It’s been almost a year since the last episode. The real reason is a little embarrassing, and it turns out it’s the same shape as something I got wrong in my training for many years.

For a long time I believed that if you ever needed to tell your dog no, you’d failed somewhere upstream. That belief didn’t stop me from correcting my dog. It stopped me from correcting my dog WELL. In this one I talk about what that belief actually did, why the bad feeling afterwards was pointed at the wrong thing, and what happens to any part of your training you’ve decided not to look at.

So... what are you not looking at?

Tell me: HereToHelp@daisypeel.com, or leave a comment on this episode’s page at daisypeel.com. And if you made it to the end, hit subscribe, so I know somebody’s out there.

You lured your dog today. So did I. Probably a few dozen times.

“Luring” has turned into kind of a dirty word in some corners of dog training, so let’s actually define it, and then look at what your body is doing on every sequence you run. Because in agility, we never fade ourselves out as a lure. Your body IS the cue system.

I also get into where lure dependence really is a problem, how a verbal marker system splits the cookie’s jobs apart, four steps for luring on purpose, and why I get a little itchy about purity rules.

What’s something you were told not to do, that you did anyway, and it worked?

The marker system I mention is taught in KNOW Games at theagilitychallenge.com.

Tell me: HereToHelp@daisypeel.com, or leave a comment on this episode’s page at daisypeel.com. And if you made it to the end, hit subscribe, so I know somebody’s out there.

Here's a bit of dark humor for Valentine's Day that has to do with dog training...sort of...mostly it's just a fun thought experiment!