To sniff or not to sniff?

When you're out on walks, do you allow your dog to sniff willy-nilly?

Do you use sniffing as a reward?

Do you say no sniffing, no how?

I do all three, depending on the situation. Sounds confusing? Elka mostly has it straight. I've come to my criteria as we grew together.

The Silent Treatment

On Tuesday, I read a blog post called A Simple Trick for Calming an Excited Dog, on the True to Dogs blog. While Elka isn't Super! Excited! All! The! Time! I thought that it would be interesting to try, for my own sake. There are times I talk too much, I know it's true.

For the experiment, we went to a park that we had not visited before. It was totally empty when we pulled up, which was pretty rad. I put the long leash on her, and attached it to the leather leash around my waist. If I was going to go words free, why not hands free too, right?

Command Clinic: Look at That

All right, all right. "Look at that" isn't really a command. I've heard it described as a game, which I suppose is sort of it.

"Look at that" is something you may have heard of if you're interested in clicker training and positive methods of training. It's in the book Control Unleashed, by Leslie McDevitt. It's sort of what I've done when working with Elka in respect to other dogs. At absolute perfection, I want her to just be able to ignore other dogs. At worst, I want her to be able to be calm around them. Lofty goals, right? Shoot for the stars!