Good day, my fellow American dogs. This is the second in my series of seminars about how to train your humans. This session will cover such topics as discipline, leash training, getting your fair share of your human’s meals, dealing with cats and for the gun dogs, hounds, terriers and poodles among today’s attendees–hunting.
Now a researcher at the University of Missouri (MU) College of Veterinary Medicine used the technique to treat osteosarcoma in dogs—the first time the procedure has been successful in any animal larger than a mouse.
1. Never quit learning. So you finished your first champion. Won your first NOHS BIS. Won your first group. Your first regular BIS. Your second. Your third. You’re at the top in your breed. Don’t think you can’t be better, do better. Don’t think you know too much to profit from a handling class, or from watching the groups, or asking a pro for advice. You will never know all there is to know. The only difference is how fast you learn as much as you can—and where you stop because you think you know everything.
The Greyhound ranked 132nd in 2021 AKC registration statistics and is on the AKC’s current low-entry breeds list. It is one of the oldest breeds, among the first recognized by AKC in 1885, and is the prototype sighthound. Many other breeds define themselves in terms of the Greyhound–how they are the same and how they are different.
Seriously, have you ever wondered how judges learn about your breed? One of the main ways is by being mentored. According to the Oxford Online Dictionary, a mentor is an experienced and trusted adviser, and to mentor is to advise or train someone. Seems pretty straightforward, and yet it’s a process that is different in each mentoring session and can be anything from extremely helpful to a complete waste of time.
The Beatles told us 55 years ago that we could “get by with a little help” from our friends. But in any profession, that idea moves far beyond emotional support, and moves into the realm of mentoring.
Will Alexander Drops Some Knowledge About What’s Happening in the Sport of Dogs. It’s Deep… It’s Humorous… It’s Provocative… It’s Will Unfiltered! Will Alexander has an in-depth conversation with Lenny Brown. Click here to watch on Canine Chronicle TV!
More than a millennium before Karen Pryor popularized clicker training, dog people understood the magnificent simplicity of this concept. It only takes one or two positive experiences for dogs to forge that neural pathway between a sound and a reward. You might say that the hunting horn was the big clunky prototype for this training methodology. Luckily, our sport had Freeman Lloyd to document the origin and evolution of this iconic symbol for the AKC Gazette in 1943. He wrote, “In actual hunting, only one man is entrusted with it, and he is the official huntsman. For carrying the horn signifies absolute power like the sceptre of a monarch or the baton of the conductor of an orchestra.”
Will Alexander Drops Some Knowledge About What’s Happening in the Sport of Dogs. It’s Deep… It’s Humorous… It’s Provocative… It’s Will Unfiltered! This week Will gives us My Dogs Top 10 New Year Resolutions. Click here to watch on Canine Chronicle TV!
Watch your breed until the end of judging. I know it’s hard sometimes; after all, who cares about that moron’s opinion now? But try to objectively find things the judge’s winners and losers have in common. If the judge truly only puts up faces, then that’s valuable information. Maybe one day you’ll need to hire a handler under them! But maybe they are actually judging dogs. It’s easy to be so mad about the day’s judging you can’t find anything good about the judge, but maybe, just maybe, their choices had something to so with the (gasp!) dogs! This means you have to be objective about your own dog as well as the competition. I showed a great moving dog with a poor head once. One day he lost to a poor mover with a good head. Once I got over my “They don’t run on their heads!” indignation, I brought that judge my dogs with great heads and never lost under him again! The same with a dog I showed that was more workmanlike. We lost a to a pretty little bitch under a judge who I immediately thought must be senile. But again, I stopped to think about it, and the next time he was on a panel I brought him a pretty little bitch and won the group! You may not have a dog to fit their preferences immediately, but stow that information away for future use. I could have stayed mad at both of these judges and crossed them off my list, but the loss would have been mine, not theirs!
