Easy And Difficult Dogs

I was going over a pretty complicated problem with a student this past weekend. To me, it seemed all so obvious, while at the same time, if I was a fly on the wall I'd be asking "how did you figure all that out?" 

I've been training dogs most of my adult life. I've done a lot of study along the way, as well.

What might be difficult can, with enough experience and knowledge and wisdom, be converted into something easy... with assigned homework for my students. 

The diagnosis was easy. The follow through is often the difficult part. That often takes the patience of Job to allow the dog to develop through the lessons and homework.

For example, I'm almost to the goal with a couple of nice little dogs I've been working with. The owner felt her dogs were bored and needed some abilities to do more. One request was to teach her dogs to play Fetch. These dogs had no initial interest in chasing any toy at all. One of them would chase a rabbit, but that was about it. It has taken a lot of work to get there, but we got one good Fetch from one of the dogs this weekend, and a mediocre one from the other. At least we have the second dog doing a brief tug of war now. The owner wants to play with them and she has been patient as this process has taken a long time. 

It can be hard to reconcile where a dog is today and where you want the dog to be in the future. 

Plan accordingly.