A few weeks ago I had a chat with Hella Boon about her work training dogs. It was fascinating! But talking is different from doing, and given I’m about to start an animal care internship with an animal (this includes dogs) hotel, I thought I’d give myself a head start and book an hour’s private lesson! 🙂
A lesson with Hella from Hella’s Honden Training
(= “Hella’s Dog Training”)
We – and this included 2 of Hella’s own dogs! 🙂 – met up in a local forest with a large clearing nearby. Hella explained loads of things to me ranging from why dogs show certain behavioural traits in certain situations and also in response to how I interacted with them. I valued the combination of the ‘theory’ and practice because the former really helped me with the latter.
By the end of the very quick session I had a better handle on how to:
- Approach a dog (for the first time),
- Walk with a leashed dog:
- Reading signals the dog gives on a lead,
- How to use to lead to control the dog,
- Divert him if he had a lot of energy,
- Change direction we’re walking.
- Take a toy out of his mouth without losing my arm.
- Probably other things that I can’t put words too.
My overall impression is that I’m less clumsy around dogs than I was earlier, and that I need to spend time with dogs. Well, I’m looking forward to that! 🙂
