Two words you shouldn't hear when talking about dog training. "I would never do that when teaching a dog to do..." or "I would always do it this way". Certainly my life would be easier if I could say "ALWAYS teach your dog to do a drop signal from a stand" "NEVER let your dog do that." But there is so much opportunity to let the dog show us what makes sense to him please don't cut yourself off to finding different ways of getting to your goal because someone tells you this is the ONLY way to get the job done.
However you should still have a plan of attack on how to teach a dog a skill and you should have in your mind a perfect mental picture for how the exercise should be completed. But the path you take getting there can take many different avenues and keeping an open mind in your training session will keep your training time less stressful for both you and the dog.
ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS AND NEVER FORGET IT!!
And that's what makes you such a brilliant teacher of dogs and people, Marie!
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