ClickerExpo Nashville and Cadence Turns Three!

Wow, April’s been kind of a blur, and I’m so far behind in documenting our adventures that I’m not sure where to begin.  The biggest event of the last month was our third annual trip to ClickerExpo with Cadence and Maebe, this time held in Nashville, TN.  As always, this long weekend was a wonderful experience filled with learning opportunities, meeting interesting new people, and sharing quality time with the two dogs.

This year as always we attended a wide variety of seminars, on everything from protocols for modifying aggression by Ken Ramirez, to training a formal retrieve with Michele Pouliot.  Cadence and Maebe got to work in a couple Learning Labs, and I was thrilled with how well Cadence is able to work in a distracting environment now.  He was a superstar in both the platform training lab and the retrieve lab.  It helped that I had finally succeeded in teaching him a formal retrieve in the couple months preceding the conference so he was a bit of a ringer, but I was proud nonetheless. 

As always you learn so much at ClickerExpo, it makes your head spin.  Too much to write about in one post, though I am sure the gems of wisdom I picked up over the weekend will influence further musings on this blog. 

We opened each morning with a lovely run along the Cumberland River with the dogs, and a nice multi-purpose trail just a few miles from the hotel. 

And, this year at ClickerExpo we had even more reason to celebrate, as we were there during my “puppy” Cadence’s third birthday.  Three years of being hopelessly smitten for a furry black and white Noodle.  I joke that next time I need to pick the ugliest, plainest, most boring looking dog I can find so I stand half a chance of not being totally wrapped around his little paw every time I look at him.  I was doomed from the start . . .