Terriers

Short legged JRTs

My live is enriched by the terriers that share it

The Intrepid Foursome (clockwise from top: Sage, Brock, Spud and Snitch)

I'm always being told that terriers are stubborn and difficult to train, I've yet to find this with the terriers that have shared my life. Its true that they don't take kindly to being forced to do anything, so its possible that the 'traditional' style of dog training would cause them to appear 'stubborn'.

The four current terriers have been clicker trained and they are so willingly to learn, it's fabulous. Snitch and Spud have both been clicker trained for flyball and agility as well as for 'tricks'.

Sage, who joined us in October 2006, struggled a little with the concept as she wasn't used to offering behaviours, but now that she has realised that its what she does that makes me click, she's off and is getting really creative. I can see her having quite a repertoire of tricks soon. Her favourite trick at the moment is pushing an 'Easy Button' (from Staples). She also offers a really cute down with her head on the floor and a head nod.

Brock has been clicker trained from a very young age and is best described as a 'clicker junkie', he constantly amazes me at how long he will work, and I have to force myself to stop the sessions. On one occasion, I was videoing how to build criteria on the down stay exercise (as a learning aid for students), when I finally stopped, I realised that we'd be working on the stay for 30 minutes and Brock was still keen to continue...wow! I've never had a dog that keen to do stays before.

Spud is a very good assistant when I'm working with dogs with aggression problems. She's a bit thick skinned and is convinced that every dog will play with her if she play bows and encourages them for long enough. She is usually right. Snitch tends to ignore other dogs, they really are of little interest to her. Only one thing is of any value to Snitch and that is a tennis ball. She is obsessed!

Now its time to meet the 'gang of four'