Connecticut to Iowa and Back! (Patreon)

Hey Doggy•Uers! 

I thought I'd give you an update on what I've been up to for the last week as CoolWhip and I sit in my hotel room in Ohio, on my long drive back to CT. 

On Wednesday of last week I left for a 16 hour drive to Blue-9 Headquarters in Iowa. I tested out the new dog-mobile (traded in the Prius for a Grand Highlander in anticipation of eventually adding another crate to the car ;)!) with my first night camping in it (worked out great!) and then hit the road early to get to Iowa mid-morning. While I was there I took advantage of the offer of a couple of colleagues who let me use their "fresh" dogs (dogs that have had minimal training or hadn't learned the skill I was teaching yet) to get video of training paw and the rebound trick for YouTube, and a series of training sessions on the nose boop alert which will be worked into my upcoming courses. Those noseboop sessions with a brand new dog went really well and I hope to release them in the fall as part of a mini-course on teaching the alert/interruption to accompany the Service Dog 101 that I'm currently working on. Getting fresh dogs that also have the foundations necessary for the particular skill I'm teaching is always a challenge, so I was thrilled to get to work with so many different dogs this weekend!  

CoolWhip and I also competed in disc, as my host, Jamie Popper, was competing in UpDog so we decided to tag along. And though I am not a particularly competitive person, and forgot a lot of the rules on the field, CoolWhip was fantastic as always and we had fun together. 

Before heading back we loaded up a bunch of dog-friendly flooring (Great Mats) to take back home as we begin the process of turning my basement into a dedicated dog training and filming room! 

It was a VERY busy several days, but I'm looking forward to getting these videos put together, with a new one released this Thursday for you amazing Patreon folks before it goes live to Youtube on Friday! If I can make it happen on Thursday, it will be a fun video on teaching Lunchbox (yes that's his name!) the Bull Terrier how to paw/shake using a target.  

I hope you all have a wonderful week (and I also hope that the elephant in the room above me stops jumping around ;) 

Happy Training Ya'll! 

- a very sleepy Laura and CoolWhip