Cojanne is a Eurasier owned by SEA member Giò Taddei, who takes Dobo classes with her teacher, Siria Palazzo, a 3* degree instructor in Italy. Siria wrote an article for the Italian Eurasier Club newsletter in 2021, and Giò has kindly shared it with us.
Dog Balance, also known as ‘Dobo’, has a lot of physical benefits, but it also helps emotionally. That’s right. It is a discipline that is truly suitable for everyone, dogs of all ages, of any size, of any breed, or otherwise.
I have had and am lucky enough to work with Cojanne, a wonderful Eurasier female, a breed still not very common in Italy.
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| Cojanne at her DOBO class |
“Cojanne, what struck me when you entered the gym, in addition to your beauty, which is unquestionable, was your gaze, which had so much distrust, but was also open to a lot of curiosity so as to understand where you were, what were all those coloured balls, and to me, as I was moving and handling the gear.
Carlo, your owner, presented you as a dog wary of people, reluctant to do new things; especially if you don’t like them, and don’t see the point in them. From there I said to myself: “A new experience begins for both of us”…
You approached the Dog Balance Fit for the first time, and I was confronted with a breed that I had never worked with before. There, we were tuned from the first moment; we had given ourselves space to get to know each other, understand each other, and like each other… And then, off we go, we started working.
The beginning of our work started right from the baseline, I built you low, ad hoc proprioceptive sensory paths to put you a little on the edge, and try to figure out your body knowledge, your skills, your temperament, your challenges and your ways of overcoming them. You used your physical abilities and intelligence to face everything, but avoided what you did not like; and I, more stubborn than you, knowing that you could do it without any problem, I urged you to persist until you got over that mistrust.
Every new Dog Balance Fit lesson with you has always added progress, each time increasing the difficulty, so that you bring out the best skills and knowledge of your body, where you must focus on yourself, your movements, and your trust in me.
What you take home at the end of each lesson is great results, because you face new things; first with your hesitant approach, but then you put your distrust aside, you believe it, and you know you can do it. Not only do you perform the proposed exercise, but you also perform it very well, as you have since the first moment, bringing home really good results.
I really believe that the Dog Balance Fit is also helping you to deal with different things in everyday life, managing situations that bring you unease, and you overcome them with the skills you have acquired, and the greater self-esteem that this wonderful discipline gives you.
We still have a long way to go, and new challenges to face together.”
By Siria Palazzo, Cojanne's DOBO trainer
