Today was the last day of shooting my new DVD, "The Magic of Shaping; Explore the Possibilities." It will be availabe at the end of this month (August, 2008) It has been a very exciting ride to say the least. I am on Cloud 9 and plan on being here for quite some time.

We shot it in 3 days with Alta and George from Tawzer Dog Videos at the helm. www.tawzerdogvideos.com

I had 10 of my students with 14 of the most amazing and brilliant dogs come and help. These dogs all had varying degrees of free shaping expertise and I specifically picked dogs to demo/train behaviors that they did NOT know how to do, or do fully. All different ages, all different breeds;

three Bull Mastiffs - Ace, Garbo and Darcy,

a West Highland White Terrier - GiGi,

a Rottweiler - Belle,

a Rottweiler mix - Bart,

an Australian Cattle dog - Fine-ly,

an Australian Cattle dog mix - Elsie,

a Golden - Lily,

a Rat Terrier - Sally,

a Bichon Frise - Mr. T,

a something mix that looks like a Prairie dog - Pearl,

a Beagle mix - Hailey

a Smooth Collie mix - Samantha,

plus my 3 Border collies doing some demos - Beau, Shadow and Emma.

(all ranging in age from 8 months to 11 years.)

I had no idea how long we would be shooting each day or how this was going to work and even if we would be able to complete the story board I came up with. I had done many photo shoots before for my 5 books and knew that things with dogs always take longer than one thinks. 

WELL! Day one of shooting we started at around 8:45 am and were done by 2 pm and this with an hour for lunch! We trained NINE behaviors in that time!

Day two we started at 7:30 am were done shooting by 11 am and trained EIGHT behaviors, plus an outdoor segment with me and Beau!  We added one segment in at the last minute with Lily the Golden (8 months of age) and her owner Susie. We did a quick behavior; "say your prayers," where the dog places her front paws on a bed and rests her chin on her paws. We had never trained this before and we weren't even looking for success - we wanted to just do a short segment on Lily and have Susie talk about how she had originally taken her to a traditional training class. Lily did not like being dragged around and corrected on a choke collar. Bad behaviors were starting to develop and she was ready to return Lily to the breeder before she found positive training. In less than 5 minutes real time, we free shaped Lily to "say your prayers!" It totally blew our minds!

Day three started at 7:30 am and we were done by 11 am and trained three behaviors (there was a ton of set up time this day with different props) plus a bunch of finished behaviors, and this included me re-doing my introduction. I was so nervous on day one that I kept messing up. Alta was kind enough to tell me that we could reshoot it later. I think she was worried about what she had gotten herself into, coming all the way from Idaho to New Jersey...However, once I started working with the dogs, I became my normal self....

We had very few re-takes, none of which were the dog's fault. Noisy trucks going by or planes overhead or a dog barking in the crate and me raising my arm wrong once so that the microphone made a bad noise (Poor Alta! - oops - sorry! I forgot I was wired for sound - boy did she take her headphones off fast!) were pretty much our only reasons for starting a scene over.

I was so impressed with everyone! Many of these dogs were not familiar with work, go back in the crate, work, go back in the crate and for some of them, they did that for three days in a row. The camera and lights did not faze even one of the dogs or their handlers! They were all able to focus on the task at hand and no one had stage fright (except me in the beginning). Not one of the dogs shut down and they all remained raring to go.

The dogs all made amazing progress in each of their assigned behaviors and we were able to work through some issues. The TWENTY-ONE, yes count 'em TWENTY-ONE behaviors that are taught on the DVD are:

1. Wipe your feet

2. Nose target hand

3. Nose target piece of paper and target stick

4. Muzzle training

5. Go to crate when you hear the doorbell ring

6. Grind toenails on a doggie emery board

7. Close a door

8. Ride a skateboard

9. Bow

10. Competition Heeling

11. Chin

12. Cheek

13. Go around objects - figure 8 around 2 cones, around jump standard, around a prop, around a crate and stop on a mark, around handler

14. Say your prayers

15. Freeshaping the real world

16. Place front feet in a car tire and move hind end around while keeping front feet in the tire

17. Balance on a tippy board

18. Teeter

19. Weave poles

20. Go outs

21. Retrieve

I also show five completed behaviors that were so cool to see, but I am not going to tell you what they were - have to keep a little suspense going!

I just hope that people who purchase the DVD realize this wasn't "scripted." Yes, I had a story board, and yes I did give a little instruction off camera to save time on the DVD - but instruction as in me showing them with and without one of my dogs, just so they knew what the steps were - but everything was off the cuff. Mistakes were made and those mistakes will be left in the DVD. And again, I specifically had dogs work on behaviors that they did NOT know. Hard to believe when you watch these dogs work their hearts out! There were so many breakthroughs and so much talent that my mind is still boggling! (can't you tell - I am babbling, I am still so excited!)

Some of us got together afterwards and took our dogs down to the lake for a well-deserved bout of swimming and a long relaxing trail walk!

I am just so proud of everyone that participated! I have THE best and most dedicated students on the planet! I couldn't have done this project without you!