Rock Solid Dog Training

08/17/2025

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Reader's Digest (a small form magazine with a lot of stories and no actual photos in it) was very popular amongst the people of my dad's generation. I will not kid you, I didn't read them except for a section called Laughter is the Best Medicine. It was very short humorous stories which weren't really funny as much as they made you smile. They were kind of the dad jokes of the day.

As I was watching Kara outside today I found myself smiling similarly and realized just how much entertainment and laughter our dogs provide each day.

When Kara goes out she has a patrol route that she takes. There is a medium sized pine tree to the left side of the garage that she frequents. She is small enough to get under it and she seems to chat with whatever else is living under there. I think there are bunnies as well as squirrels that frequent that space. Earlier in the year a family of birds also lived there which she would spend as much time as allowed mentally communicating with.

It is quite cute in that she goes under there and when she starts the communication process her (longer) stubby tail starts to wag and move the branches. When the allotted time is up chatting up those bunnies she sprints to the other side of the yard and a much larger pine tree. Here I think she is talking to someone at the neighbors or those bunnies that live more toward the front yard. Much the same you see the little wag and her excitement.

The second tree is also her private sheltered bathroom. She has figured out that she can live large with a private bathroom and be out of the elements if she goes under there. Pretty sure it will be featured on Cribs one day if she ever becomes famous. She is by no means dumb.

Then there's Thor. The humor with Thor is in his oafness (not sure that is even a word). He is a bit clumsy and awkward but is also the sweetest dog we have ever had. He will walk across the arm of the couch and my chair onto me when I'm laying in the recliner. He will then sit on the arm of it facing me and then just fall over on his side on me. This isn't optimal as he is 40ish pounds landing on you with a shoulder drop. But he will then just snuggle into you and want to be petted and held.

Thor's other laughable trait is when the oaf is trying to be sneaky. He sleeps on the end of the bed at night. He will start on Amy's feet until lights out and then will tip-toe over to my side of the bed and try to lay down next to me. Then the oafness comes into play and he flops on my feet instead of next to them. He is then surprised and offended when I move him over off my feet, he will huff and stay there until he feels me relax and then once again lay on my feet. It is a battle we have each night with each of us winning about 50% of the time.

Taylor's laughable trait is her sneakiness. She is stealth and will get locked into rooms because she silently sneaks in behind you. You feel like you live with a ghost with her around. The other night I put something in the oven and I felt a presence with me. I turned around there was no one there. But I did hear footsteps. This time I just turned my head quickly and there she was standing and looking at me like "hi, what's up?". It is both creepy and funny all at once because you legit never see her move.

Penny has taken to helping me with my stretching in the morning when I am getting dressed. I will lay on my side and she will come and lay across my neck until I am done stretching that leg and then I will tell her I need to switch (which is kind of dumb since she is deaf) and she gets up and waits. I flip to the other side and she will come over and do it again until I am done. She then turns around and guards my back while I get dressed.

Taylor and Thor have tried to assist with the stretches also but Penny will come in and push them out of the way as this is "her job". Where is Kara you may ask, well she is looking out the front window in the living room looking for her bunny friends. Kara has little concern over my stretched legs for some reason.

When Abby was here she had figured out how to release the hydraulics on my office chair. So two or three times a day when I was working from home she would come by and hit the paddle and the chair would sink to the ground. I swear I heard her snicker as she trotted away.

Murphy was the fun police. If the girls were having fun with a ball or squeaky toy, he would confiscate it and take it behind the chair where his lair was. It reminded me of Sheldon from Big Bang Theory who told his friends they were having fun wrong. I think Murphy just wanted to be included but too socially awkward to just go and play at least until later in life when Taylor lightened him up.

Jessie aka "the brown dog" would torment Thor when he came to live with us. He would pick at her and she would chase him into his lair and then not let him out. She would paw him in the face every time he tried to get out and send him back in there. Eventually we would hear the cries from downstairs and would have to make her let him go and it would all start again.

