Herding Test, Heeling and Tricks

At 4 months, Tani had her first serious encounter with sheep. We took her to Italy where she had a test of herding instinct for puppies. She did very well, specially considering that she was by far the youngest and the smallest dog participating in the event. She got all 10 points for potential and the instructor was also very happy with her concentration, body movement and - probably the most important thing for me - adaptability to new surroundings. Thanks to Maja for these lovely pictures!



We made a new video of her, this time no tricks but her first "tutorial". I got a lot of questions on how we teach the heeling position, and since I think this is a very good technique, I asked Silvia if I could share the technique she teaches in her puppy school. She didn't mind at all, so for everybody interested in heeling, here comes the video:


We also have many new tricks to share, but we were so busy with Xsara's trials for the past few weekends that we haven't managed to film them yet. But she did learn backward eight (in like two sessions, by the way), beg, go back, shake head as to say no, two on/two off position, and give her paw to greet people. We also work a lot on staying in the sit or lay down position for longer periods.