A few weeks ago, I realized I had lost control of my walks, Lenore was running amok, rushing off into the woods, left and right, chasing after every smell and foul thing. She is just a Lab, I kept saying, as I started yelling at her and turning our walks into something that was tense and uncomfortable.
I have a contract with my dogs, I give them a lot and expect a lot, a dog should walk with the person, not freelance. It is best done together, it is a dignity issue for me, and I take responsibility for my laziness and distraction. I was screwing up. Every day, I have worked with Lenore, this week, Maria and I are working together with her. Maria does not like training dogs, too many authority issues for her and she gets tense, afraid she will mess them up.
She is actually quite good at it. Today, a breakthrough, each of us walked with Lenore off-leash for awhile, keeping Lenore on our right side, keeping her walking alongside of us, and stopping her from running off the road to either side, eating things that are not good for her. Yes, she is a Lab, but Labs are among the most trainable dogs in the world, they make wonderful Seeing Eye and Therapy Dogs, they will do almost anything to please us if we take the time and have the patience to show them.
“She’s just a Lab,” is the excuse of the fuzzy-headed and weak-minded. Labs are bred to be with humans, and be calm and still. When they are not, it is invariably because we have messed them up.
When we walked with Lenore, we hold our left arms out when she starts to veer off course, and we reinforce her constantly for being in the right spot, sometimes with food, mostly with praise. After 10 or 15 minutes, we “free” her and let her run around a bit, if she gets more than 15 feet away, we call her back, if she gets too drifty, we leach her up. She only has the chance to succeed and be praised, not to mess up and get punished.
The problem is almost always the human, any trainer knows that, self-awareness is a key to training a dog well. We will keep at it, we are a month or so away. The trainer was right when she told me that in order to have a great dog, I had to become a better human. I’ve had a lot of great dogs, and each one has made me a better human. We are getting there, a very good day today.