Charles was a more serious dog and there was no silliness to him, however his love of Amy brought humorous moments. He would suck up to me until Amy got home and you would hear "later loser" as he bolted away. It wasn't until late in life when I started shooting things for him that he wanted to do things with me.

Our dogs provide a lot of entertainment if we let them. What do your dogs do to entertain you and make you laugh?

-Dave
[Today's photo is of the Brown Dog]

08/16/2025

New Content coming tomorrow!

07/27/2025

Special Rules

Special rules are generally unfair. They generally favor someone in an unfair manner and in general I am against them.

I keep to these rules at work, when I have run clubs or taught classes. People get treated fairly and generally equally. Some earn extra privileges and other lose privileges just depending on what they do with them when they get them.

I had a lot of special rules as a kid. Because I lived alone for a good portion of the time from ages 16 to 18, I was able to take myself out of classes at school, write checks out of my dad's checkbook and even play bar gigs in a band at all hours of the night.

There were people that weren't cool with it but the people that counted were on board and I lived to tell about it. The thing was, I earned the trust that I was given. I was an adult at 16 with a lot of responsibilities so I got some special rules. This would not apply to today as it would never be permitted and I would have ended up in foster care somewhere.

Most of my special rules have been reserved for our old dogs. Today that is Penny. At 14 she has a lot of privilege that the other dogs don't, but she also has some special rules.

The latest of these rules is the afternoon nap rule. If she climbs up on me in the afternoon and goes to sleep, we stay there until she is ready to move again. At first this was a difficult rule to follow because I was in a hurry to go and do things, then I realized that this is likely a short term rule and that I should relax and enjoy it because you never know when it will end. Now these nap times are the happiest time of the weekend just being in each others presence and enjoying the afternoon.

Sam and Jessie had different rules. Jessie forced me into the van for a trip to the farm everyday there wasn't snow on the ground. She wanted to get out and run around. In general she would annoy you a lot by not listening, which she seemed to really enjoy, but it gave her joy in her old age.

Sam was sort of the same. She had days where she really felt crappy and you could see that. She did however still enjoy going in the car for a ride, taking a short jaunt around the farm yard and then hopping back in her kennel to watch the other dogs go and run. Other days she would be fully engaged and out chasing birds. If we had birds or the shotguns on the 4-wheeler she was all in no matter how crappy she felt.

I have written about Abby's special rules often, about being carried up the stairs when "she wanted to" as opposed to us just trying to help her out. We let her do as much as she wanted and let her decide when/if she wanted assistance. Having her ask for it was more special than you could ever understand. She was so independent and would get so grumpy when you questions her independence that you gave her a lot of space to figure things out.

Murphy only had one special rule, that was he could look out the window in my office all he wanted as long as he didn't bark. I was working from home quite a bit towards his later years and he would come in and sit in "his" office chair behind me. I would be on conference calls and needed quiet. He knew if he growled or barked he would be asked to leave by the bouncer. If figured it out really well, to the point if one of the other dogs was with him and started to make noise he would leave the room because he didn't want to be implicated.

I think we all have somewhat special rules for our dogs. Most of them have been earned and some of them are to make ourselves feel better.

Earlier this week I was talking to a friend about their dog and them having to watch them grow older. I told them about the new Penny rule and the way it made both Penny and I happy. They didn't think that was a bad idea at all.

Spend some time today in the quiet with your dogs and see how you feel. It will fill you up and recharge you (and you may get a good nap in also). The world really isn't that busy to miss those moments.

-Dave

[Today's photo is of Penny, asleep of course, watching Adam Savage (Mythbusters) and Martina and Hansi from Nerdforge!]

07/26/2025

New content tomorrow!

07/23/2025

https://www.facebook.com/reel/926652966755202

07/06/2025

The Chair

What is "the chair"? Great question. The chair is the spot the leader sits. Think about Star Trek, Kirk, Picard or Janeway all occupied the chair. The chair is where someone looks when there is a crisis or when a decision had to be made.

What is interesting about "the chair" is how much more difficult decisions become because they are your decisions and no one else's. Others contribute information to those decisions but in the end the responsibility for them is yours and yours alone.

