Boring My Dog To Success

In our last post you could see in this video how Tilde showed some impulse control. It took a very long time to train her, which is entirely my fault, and this is why.

Tilde is easily excited. A training session is no exception. The first "Good girl!" is enough to send her flying up in the air. A few of my verbally inspiring remarks like these in a row, and she is dancing around me, barking for more. I had to stop each session short every time.

I couldn't understand. "You are not interesting enough," some of Kenzo's trainers said to me when Kenzo in his early years was interested in anything else then me when we attended training class. Afraid that I was boring Tilde as much as I did with Kenzo, I automatically tried to be as interesting for Tilde as I could.

Progress was slow. We were going nowhere.

Out of sheer frustration I asked for advice from one of Denmark's few true behaviorists and dog trainers, where Kenzo once went on tracking camp, and she was in no doubt what needed to be done, "She is already very excited on her own, you have to chill, instead of fueling up her excitement." In other words, be boring. I could do that.

We had the best training session we ever had.

Although taken aback, I started to explore this even more. I only invited Tilde for training sessions when she was relaxed, or even woke her up from a nap to do a training session. I tried to be as calm as possible to avoid excitement. So did Tilde. And more importantly, she was learning now. I was thrilled. We made progress.

Although I kept up appearances for Tilde, I was full of excitement nonetheless. Thrilled about how each dog is different. About what worked for Kenzo, doesn't for Tilde, because they are different. To change how Tilde and me trained together became a celebration of the diverse character and spirit of a Hovawart. Last but not least, I felt closer to Tilde, too.

P.S

As it turns out, the struggle with Tilde's antics has become almost a series. I wrote about how just trying to ignore her "bad behaviors" as I did with Kenzo, had no effect whatsoever with Tilde. And also, when I wrote how plenty of exercise and nose-games would do the trick. We can now add impulse control to the list. Could this be the final chapter? it is probably better to end this post with a "to be continued...", no doubt Tilde has more tricks up her sleeve.