My Introduction - why this Blog

In this blog, I would like to look at, discuss and think about our relationship with our dogs.

My name is Corinne Lawson and I am a local Dog Training Instructor and have been for over 10 years. In these 10 years I have owned and worked with a variety of dogs, mostly mutts. We have played around with obedience, agility, a tiny bit of herding, rally and canine freestyle. This last discipline has taken up most of my heart and soul as well as my time and effort.

For a last few years it has been a quite the adventure in training. There are many thoughts about the "best way" to train obedience, the "only way" to train agility, "the most effective way" to train freestyle, and on and on. So, wait, what happens when I want to train in all three? I found great conflict. The more conflict that I found, the more confused my poor dogs and I became. In essense, we tore apart what we had learned and built.

Now, I found myself in a wonderful position to "start over".
In the last year, due to a back problem that kept getting worse and worse, I basically had to withdraw from all my favorite things dog. And now, I get the chance, starting with my recovery from surgery, I get to start again. Joining me is a wonderful, super-cute, eager to learn, and going-to-be-great-if-given-the-chance pup, Pippin, now 2 years old. He is now going to be my partner in our "start-over"!

My blog is going to be my journal of this start over, and a personal examination of how the disciplines work with each other, how they can (and cannot) compliment each other. Most importantly I am eager to explore our relationship with our dogs. We are their "owners". In obedience we give "commands". In agility we "run together". In freestyle we become "partners". Can the partnership of freestyle work hand in hand with the comanding obedience.

Please join me in the exploration. I invite serious comments from those who enjoy loving relationships with their dogs. Thanks for coming along!