Along the way in my career I have had others that found it very easy to criticize decisions without understanding the full breath of what needed to be considered. There was a lot of pushback from them regarding every aspect and nit pick they could find. Unfortunately when you are sitting in the chair you can't always share all the information with everyone. There are things that need to be held in confidence and other things that affect people which is something you never want to let out into the world.

I do remember the feeling of not understanding why things were done a certain way. It wasn't until years later I would come to understand the things that I didn't understand at the time. I always had a good relationship with that boss and we generally discussed everything. He was an excellent mentor in exposing me to many things that I would eventually face in my own leadership positions. There were still things I didn't quite understand but I also understood that sometimes you have to go with your gut and make the best of things. He had a great deal of experience and frankly at the time, I didn't. I would come to realize this later in life. (Okay, I realized I was at my smartest when I was 23 years old, I knew everything and had no doubt in my mind about it. Over the years as I have been given more information I have gotten dumber.)

In those days there were a lot of decisions made that were the least of the crappy decisions because that is what we had. We were going through a bankruptcy and they were trying to salvage the good parts of the company and keep as many people as possible. There were limited resources and much executive time spent in meetings. It was icky.

The thing about the chair is that everyone who has a pet is in that chair. You have to make difficult decisions for them often. Sometimes, you get it wrong. They have to be able to trust you in order for you to be successful. They have to trust in your decisions even when they seem bad.

They trust you to feed them and take care of their needs. You will take them to the vet (even if they don't like it) to keep them healthy and you will prioritize them and their care. In turn they will be loyal to you (unless there are snacks or someone is going hunting) in their half of the deal.

Sounds like what a good boss will do for you, doesn't it?

The boss that let me go told me as he was firing me that the thing that he respected is how much I cared about my people but that was my downfall because I could not truly commit myself to the leadership team if I felt that way.

It was something that I was actually fine with. Some of the things he asked me to do were fully against my values and I simply had no interest in participating. My team worked very hard with very few resources to keep things running. I spent a lot of my time filtering through things that we needed to do and stuff that would ultimately hurt the company because my boss lacked understanding on how they worked.

My people went to work for someone else and I was hired back as a consultant working on an ERP conversion. Most of my people were gone within 6 months, many terminated and a couple leaving on their own. It was ugly.

This also applies to dogs. One thing that always has baffled me is how willing people are to blindly do what a trainer tells them to do. There are things that they just disagree with yet if told to do it, they just do it. Your one job is to protect your dogs in those situations.

I had this happen to me with Penny. We were in a level 3 obedience class and Penny was doing really well on everything. About 6 weeks in the instructor said that we were going to do "out of sight sits and downs". This used to be a thing for AKC shows but many of these dogs were still only 8 or 9 months old.

We were told to sit our dogs and leave the room. We all did so dutifully. We could peek around the corner at them and as I looked 6 of the 8 dogs were up and running around the room. Penny was one of the last two sitting until a young golden retriever ran up and asked her to play. She obliged and proceeded to have the time of her life without adult supervision. It took three months to fix her stays.

In my head I knew this was a stupid thing to do but I did it anyway. It was the last thing that I ever let that happen with my dogs to the point of pulling dog out of competition if I was concerned about something happening.

Our job is to understand that for our dogs we are in the chair at all times. It is our responsibility to keep them safe and stay one step ahead. There are times that things happen that are out of our control, but those are the times when you hope all the training you have put in will get them through it.

-Dave

[Today's photo is of Penny, of course!]

06/27/2025

One of my favorite columns. It is in the details.

The Last Five

There is an old expression that "the devil is in the detail". Basically it means that it isn't the big stuff that will burn you but the small details that you find insignificant that will catch up with you.

In my recent travels with Penny I have found this to be true but it has been true a lot in the past as well.

Penny in obedience is not a high scoring dog. She averaged 194 out of 200 as she finished her UD title. That sounds a lot like a high scoring dog but it isn't. She had a 196 and a 195 in there along with a couple lower scores. Again those are good scores but not great scores.

