I have a working dog. That's how it is. But that does not automatically mean that I want to train super-typical utility branches, or compete. You who have been following me for a while already know that. Although I don't want to train super-typical utility branches with my dog, it also doesn't mean that I don't want to train at all. Again; I have a service dog, so for his sake I need to do something.
I have long thought that Boyo is slow and sluggish. It's not so strange, because Ella was so extremely quick-thinking and preferred to do a little bit of anything preemptively before I even showed her what I actually wanted her to do. For me who has never been interested in more serious dog training, Boyo is much easier to handle in that way. He also doesn't get as excited as Ella, although he has attention problems instead.
So our first the goal is to achieve that with contact and attention. He can't really concentrate for more than a couple of seconds at a time – and that varies a little from time to time. Some days it goes better, others do considerably less well. I coldly expect that it will get better – with exercise, but above all with the fact that he eventually ceases to be a rough young dog and becomes a bit more adult.
Something we enjoyed us with late Boyo was small, is this about climbing/jumping on stones of various sizes. As a child, he had to climb, and then there weren't such big stones. Now he jumps up on fairly high rocks, actually. But he likes it, and something I succeeded with him – which I never got Ella to understand, was that I wanted him to balance on fallen tree trunks. We have a great fallen tree trunk at the edge of the forest here in the neighborhood, and he has to balance it a little from time to time. In addition, there is a playground a short distance away, a semicircle (typ) with uniform thickness (not very thick) logs of different heights sticking out of the hill. There I managed to get him up and also got him to balance a few steps at different heights. I was incredibly impressed, I must admit – I would never have made Ella understand that.
So a lesson learned for me in this is that my dog is not stupid just because he is not like Ella. He's just different.
But because move forward in this with what my goals are with Boyo's training. For starters, I want him to be less flighty than he is and has been all along. He has difficulty focusing, attention and contact. There is always something happening in some other direction that he just must look at. We also spend a lot of time and energy on the walks, because he's still kind of teenage and not always (usually not) want as I want. But unlike a few months ago, he can occasionally walk very well, so at least it's moving forward – to my great joy and gratitude.
One of the reasons why I bother with the concept of training is that I can spend time and energy training Boyo to walk nicely when I have a candy in my hand – then he follows me closely like a leech. But if we go for a normal walk, the behavior does not follow. There is a difference between a trained following and an everyday following, and it is the everyday following that I am most interested in, and it “exercising” we not in the same way.
Furthermore, I have had thoughts of starting to practice WP (weight pulling) Med Boyo, but in the name of honesty I get a little bit put off, when I see that the equipment required costs quite a lot of money, plus the dog must be X-rayed for it to be ok to do this. I understand the point of both the equipment and the free x-ray – but I'm not at all sure I want to spend that money on equipment. My main reason for wanting to do this is to build muscle on Boyo, but there are other ways to do it that don't cost money.
A behavior I want to get rid of is his more or less incessant barking when we leave Lilo to her mother, or when we meet Boyo's friend Mozart (leonbergerblandningen). It is morbidly disturbing to me and to everyone else with a dog that barks and barks. Not to mention embarrassing. Ella was a significantly more polite dog than Boyo, but she didn't scold like this and she managed to be quiet outside.
I am overall not very interested in teaching my dog party tricks. Ella was not at all interested. My understanding was always that she thought it beneath her dignity to learn pretty paw, roll around, and similar. Someone said at some point that it was rather I who had that opinion, secretly like that – and there may be something in it. 😀
However, there is other things I will teach Boyo, as soon as his brain has snapped back into place and he's actually in as many percentages as possible. For example, I want to teach him to go between my legs, lie down and then crawl forward as I step forward. Only because I think it's fun, and because I think he will like it.
Then I can also imagine doing more of what I would call activation than training. For example, I think a walk can be used to do more than just walk. Dog parkour is, for example, a little bit of fun – and to use things that appear on the walk. Stones, logs, park benches, playgrounds, concrete blocks (those threesomes that I always forget what they're called) and so on.
Something that, however will never happen is that we train obedience or similar for the purpose of competition. I am so incredibly uninterested in showing anyone else how good we are – it kind of doesn't matter to me. The only thing that is interesting to me is that Boyo and I are having fun, that we function and feel good together.
This gives maybe not a super clear idea of what our goals are, me and Boyo – but that's what I can give you. 🙂 If nothing else you have got a little idea of where we are right now, and what I think is important. And anyway, everyday life is the most interesting – and as should be for anyone.