Ludo and me training continues

As some of you will know already I am currently embarking on a new endeavour in my life, with the help of Ludo, my blue merle Border Collie pup. Ludo is now nine weeks old, and is already in training to be my service dog. I have trained lots of dogs in my life, from my own pet dogs, to others pet dogs, when I was a volunteer at a local dog training class, and dogs for films, in my time at a film farm in Kent. However, in all my time training dogs, I never realised there would come a day when I would need a dog to help me with task I struggle with on my own.

Yet here I am, in need of just that after an epidural left me disabled. Now, being just nine weeks old we are working on simple things with Ludo at present, coming when he is called, socialisation, sit, lay, wait, and so on and so forth, the basic things that most puppies will be taught early on in life. Our main aim at present is to teach him to do things in a calm way, so coming out of his crate, he must be calm, waiting for us to give the command that he can exit, he cannot be jumping up at the door, barking ect.

Being a Border Collie Ludo is very smart and picks things up quickly, however, I made the classic new puppy mistake of molly cuddling him for the first week or two, which really wasn’t fair on him because when I started to be a bit tougher, it was a bit of a shock to him, no one’s perfect right.

However, we are well on the way to setting clear boundary’s now, and Ludo is taking to the new rules well.

 The next step will be lead training, which although I have done this many times, will be a learning experience for me as much as Ludo, as I will have to teach him from the seat of a mobility scooter something I have never done before. So I will no doubt rope my husband and friends into help with this, so we can first help him get used to walking on the lead beside it with someone else in control, and then move on to walking beside it with me in control, I just think it would be unfair to have him getting used to the lead and the scooter all at once. We’ve already introduced him to riding on the scooter with me so he’s not fearful of it or the noise it makes. I think this will be the hardest part of my training with Ludo, the part’s where others have to do the work, as I’m so used to doing all the main work with my dog’s, but i realises as there are things I can no longer do for myself there are also things I can no longer do for my dog’s, and so some training really will require the help of my friends.

Well I shall leave it here for now and keep you posted on mine and Ludo’s progress

Love and hugs

Joss