Great teams are consistently at 197 and above. Most of the points that they lose are things that normal people wouldn't even notice. It is a crooked sit or being slightly far away healing or not being close enough when they turn with their handler. They are literally fractions of a point that knock you out of the high score game. Those fractions are in those details.

The question put to me by a co-worker was "could Penny get those high scores?"

The answer is no.

As a team we are not good enough to get there. We are not good enough because of lack of effort on our part or maybe better put, a lack of desire on our part.

In order to get that last five points consistently it requires an enormous amount of work and dedication. Each week I watch people I train with try to achieve that level of perfection and each week it reminds me why that isn't for me or for Penny.

I watch my friends drill over and over while working on the very slightest movements to ensure they are perfect. This requires a lot of drive and dedication, neither of which I have and neither of which Penny is interested in.

When I golfed I got to be a pretty decent golfer. I was down to a 12 handicap with my lowest being a 9 handicap. This generally means that I would par about half the holes on the course and I would beat most of the people I played with. It is just barely a step above a "hack".

In those days I golfed a lot. Played in a league, played on weekend mornings etc. It was fun that is until I hit the wall. The wall was where my physical talent ran out and practice would need to start. The practice would be on the details of the game not just hitting the ball a long way.

There is a huge difference between playing and practice. I hated the repetitive nature of practice. After hitting 5 balls 300+ yards it was boring hitting the rest of the bucket with the various other clubs. Putting was even more boring and annoying because there were always a ton of people on the practice greens acting like they were playing in the Master's Tournament final round.

To get better I would have to work hard and as this was just a hobby I was just not interested in it that much.

In some of the places I have worked I have also seen this. In fact one place stated that as long as we got a system 70% of the way there, they would call it a success and move on to the next thing. We probably should have put " Close Enough is Good Enough" on our business cards.

Needless to say their systems were a mess because they never managed the details they let the details manage them. Countless helpdesk tickets, data corrections and so many other messes went along with being only 70% of the way done. But they seemed happy so who is to judge?

I was at a clients house last week and the were talking about my dogs and how well behaved my dogs must be.

Ummm. No.

My dogs are trained to the point where we are happy with them. They are fully trained for the obedience ring and agility as well as several other sports but they are not necessarily the best mannered dogs you have ever seen. Taylor barks, Penny gets way over excited and has been known to give special hugs, Murphy disappears and Abby, well Abby is perfect.

We have put time into the details that are important to us. They are nice dogs, they aren't rude, they understand to play nice with people and in general they are just fun to be around. That is our standard. Pretty simple.

Really when you look at it the details that get you over the top are really more indicators of what your standards are.

My standard for Obedience is to have a good working dog that will qualify and score well. They will represent themselves in a good manner and show that Brittanys are capable of some pretty cool things.

For golf my standard was "as good as I could get without practicing". However that standard was not high enough and the reward to go through the details not great enough to warrant the time spent trying to achieve something better.

In business standards are set by the business. In some cases those standards are too low and just cause you grief because you have to support them. In other cases those standards may be too high for the budget that the business wants to adhere to. Neither is a good situation and both could be a resume' generating event in the end.

Finally your dogs. First and foremost you have to be happy with your dogs. You live with them each day and the standard you set for them is what you have to adhere to. You have to be prepared for the details that go along with those standards and the activities that go with them. None are super difficult but they are about being consistent and being ready to put in the work to make them happen.

If you aren't getting to the place you want to be, check the details. You may be surprised at what you missed and how easily you may get to your goal once you start working on them.

-Dave

[Today's photo is of Taylor chasing bags (lure coursing)]

06/22/2025

What Constitutes a Good Dog?

I have been using AI quite a bit for work related stuff. It is impressive for the things I use it for. Apparently I use AI like an old person. I ask it questions about syntax of programming type statements, I will check factual accuracy of something which is probably 70% accurate in AI in most cases. I will put lines of programming code into it that have errors and it will tell me where the error is. When I am looking at someone else's code and it is not apparent what the code does (some people write really convoluted code) it will tell me what it does and sometimes how it could be used.

