My High Drive Dog is Wearing Me Out…but I love him!

You guessed it…I’m talking about Fleetwood. For those of you who don’t know Fleetwood, he is one of my Airedales and loves to have a job. 😀

By having the envelope pushed, we have accomplished a lot from basic obedience to recall.

But I have a feeling that Fleetwood is ready to push that envelope again….

Wired for Work

Fleetwood loves to work…he is a “wired “hair terrier after all so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised by his job enthusiasm.

I think he must have been a Working breed in a past life – at least, a working Airedale (which is a concept that would probably get lost on my other Airedales…maybe not Erwitt).

By being a busy guy, Fleetwood and I have accomplished a lot:

• no jumping

• basic manners – sit, down and wait

• recall

We practice daily.

The great thing about recall is that it incorporates all his learned behaviors and wears that busy brain out.

Or does it?

Lately, I have had the feeling that I need to step things up a notch. But how?

I’m tired so should Fleetwood, right?

He did a very cool engagement toy for his birthday which does a good job, but you can tell …

Fleetwood is looking for the next challenge. 🧐

The timing was perfect because I had my training call with Marc Windgassen.

I explained what I was seeing and that I was trying to drive the engagement with fetch but that we were not successful.

Marc reminded me that my dog is not a retriever so “fetch” really isn’t in his DNA and that Fleetwood was probably behaving as a terrier would.

I thought that was very insightful and we talked about the best way to teach Fleetwood how to fetch.

What’s Next?

We discussed what the next level of engagement looks like:

• engagement toys

• engagement puzzles

• different activities like tug or trading a tennis ball for a frisbee

The activity I was most interested in was nose or scent work – I mean outside of conquering fetch!

Marc is good at telling you to “look at the dog in front of you” and plan from there.

Fleetwood and I have been looking at each other and are getting ready to take the next challenge.

I just may wear him out.

-Kim Opdyke

💗

PS - Fleetwood does like to snuggle.