Haley has spent hundreds of hours reading scientific studies on dog behavior, conditioning, and training methods. I haven’t spent a single one.
When working with Scout, Haley’s instinct is to carefully analyze her timing, order of cues, and body movements. My default is to be free-form and reckless until Scout literally starts corralling me like a horned herd animal, and only then I back it off a notch.
Haley has become a scholar of dog training through years of experience and thousands of hours of conversations. Everything I know about dog training is from watching what Haley does and copying it.
But I don’t just do everything she says
You’d think that this would make me a humble student who gratefully listens to her expertise.
Nope.
I’m often an arrogant inquisitive little brat, asking her if she has considered doing X instead of Y, or why we can’t shortcut the long-established method of A by doing B instead.
Haley is usually receptive to my often-intelligent but half-formed ideas.
Some of …