I see stories about others using AI to write business letters, touch up their resume's and all kinds of other stuff. I have not delved into any of that stuff but there are a lot of possibilities.

In general, AI has become useful and I find myself using it quite a bit for more and more things each day.

So this week I asked AI to tell me what constituted a "good dog". I did this mainly because we always tell Thor that he is a good boy and I wanted to make sure that was accurate. I am interested to hear what you have to say about what constitutes a good dog in your life and how does it compare to what is written below.

What Constitutes a Good Dog
A “good dog” is a phrase that stirs warm feelings in dog lovers everywhere, yet what makes a dog “good” can vary depending on who’s asked. For some, it’s a loyal protector; for others, it’s a calm presence beside the couch. While dog behavior can be shaped by training and environment, the essence of a good dog typically includes traits such as loyalty, trainability, temperament, and compatibility with a human lifestyle.

Loyalty and Companionship
At the heart of any good dog is loyalty. Dogs have been companions to humans for thousands of years, and one of the defining characteristics of their goodness is their unwavering devotion. Whether it’s a Labrador retriever who never leaves your side or a rescue mutt who greets you like royalty each time you walk through the door, a good dog builds a bond that feels more like friendship than ownership.

Temperament and Behavior
A good dog generally possesses a gentle and predictable temperament. This doesn’t mean a dog must be calm at all times, but rather that it reacts to situations in a stable and appropriate way. A good dog doesn’t bite without provocation, doesn’t bark excessively, and isn’t aggressive toward people or other animals. Instead, it is alert, affectionate, and confident, yet also capable of calming down when needed.

Trainability and Obedience
Another key trait of a good dog is trainability. Dogs don’t need to perform circus tricks to be “good,” but they should understand basic commands like “sit,” “stay,” “come,” and “leave it.” A trainable dog shows a willingness to listen and adapt, making them easier to integrate into family life and public spaces. This trait is not solely based on intelligence, but also on temperament and a dog’s desire to please.

Compatibility with Lifestyle
A good dog is one that fits well into its owner’s lifestyle. A herding dog may be considered “bad” in a small apartment but “good” on a farm where it can work. A low-energy lapdog may be perfect for an elderly person but frustratingly sedentary for a marathon runner. Thus, a good dog isn’t necessarily the most obedient or the friendliest—it’s the one that meshes with its human’s needs and routines.

Health and Care
Physical and emotional health also play a role in what makes a dog good. A well-cared-for dog with access to proper nutrition, exercise, and medical attention is more likely to thrive and show positive behavior. Sometimes, dogs with medical or behavioral issues are labeled as “bad” when they’re simply misunderstood or under-supported. In this sense, a good dog is often a reflection of a good owner.

Conclusion
In the end, a good dog is not defined by breed or pedigree but by a combination of loyalty, temperament, trainability, and fit with its environment. A dog doesn’t have to be perfect to be good—it simply has to be loving, manageable, and a positive presence in the lives of those around it. Like people, dogs come in many shapes, sizes, and personalities, and finding what makes a dog “good” is as much about understanding and patience as it is about training or genetics. The best dogs are the ones who, in their own way, make our lives better just by being part of them.

-Dave
[Photo today is of Thor, of course]

06/15/2025

So Many Choices

Choices are everywhere in our lives. The last couple of weeks I made the choice not to write. It is sort of that time of year when stuff is going on and weeks seem longer than usual. By the time I normally would sit down to write for the weekend there just wasn't enough of me left to do that, so, things may be a bit more sporadic here for the summer.

This week a lot of my discussions have revolved around choices. It is a topic I have written about multiple times mainly because it is a favorite and it really impacts our everyday lives. Just watching the news these days you see a lot of poor choices being made with the people making them saying they had no choice but to behave in that way. So that choice isn't on them.

Hate to tell you, but, yeah it is completely on you. There may have been circumstances that influenced their choices but in the end, they could have done something different and likely attained a different result.

