We had another successful day at Tilley Farm today. We held the annual Maremma show, which was judged by Frank Kane who was just lovely. The Maremma is a rare working breed of sheepdog originating in Central Italy, and our older bitch, Orsa, won Best Veteran and a shining, sparkling trophy now adorns my office shelf. The day was fantastic and jolly good fun. It was great to see so many Maremmas at the farm. Our adolescent Maremma, Léo, did not participate in the event as it would have been a big ask for a young guardian dog to be focused with so many people and dogs on his property, but after an early morning walk with Cookie Dough he settled in the garden and did not get too wound up with all the coming and going.

His behaviour around the horses and donkeys is almost perfect now. His teenage brain is finally engaging and the daily clicker training and TTouch sessions are definitely paying off. I was recently asked to comment on the use of aversive techniques when training dogs and my words were "if you do not have time to train a dog using positive reinforcement, don’t own a dog." Léo’s lunging and barking at my horses had got totally out of hand, due in part to his age, but probably also due to my absence from the farm for the first six months of the year. Had I punished him for his unruly behaviour I would have broken the trust he has in me, destroyed our relationship and it would have probably made his behaviour far worse.