nova the fox terrier

We have the same sort of law in Bermuda, except the dog has to be 10 months old unless shipped from a rabies free country.

It sure feels like the dog is taking personal calls on company time. You might feel frustrated by the interruption. Does he not respect you at all? You might even feel a little bit rejected. “I’m working as hard as I can to make this fun. Why does he not think I’m more fun than sniffing the floor?” Have you ever had an instructor tell you that you have to be more fun than grass? I have. And I took it personally. I AM FUN DAMMIT! […] We tend to think of making choices as involving motivation. Your motivations drive your choices. And they do! But what is particularly interesting for me as a (nerdy) trainer, is that it goes the other way, too. Choice can actually drive motivation. The act of making a choice, rather than having conditions be imposed on you, is motivating. It is empowering. It starts to build a bias toward action… which translates into less stress and increased motivation to Do Stuff. YAY! It’s probably the most counterintuitive thing in the world, but letting your dog sniff, and then *choose* to look at you, actually builds his drive to work with you. I realize it doesn’t do anything for your own stress level (at first), but it’s worth it. The pay off is ENORMOUS. Actually letting the dog sniff, and then choose to engage, relieves the tension of conflicting motivations between the environment and the handler. Which means the underlying emotional cause of the sniffing is no longer present. Which means the sniffing goes away. So the next time your dog breaks off from training to sniff nothing in particular on the ground, don’t panic. As long as it’s a safe situation, wait. Let him choose. When he returns his attention to you, reinforce and then send him away again. Let him make the same choice to sniff or look at you. When he chooses you, reinforce and send him away. Pretty soon you’ll discover you CAN’T send him away, because he won’t stop looking at you! Isn’t it funny how that works!