Susanna Smith (00:09):
We feel it is our responsibility as owners to equip our dogs to positively handle the things that they will encounter in their lifetime. So over the years, Ronnie and I have worked to figure out what makes a successful bird dog, what makes that individual that has the healthy mindset that can go on adventures everywhere. And what we’ve come up with is the three Cs, confidence, composure, and compliance. Confidence you see in a dog when they enter a new situation or meet somebody new. And even though they may be feeling a little bit of stress, they have the confidence that situation will turn out okay. Composure is a dog that is calm, a dog that thinks rationally instead of reacting to the stimuli around him and a compliant dog will look for and listen to instruction from his owner or trainer.
Ronnie Smith (01:08):
This mindset lends itself for your dog to join up with you. And what that means is that’s a dog that looks to you for direction. They look to you as a leader in their pack in the family.
Susanna Smith (01:22):
And when they do that, it’s a different relationship. It’s a special relationship. Our challenge course is one of the tools that we use to incorporate that confidence and compliance and composure in our dogs. Once our dogs have a basic understanding of a cue and are starting to listen to us, we start incorporating this course so that we can teach them different cues and get them to really listening whether we want a big movement or a small movement. So if I’m standing here with a loose lead like this and I want my dog to take a step that direction, I will give him a light cue.
Susanna Smith (02:04):
And release. So that's what a cue should look like. And as we go through training, those cues will slowly get more and more subtle until it may not be a cue at all, but just us moving forward. I’m going to cue him there, just a light cue. And that’s what we’re looking for is light subtle cues in our training with our dogs. We want to be able to challenge our dog and ensure they’re going to be successful because once they are successful, it gives them a boost of confidence. So right behind me, I’ve got this a-frame that I’m going to take George over and I’m going to want him to go over it according to my cues and not just in one big leap. And that’s a pretty easy workout over the a-frame. Going to cue forward. And there he goes, going to stop him. And that was just a cue and release. I’m going to cue him forward, light cues. And there we go. The relationship that we have with our dogs at home follows us to the field. So we always want to maintain that relationship and work on that relationship to keep consistency in the dog’s world and keep that joined up team mindset.
Ronnie Smith (03:25):
The majority of the time our dogs are going to be in our homes living with us. And if we can have that healthy mindset in the home environment, then that will positively follow us to the field.
