-ish walk home - RESULT!!