WEDNESDAY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Wednesday's word of the day is Attention.

  Attention is defined as"... notice taken of someone or something; the regarding of someone or something as interesting or important."    If your dog's not paying attention, it's hard to get her to do what you're asking her to do.  When you're getting a dog ready to show, you work a lot on attention and focus.  In the "old days" of training, we used to do this by setting the dog up to be inattentive--or rather, fail--and then correcting the dog.  A better method is to reward attention and gradually increase the amount of time you are asking the dog to be attentive, then work the dog in  more and more distracting environments. The point of adding distractions is to teach the dog how to work through the distraction, not as a "Gotcha!"  By gradually working through it in this manner, the dog gains confidence and learns to look at you as a way to avoid the distraction but in a way that keeps trust in your relationship.  Even if you don't show, it's hard to teach your dog anything if you don't have her attention.  By systematically rewarding attention and keeping it interesting, you'll develop a dog into a partner who's willing to work with you

 It's a lot more fun for the two of you that way.

Missy and I at a trial in Louisville KY