Monday, November 19, 2007

Obedience Seminar - Jenny Lunn UK

Wow … my head is spinning! We’ve just finished a two day obedience seminar with Jenny Lunn from the UK. Thanks to Jill & Amanda Houston who arranged for Jenny to be here for the first time in Australia … we are very lucky!

Jenny is an inspirational teacher. She makes most of us look pretty boring in our training ways and she is quite amazing in her varied approaches, with many different ideas on solving problems, etc.

We seem to forget to be unpredictable in our training and Jenny highlighted this with her ability to “think outside the square” with a very practical but interesting approach to problem solving.

We tend to train our dogs for a specific exercise, and just that. Jenny showed us how to break down exercises and teach the ingredients of them within fun activities that kept the dogs focused and interested, rather than teaching in a formal manner.

Jenny is very sensitive to the dogs’ feelings and well tuned in to quickly read their expressions and reactions, always careful not to “insult” the dog with her actions. She is very clear about what she communicates to them and easily relates to each individual dog and handler.

There is so much information to process and I am sure what I have learnt will benefit me in many ways, not only in my obedience training, but also in my approach to the other disciplines of dog training.

Thank You Jill & Amanda for this great opportunity!

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