Return of the Party Animal

12/01/2009 at 23:37 Leave a comment

At large.

Today’s puppy party was thrown by Tracey B. the “Puppy Guru” lady. She is very cool, and kept a crowd of eight eager pooches under tight (but gentle) control. Tracey is a strong advocate of positive training methods, she’s an animal behaviourist and a member of the International Positive Dog Training Association. Her brand phrase is “respect, kindness, harmony”. The basic principle is you reward every piece of good behaviour and ignore or interrupt any undesirable ones and NEVER punish your dog.*

Tracey also works with violent teenagers using the same techniques so, respect due!

Apart from a spaniel, Phoenix was the largest dog there, this didn’t stop her getting out and about and pressing the flesh though- she was polite and enthusiastic and remarkably self controlled. She did struggle during the early part of the party, as the dogs were let off the lead one at a time over the two hours, for around ten minutes.

No problems in the car – now definitely established as the provider of good things and the vet as her favourite place EVA!!!

*I love the fact that nothing is ever the puppy’s fault, it’s always the owner who’s to blame for not thinking ahead. It’s a very “oy vey iz mir” approach, but it works.