Posts Tagged ‘professional dog training’
He’s Home
Of all the issues clouding our activities of late, this one feels like the most tangible: Asher is home with us again.
He seems pretty pleased to be back in the comforts of his previous territory and free from the constant distractions of other canines needing to be assessed. One clear thing the trainers noted was his constant need to determine the potential threat of the various other dogs coming and going at the kennel. That is not an unusual behavior in a dog but it did clarify that inviting visits with other dogs at our place may be a challenge.
Progressing from the assessment time with the professional trainers, we plan to now work on helping Asher to more consistently respect commands outdoors and learn that the boundaries of our property are non-negotiable. There may be a series of 3 to 5 on-site visits from one of the trainers to supervise the process.
Basically, that means she will be here to teach us more than to teach Asher. I’m sure he already knows what is expected of him. He’s just waiting for us to figure out who the bosses are in our relationship.
An unexpected outcome from two fresh COVID test kits yesterday morning indicated Cyndie’s previous positive result probably wasn’t a fluke. She still looks to be infected and intends to remain isolated from contact with others as much as possible. Thankfully, she is not feeling much worse than any other normal spring day with her allergies to practically everything in our environment, especially hay and molds, in addition to the pollens from every growing plant.
My test came out almost perfectly clean.
The instructions say to look VERY closely because even the faintest hint of a line should be considered a positive result. There is a faint hint but compared to my other test results that were clearly positive, we take this to indicate the virus is losing its command over me.
I’m left with a residual cough that has been my reality for most of my life after an illness. Based on past experience, it will linger for longer than seems reasonable but I’ll eventually get over it.
The tropical rainforest conditions we have been experiencing have the air around here filled with spores from molds, mushrooms, and every manner of flying insects.
Areas of our lawn grass that aren’t beneath standing water will get mowed with brand-new blades that I installed yesterday.
This afternoon we will install flags to mimic the installation of an invisible fence along one of our borders to use in training Asher. In hindsight, it seems so simple after we met with impressive success fencing off our landscape pond and the composting manure piles to train him that those were off-limits.
He has respected that training ever since. (knock on wood)
We are optimistic about the likelihood that Asher will respond equally well to instructions about our property borders once Cyndie and I master the art of being consistent and clear with our leadership.
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Rock Fitting
On the way to the lake yesterday, we dropped Asher off for his in-residence training and he accepted the unfamiliar surroundings without complaint.
Asher is barely visible in the far pen beyond the front area occupied by a dog he didn’t yet know. He passed by this front dog with a brief check, and receiving no response, he decided to ignore it and move on to sniffing every surface in his pen.
We felt it was a great start. Satisfied Asher was in good hands, we hopped in our car and drove the rest of the way to the lake without him.
While we are up here, we are planning to add a finishing touch to the old cabin where the log guys cut off the bottom of rotting logs in March. Having a large stash of faux rocks at home, we brought some up for the job.
These rocks had spent some time as markers in our labyrinth and as a result, developed a layer of dirt that needed to be removed.
That’s fine. We had some time to spare.
After cleaning them up and spreading the rocks out so we could see them, we tried mocking up the layouts for each space.
It seemed like a good plan to me. We felt encouraged by the process and figured the hard work was all behind us. The next phase involved a new adhesive from Techniseal called Stickystone. It is a fast-setting vertical hardscape adhesive.
Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as my test case back at home. A few rocks had fallen off the foundation of the house in Beldenville so I tested the Stickystone to reattach them and it worked with ease.
For some reason that I haven’t figured out, getting the adhesive to hold the rocks in place up here is only successful about half the time. After completing two of the five surfaces, we were using up the limited supply of adhesive too fast and my patience was dwindling.
We had spent so much time cleaning and prepping that the mounting and remounting had pushed us past the dinner hour. We were tired and hungry and I was very frustrated. Our remedy was a trip to Coop’s Pizza for dinner.
If it’s not too rainy this morning, we’ll try hanging more rocks until the adhesive runs out. I will be looking to focus on the outlook that partial progress is better than no progress at all.
Come to think of it, that’s also one way we will be considering Asher’s training while he is away.
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Relative Something 