Ellsworth at Logan Ridge

Dog's learn the value of having humans in their life through experience. While some dogs are more drawn to people than others, they still learn from their experiences if a human is valuable or not. A dog who lives outside most of the time and doesn't spend much time with his people isn't going to know that working together with a human can be rewarding for them. 

There's no way to help a dog learn to connect to people faster than to start doing rewards based training with them. To start out with food rewards will get them to sit up and take notice that maybe, just maybe these humans are worth the time of day. The food doesn't have to always be part of the equation but if you want to see progress quickly, food rewards can make amazing things happen. 

Anyhow, Ellsworth and I have been taking clicker training classes with Timko Training in Gig Harbor at the beautiful Logan Ridge training location and he is just starting to make that connection that humans are worth paying attention to. His new family trains their current dog using positive reinforcement so they will continue working with him to build a great dog to human relationship. 

Before class each day we arrive about twenty minutes early so we have a chance to walk around the upper field area which gives Ells a chance to relax and settle so when it's time to work, he can focus better. The photos in this post are from our pre-training walk. 

I can't wait to hear how he does in his new home. Transitions are tough for Ells but once he makes it through the first couple weeks it should be smooth sailing.