Started to tackle the first few training goals of the year, snow and all. Prevent jumping at strangers The first thing we're doing is picking LAT training back up in busy areas, which means she's back on the longline/flexi for some walks round busy parks. I've combined this with the clicker initially. The other part is being a bit more aware and responsible as an owner when she's off lead to prevent her reinforcing the behaviour. I'm always vigilant of other dogs and owners but I'm being extra careful to call her in when I think there's a chance of her going to say hello. That leads me to... Recall to heel I've not really started too much active training with this yet beyond giving the "heel" cue whenever she gets close after recall. She's suspiciously started doing it automatically sometimes... Lead walking I bought a SWAG headcollar suggested by @Nick Benger, because sometimes I need to walk her somewhere without actively training. The hope is that we can eliminate reinforcing that pulling = forward while we train towards the same thing on lead and collar. The problem we face is that she has a history of pulling on a flat collar, but I don't want to train with a harness and I worry with slip leads that she's damaging her throat when she pulls hard. So my main questions are: - Can I replace her flat collar with a different one, or should I consider any/all of them poisoned? - What other options would people recommend? - Do I just exclusively use the headcollar until a point in time where I can reintroduce the flat collar? Any advice would be welcome!

Igor went off for a parkrun Saturday. He was fairly confident around the runners and they all loved him so he was lapping it up, struting about wagging his antenna. We went to town today, he put on his big boy pants and his reward for being such a good boy was a puppucchino. He walked past the ducks with not even a side eye and he actually nailed passing dogs in town but I think that's more to do with it all being overwhelming so he stays quiet. It's not been a bad weekend I think the only hint of an outburst was when we were nearly home. Someone in our street has 2 Coonhounds who kick up when they see other dogs. They howl so loud which set him off but he wasn't awful and I think she was dreading us passing as much as I was so for once I didn't feel judged. I did a few reps with him while I was cooking tonight and he actually managed not to bite me for once, win! His middle was quite controlled and the heel game I've been playing is paying off I think.

We can discuss anything here. Has anyone been watching The Traitors?

training has been super low key to start the year, as we’ve all had horrible colds, my truck blew up again and Toddler has started school. It’s been a rollercoaster. We’ve been steadily increasing intensity with reduced proximity to other dogs doing exciting things and it’s paying off really well, he’s working really nicely very near other dogs, better settling while watching them play and we’re going to start doing some very calculated off lead walks with other dogs soon. In anticipation we’ve been training a “move” command using spatial pressure (tbh we do this naturally anyway) to calmly move him on from whatever he is up to, this will be used if he lingers sniffing too long, ignores a cue from the other dog etc. without recalling him and increasing arousal because he’s super snappy with it or putting him in an emergency down and putting him in a vulnerable position. We’ve also been working more at recall to front, and a flip into basic position. Looooads to work on but we are chipping away at it all which is the main thing. Think I’m going to revisit some hind awareness and pivot target work to get this better - I’m back in work from Monday (sad) so we’ll be more into the the accuracy training sessions in my breaks then which will be good for him after a lot of drivey sessions lately! I’ve also got terrible fomo about the meet up tomorrow and not training with anyone in a while. Hopefully my truck is sorted soon 😥

Do you have any goals for 2026? Or, maybe it's more like a bucket-list... just stuff you'd like to do. What comes to mind?