Diary of a Squealy Spaniel 21st Nov 21

Taking everything back to basics and working on the following.

- A quiet rapid recall, everyone had whistles in the line so I wanted Thorn to pick out my quiet commands.

- Steadiness, Leaving dummies, balls, food if its thrown.

- Sit longevity

- Heelwork in crowds and sitting in crowds.

The first morning we heeled around the farm on our morning walk and then into the paddock for dummies.

I sat him down and walked away I had two dummies, I clapped with cupped hands loudly (if it doesn’t hurt your hands its not loud enough) and flung the dummies up into the air and let them land. I paused and walked to collect them. A quiet steady Thorn. I returned to my spot away from him and just stood for a minute, at 60 seconds in he began to whine. I was stunned that he couldn’t handle boring dummies in the boring garden and being asked to wait. I was so angry with myself that I had missed this loophole. I clapped and threw again gathering them up and then I brought him inside. Every day I thought, every single day we are going to stand out here even in the dark, until this works. If he can’t wait for 2 minutes in our own garden, how was he going to wait for a drive to finish.

I had my work cut out already.