I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in this past weekend's Natural Dog Training seminar in Woodstock, VT. We had about 25 people gathered on a lovely (at times brutally sunny) day to see Natural Dog Training in action. For me, working with dogs and their owners is always instructive, and this seminar was no exception. I really appreciate everyone's attentiveness and willingness to try something new as we put your dogs through the paces.
The seminar format is challenging, after all. Everyone is there with a dog at a different point along the journey, so there's a lot of spur-the-moment adjustment that has to happen to try to meet every dog/person where they are. What I thought was really cool is that we got a chance to cover so many topics (recall, aggression, obedience, doggie emotion, etc.) all the while working on, essentially, the same techniques with everyone. I wanted everyone to get a sense of the "whole picture" without completely overwhelming you with information - as I said, it can take a LOT of time to really assimilate the natural dog training techniques and allow them to permeate your doggy interactions.
I think in the future I'd like to plan the seminars so that we can explore "advanced" techniques with the dogs who are ready for it.
Some of you have already e-mailed privately - I'd love to hear your feedback about the seminar, so that I can work on making future seminars even more useful.
On a personal level, I'm also feeling a lot more connected to the natural dog work after this weekend - which will help motivate me in the weeks to come on the eBook project, the podcast with Kevin, and, of course, my work with Nola - which suffered over the long winter. She's enjoyed the extra-long tug sessions that we've been playing upon our return to Maine.
So, thanks again for being there, being open, and participating. Thanks especially to Angelique and Sonja, for organizing the seminar. I'm really appreciative of all the work you put in to pull it off. You can visit the SAPRescue website (click Sonja's name) to see a slideshow of the seminar. Until next time!
One last note for everyone else: I have a HUGE backlog of unanswered e-mail/comments from the past few months. I'll slowly be working through it - so please be patient. Slowly I'm developing balance between the dogs, the music, and the software (and the FAMILY). That's my challenge these days. Encouragement and understanding appreciated.
