New Book by Karen Pryor

Did you see Karen Pryor on Good Morning America this morning? It's so great to see clicker training going a little more mainstream. I thought it was too bad the commentators didn't do a little more research before her visit, but I thought Karen handled their lack of knowledge as well as she could. And it was brave of her to take on an energetic puppy with little advance work.

The occasion for her appearance is the launch of her new book: Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals although they didn't mention it. Word has it she's been working on it for 3 years. It's available now and you can get a copy at Amazon or from Karen's website ClickerTraining.com where you'll find all sorts of other clicker related products and information. If you haven't visited her site recently, you should check out all the new information she has up now.

Be sure to get one before they sell out!

High Drive Dogs

Clicker Training and high drive dogs are a great combination. We want dogs that offer behavior and have the desire to work with us. It's so much more fun but it can also be very challenging. Along with high drive often comes no impulse control.

The crate games in my last post are terrific for developing impulse control. As well as the old standby, Doggie Zen. (See my post in May, 2006 http://payperclickfordogs.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html)

Here's a cool video that shows how to take Doggie Zen to a higher level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GmMQxAyPl4

It's produced by the extraordinary trainers from Norway, Morten Egtvedt and Cecilie Koeste. They've written a book a highly recommend called Clickertraining: The 4 Secrets Of Becoming A Supertrainer.

You can get a copy by Clicking Here!

Enjoy YOUR high drive dog and remember: Pay per Click!

Training Loving the Crate

I've recently been training Kara to love her crate after watching a fabulous DVD called Crate Games by Susan Garrett. She is mostly known for her expertise in agility and her positive training methods. Her Crate Games are fantastic and a very effective way to teach your dog to love her crate.

The basic idea is to make the crate the most rewarding place ever. Susan shows you how to make it so reinforcing that often it's hard to get them out of it! I experienced that with Kara. She caught on to the game very quickly and learned that staying in was better than coming out!

Here's a short video of her going in from a short distance on a quick cue. We'd done a lot of the foundation work and I thought I'd try and see what would happen if I sent her in and called her out from a distance.

The skills learned in these games are very useful in a lot of situations. First of all they become comfortable in their crate when you go places like shows and the skills can be transferred to things like waiting at doors.

If you'd like to get the DVD for yourself, I highly recommend it. It's available at Clean Run.

I’m Back!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted to this blog! Life does have a way of getting complicated, but I’ve promised myself to post more this year. And I have reason to!

I have a new amazing puppy, Random Wind Kara Vica at Toflaki. Kara was born on February 6, 2008 and came to live with me and Mr. Flaki in April. She has her own webpage at: http://www.luiniunlimited.com/KaraVica.html

and some videos up on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/toflaki.

She has been a joy to train – all clicker of course. We go out to A Click Above in Leesburg, VA for classes. In my opinion, it’s the best in the area so well worth the close to 2 hours it takes us to get there in rush hour!

So far she’s done 2 Puppy Kindergarten classes and the Basic class. Her accolades include first place in Musical Sits, second place in Musical Downs and a perfect score in her Basic class graduation test! She’s off to a great start.

In addition to all that, she took and passed the new AKC S.T.A.R. Puppy test. If you don’t know about it, you should take a look at the program at: http://www.akc.org/starpuppy/. It is a very cool addition to the AKC Canine Good Citizen program. The picture is her with her S.T.A.R. Puppy medal.

So check back often as I’ll be posting more about Kara, our adventures and her training tips and techniques.

Until next time remember, if you click, you pay!