Where did it all begin?

    
I don't know when I first discovered Sue Ailsby's Training Levels. Or how. But life hasn't been the same since. There is an old saying, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I was ready.

After ten years of training service dogs and trainers of service dogs, I found myself adrift....no longer involved and searching for something more, something different. Shayla, my service dog, had been lovingly but traditionally trained. At APDT conferences I had heard hints of gentle, correction free methodology and saw my first incarnations of shaping. But it was pieces of this and parts of that. Then I attended my first Clicker Expo! That opened the door for me, yet as much as I listened, watched and read, nowhere could I find answers to all my questions in one place.

Then I came across the Levels. I read for days, beginning to end. I copied and cut and pasted and printed out my very own copy. Highlighter in hand, I read again and again. Answers to everything! In logical order. So easily understood. Who was this woman with the wonderful way with words and such depth of understanding?

I called my best friend, another trainer with years of experience who was also 'seeking'. And together we entered the world of Scuba and Sue, of clickers and rewards, the Levels and the most powerful "one liners" ever read.

The two of us attended our first seminar and then a second and then a third. We became Levels "groupies". We began at Level One, explaining to our traditionally trained, middle-aged dogs to volunteer behaviors, to never again fear they were doing something wrong, to be In the Game and the fun of teamwork and training.

It was a difficult road for Shayla and me. Shayla has IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) and is not food driven. So we went slowly, learning this new way of communicating together. The bond was there. We had been a working team for quite a while. We stumbled and we soared.

We met Sue and Scuba and, eventually, little Stitch. We found the Training Levels list. And we haven't looked back since.

Now, almost five years later, Lily has come into our lives. What a joy to have a purely Levels trained pup! Thank you, Shayla, for helping me to learn with you so that when Lily joined us, we were ready to start on page 1 of Stitch's Blog and train day by day and step by step in Sue's footsteps.

Now my bookshelf holds not only The Book of Training Levels but Stitch's Blog, The Llama Training Manual, and Steps for Service: Training Levels for Freedom Dogs (a training manual for service dogs that Sue wrote for Freedom Dogs, a new service dog school where I am a trainer). Imagine the wonder! A Levels trained service dog organization!

Shayla is retired now. If she wants to train, we train. If she doesn't, we don't. When Lily and I are working, she sometimes participates but, more often than not, she just wanders through the training scene......watching or even waiting to receive a treat just for being there.

Lily, however, is my wonder pup! She has learned how to learn.  And to think. And to problem solve. She volunteers behaviors joyfully and thinks life is all one big game (Well, it IS, isn't it?) She is a Level 6 dog, has passed her CGC and her Public Access Tests and is working vested. She is the most natural retriever. And she is all Weimaraner. Two and a half and ALL enthusiastic puppy! All 72 pounds of her.

Lily and I will never tire of training and learning. As we continue our adventure together, we will continue documenting our training with the Flip camcorder and now we hope to blog from time to time as well. Lily has begun training with a new Freedom Dogs trainer, starting back at Level One. Working for someone else, a man and on his RIGHT SIDE is a new challenge. I will be writing more on this in later posts.

So that's our story.