Hello Lab Lovers! Below is the article I wrote for the April issue of the Labbie Ledger newsletter for Labs4Rescue. Since space was limited, I decided to expand on the training ideas we have used for our two Labradors: our American Yellow Labrador girl Ginger and our English Chocolate Labrador boy Brinkley.

Please come back and read the rest of the series. I’ll be including step-by-step instructions and videos of how we’ve accomplished the over 30 commands the dogs know now. In the meantime, here’s the article:

Training Tips for New Adopters

Our newly-adopted Ginger was an angel for a whole week.

Then the leash pulling, counter surfing, and selective hearing started! Although different dogs will present different training challenges, it’s a common tale. But a good plan goes a long way with training and once you know the basics, you can apply them to your dog’s individual personality.

When training, I keep these general guidelines in mind:

• Thwart unwanted behavior, as it is happening. The greatest success I’ve had with curbing Ginger’s counter surfing was when I caught her in the act. Your best window is extremely short – I assume 5 seconds at the most. Any more than that and she will no longer associate my reaction with the problem, no matter how guilty she looks.
• Praise for successes, even if you sound silly. The better the accomplishment, the better the celebration! If I correct Ginger before she gets to the counter and she moves away from it, I praise her. She learns that she will get corrected for being bad, but even better, she gets love for being a good girl.
• Be consistent with your commands. Decide on them ahead of time, so you know exactly what to say when the opportunity arises. Using more than one command for the same thing will only confuse them. I use “down” for when I want them to lay down, so I don’t use it for when I want to jump out of the tailgate of my car. Instead, I say “off”.
• Set aside fifteen minutes a day to train one command. Any longer than 10-15 minutes may start to work against you if they get bored or impatient. We like to train just before mealtime because lets face it, Labs will do just about anything for food, won’t they? This adds an additional benefit of reinforcing your leadership, since the one who controls the food is the one in charge.

We also practice the “Nothing In Life is Free” approach. Before we give attention, praise, treats or even meals, we give them a command to reinforce our role as their leader. Rather than thinking of it as conditional love, consider how much they enjoy interaction with us. That includes training, which is quality time together that everyone benefits from.

Share on Facebook

With my new Etsy shop, I’ve been concentrating on getting new items available. From what I’m reading on the Etsy forums, you need to provide enough stock in your shop to cater to different tastes. Makes sense to me. Since probably 75% of my photographs over the years have centered around nature and flowers, I’m thinking that spring is the perfect time to start.

I played around with different greeting card designs over about two weeks, asking family and friends their opinions. I currently have six designs:

Water Lily Pond

Peachy Dahlia with Bee

Peachy Dahlia

Field of Tulips

White orchid

Shakespeare Garden bench

I do plan to add more, but have switched focus for now to prints, which take me less time to get ready to list.

Thanks for looking

Tricia

Share on Facebook

After talking about it for months, I finally opened my Etsy shop this past weekend. The listings you see above are just the beginning of what I’m going to offer. First up are greeting cards because frankly, they’re a lot of fun to make and I bought a ton of materials to do it. I’m researching the best way to ship photographic prints also, how to price them, and what subjects people would be most interested in.

Then, I’m considering selling CD’s or digital downloads of my wallpaper. A lot of people arrive at my site looking for this, but up until now I only really offered photographs of flowers. If I expanded that to 12 months of seasonal wallpaper, I’m wondering if people might be interested in that.

In case you’re wondering, the name “Greenfreak” was taken as an Etsy username! But hey… I’m “T”, I’m green, I like green tea. It’s a good compromise.

Anyway, come on by and take a look. Let me know what you think.

Share on Facebook