After we went through a bankruptcy many years ago where I worked, my boss talked about the choices we would now get to make. In bankruptcy you basically only spend what you absolutely need to and you need seven levels of approval to do it. As my boss said, you make the best choice out of multiple really crappy choices. On the other side of bankruptcy with a new owner in place, you are able to make the best choice out of far better choices and choice becomes easier.

Choice has everything to do with pretty much everything in life. What you choose to eat affects your health and your weight. How you drive to work every morning affects how safely you will arrive each day. Where you work affects your mental health and the choice to leave a bad job is one that very few people take lightly.

There are very few things that choice doesn't affect. Health in a lot of ways, not all cancer is caused by something else (lung cancer and smoking go together but things like leukemia seem to just hit folks). The only choices you have here is how you deal with it when you are diagnosed.

I guess in a lot of ways the choice in your life is all about choosing to deal with something in a positive way or choosing to send yourself down into a deep hole of depression. Well, many times depression really isn't a choice but a result of your brain doing things you can't control. The only choice in it is staying out of those thought processes in the first place which isn't always easy.

What I have generally found is staying ahead of choices has been a helpful way of dealing with them.

When Abby was diagnosed with larpar the road forward was really pretty simple, have the tieback surgery and she would be healthier again. It wasn't perfect but it really made a huge difference in her situation.

I remember talking to my boss at the time about it. He asked how old she was. "13". Then he said something I will never forget, "why would you ever waste money on a surgery for a 13 year old dog?"

The choice at the time was either punching him in the face, which in hindsight I didn't lend enough weight to, or just stay away from this rotten human being. I did choose option B but never forgot that moment and never trusted him again.

We had an idea what was going on with Abby so we were prepared to make the choices that needed to be made for her well-being. I regret none of it as she lived another four years, and they were four good quality years. The only thing I regret is running a bunch of extra tests on her that stressed her out and didn't really affect our decision. We had a vet that convinced us to do those things. However knowing that the surgery was her only chance, there was absolutely zero chance the results would have changed our mind.

Dogs also have choices and sometimes they choose wisely and sometimes not so much. Kara has had struggles since she was young actually listening to being called into the house after going outside. She really enjoys being out in the yard talking to the bunnies and squirrels. She is very silent outside, never barks at anything out there (in the house barking at ghosts, a different story) and is very respectful of her Invisible Fence. However about two weeks ago her choice to blow me off finally struck a nerve.

I went out and got her and we practices some short distance "come when called" exercises. One time, about three minutes worth and her choices changed going forward. To be fair, I try to give her a little extra time outside to check all her spots. I will catch her checking in and will call her then. She will turn away, take one more look and race into the house. She has updated her choice matrix to prioritize being called over wandering the yard aimlessly when people are calling her.

Murphy and I had similar discussions when he was about the same age. I got tired of chasing him at top speed on the four-wheeler at the farm. It was dangerous for both of us and it was time to come to an understanding. Murphy had a white stripe down his nose so you could see when he turned to look at you from quite a distance. When we started you never saw the white streak and hardly ever saw him.

We started working on a long line with an electronic collar. I would call or whistle and give a tug on the line. If he responded I would tell him "good boy, good look" if he didn't he would get pulled all the way back in and made to sit next to me. A couple days in he started to check in by looking back at me and which direction I was going so he could keep moving. After a few days I involved the collar and when he ran too long without checking in (looking back) where would be a little correction until he did. Pretty soon he was able to get out 50 yards (our agreed upon limit for him) and he would pattern back and forth, checking in often enough to know if I was still moving in his direction. Oh yeah, I would sometimes randomly change direction to make sure he was paying attention and yes there was a correction if he didn't notice. Murphy started making better choices everyday and hanging out with him became much more pleasant. It very much changed our relationship and we did a lot together afterwards but that was not a real fun time.

Everyone makes choices. Sometimes it is making the best of the crappy choices but often times it is things we can anticipate and prepare for but the bottom line is that those choices are ours and if we wish to grow we need to own them. Blaming others for them is really silly. You have to deal with the consequences so just learn from them and move on. Change your choice matrix like Kara did!

-Dave

[Today's photo is of Abby right after her surgery. Her choice was for you to stay out of her way, she was busy.]