Balance is everything
- Aug 20, 2025
- 5 min read
Updated: Oct 15, 2025
One challenge that we meet a lot when training a new dog is the balance between everything we want to teach and what the dog is able to actually learn.
When she was a tiny puppy I wanted to show Fina about going around a cone but she made it clear to me that she is not ready for that yet at the time.
So I waited.
And I finally started to do it now, when her brain has the ability to start to understand the movement.
Seraphina is showing me that she enjoys the social reward and my praises a lot, but also that it can get her off-balance if I do too much, so I barely walk that line and just try to stay alive (because if she is too excited my face is in danger 😂
This session was really not the best one, but at least I could see what are my options and what type of reward I should use with her.
She was a bit distracted so I had to make it clear that she should keep her concentration with me, even when it was hard. She constantly tried to show me that she would like to get the toy - but I felt I need to work with the food, because the toy cannot be the thing that makes her working - it should be the reward for good work.
But when the evening came I took out the toy to work on delayed rewarding and she was AWESOME!
It took her a moment at first because she really wanted the toy but I helped her by stepping on it to make it clear that it is not possible to get the toy before I told her.
I love watching how happy she is when she feels she did good! I can literally see her confidence shines out on those moments 🫠
After a few exercises we changed to sequences with the toy in my hand and emphasis on retrieving the toy to me nicely and with excitement.
Finally, I took a couple of more minutes to work on her forward toy focus (ZEN) because this is a skill that we will use a lot and I am really hoping to improve it, I even tried some commands with luring while she is with her back to me to tell her that it won’t be about only watching the toy in front of her but also about listening to me. Down was good, spin was maybe too early 😅 So I quickly changed and just tried to do a small sequence before calling it a day.
The next morning we started with some backwards work. Still very short walk, because I am working on her initial send out of the rear legs. At this time she still have the tendency of going a bit to the right side of her body, so I won’t increase the distance before that changes, but I really feel we’re in a good direction with that.
After training that for a few minutes I changes exercise and wanted to work on her stability in a stand position with a food ZEN exercise as well as on her direction changes on the body sized platform as preparation for face out work, but it was too much for her in that moment so I switched so accurate spins on the platform which is way easier!
The next day it was way too hot to work during the day so I just waited for the evening to come and we did a super fun session and went through different exercises; pivoting, under the legs position, eye contact, giving paws and dog catch work from two directions.
She was a bit nervous at some parts but I also noticed that her reactions on the environment are becoming so much better, we went down from barking on everything weird to barking only on REALLY weird stuff, and I keep seeing the progress graph going better 😍
The next morning I started with some platform training and testing her understanding of the basic positions like stand when I am not super close to start preparing her mind for distance work and it is not an easy task with this little pusher 😂
I then changed to dynamic moves like spins but when I was watching the video I could see that my hand signal was not clear enough and that I should move my hand slower in some of the cases.
When I did some sends to the platform I could see that her mind is really not ready yet for distance, so now I am still thinking, what would be the best way to prepare her for it.
Next we did 2 minutes of backwards again, still keeping very short distance but it was about the same as last time so no progress there yet.
To finish I tried to work on going around the cone with a toy, to make it a bit more interesting for her, because last time I felt she doesn’t really like the exercise.
However, I did the mistake of the difficulty higher because of her excitement… that ended with a dog up my chin 🙈 but the good part was that she didn’t care about making mistakes…. Maybe too much even…
I could finally see her both thinking and excited to do it but I will defiantly go back to food for accuracy and lower down the difficulty with this one.
After a day of resting I went back to training and started from the cone exercise. This time with food, and we did MUCH better.
Then we did a bit of self-control with a treat ahead - ZEN, and touching her for distraction and some nose touch, but I saw that she is still not able to hold the position on touch the way I wanted so I brought in a platform, which helped.
I finished with some tricks; under the legs positions, sideways in a front position and middle position while walking and she was so good!
The next day we had an evening session for heelwork with a platform. I noticed that she doesn’t like my luring in to the position that much and she sometimes raises a paw so I tried something else.
I think she liked it better because the conflict from luring was removed, but I can’t really say she entered the position perfectly. Yet.
She got distracted by something but was able to leave it after a few moments and I was really proud of that.
I did some spins for accuracy and then changed to a middle position.
Afterwards I trained some tricks to do something a bit more active that she can enjoy more but I am not sure if it was not too much for her.
The both of us are still learning, mainly me, but I am really trying my best to give her good time, and sometimes it can be really sad for me when I am not sure if I am succeeding in it, so I try as hard as I can to keep a calm mind, not to take it personal and to be flexible so that even when things don’t work in training, it won’t affect our relationship!!!