My Friend Sarah's cool shot of me and Rock

Welcome to my blog. I plan on using this space to explore some of my great loves in life: dogs, photography, gardens and teaching school. I live with four gorgeous dogs in a  spectacular spot with woods all around and a lake close by. It can get a little lonely in the winter but it is pretty much heaven from May to the end of November and sometimes beyond. I teach elementary school for a living, train my own magical dogs often, other peoples' intermittently, try to help out at the local shelter assessing dogs, tend my garden in a highly amateur fashion and take lots of pictures in an effort to learn how to be a half decent photographer. 

After a couple years off, I am rediscovering competitive agility. As I work through foundation training up not one but TWO young dogs, I find myself musing a lot on one of my friend Suzanne Clothier's elemental questions. Suzanne challenges students to ask dogs, (amongst other questions); "how is it for you?" This sure is a fun question to ask two year old Thyme and ten month old Rock! Their answer is almost always, "Excellent". They love to work and face the world unafraid, with curiosity and a desire to engage with novelty. What a wonderful way to go through life. 
My house is really split down the middle when it comes to responses to novelty. Nell (8yrs) and Figaro (4yrs) often find new things or even change in routine frightening. When I asked either one of them, "how is it for you?" - they often had answers I did not want to hear. Learning, over time to listen to Nell, Figaro and the dogs that went before them has taught me numerous brilliant lessons in really listening and responding quickly to what my dogs have to say. I truly cringe when thinking back on my poor listening skills of the past. 

The whole process of learning how to "listen" and honour this powerful question hit a critical turning point two years ago when I started to trial my young tervuren Figaro in agility. Figaro has an illustrious pedigree, his mother was on the Italian FCI world team and his father attained a shutzhund 3 title. I only have him because a wonderful friend of mine, who is a well respected breeder, approached me to import him with her on a co-own. Figaro is a truly lovely dog. He is beautiful, easy to live with and extremely affectionate towards his inner circle of dogs and people. He is also often worried and uneasy with new people and always unsure in new locations. You may very well ask the following questions: Did you socialize him when he was you? Did you take him to many new places? Did I ever! He came to school with me for his first year. He arrived on July 1 and accompanied me to the AAC Nationals in Ottawa and to New York for a dog trainers seminar. Were there early signs that he was an environmentally sensitive dog? Yes, now looking back, I can point to MANY small situations when Figaro said, "this is not working for me." But sometimes what he had to say was subtle! My listening skills needed honing. Training was slow initially. He was not toy crazy, he needed to "think". In hindsight, I know I inadvertently put pressure on him. He is a very socially sensitive dog and is deeply concerned about space. It took some thinking and some problem solving but we figured things out and by the time Figaro was eighteen months old training at home was going beautifully! Figaro had become a retrieving tugging fiend ... at home. He was also becoming an enthusiastic agility dog and a great little heeler. After doing some work in new locations, we started trialling. Figaro truly said loud and clear, "this is not good for me!" Compared to many other baby dogs trialling, nothing dramatic happened. He did not flee the ring or launch on barking lunging tirades, but he was not the happy dog I knew at home. Quite frankly, it was heart breaking for me to watch him worrying. I am quite confident that I could have persisted and had a well trained, competent agility partner. I am also became increasingly confident that he would never find the whole trialling process truly enjoyable so I made a decision that he would be a home town backyard champion. What a great lesson this dog has taught me. He set the bar for "listening" and defined for me the level of comfort I want my dogs to have in order to ask them to trial. 

Fabulous Figaro at home where he is most joyful!

Rock and Figaro at play