Happy Thanksgiving! We are grateful for our family, our friends, our health, our country and so many more things, including our now 5-month-old puppy, Ted. So, onto puppy training...
We have been consistently working on the "down" command with Ted. Our trainer demonstrated the technique in class with the dog on a leash. She says the command one time and waits until the dog responds. Some take a short amount of time...others longer. I remember this from training our Beagle 15 years ago. He took over 20 minutes to respond. He was very obstinate, but he eventually became well trained. I had an hour blocked out of my schedule to work with Ted. We started. Ted laid down in under a minute! Rewarding him with praise was no problem...I was thrilled and thankful for the short time. I wondered if he would do it again so easily so I tried it several times over the last couple weeks. He repeats it easily again and again. Good boy, Ted!
On a side note, I decided to work with our older dog, Alicia, a little. She was well trained but we've slacked off over the years and haven't asked much of her. She was a little more difficult with the down command. It can take 3-5 minutes for her to comply, but she will do it. I guess we need more practice.
I watched our trainer tell a dog "Bang, Bang" to have him roll over and play dead. It struck me as really cute so I decided to try it with Ted. I first named the command when he was in the proper position. Later, I gave him the command "Bang, Bang." It took him about 5 minutes to comply and then I got only partial compliance (rolled halfway over) so I didn't give him a treat. Finally, after another 5 minutes he got it right so I rewarded him with a treat. He has repeated it 3 more times now, but he still delays and I have to wait him out. That being said, I think it will be worth the wait. My kids think it's adorable.
I am pleased to report that Ted will listen off lead in the house and yard. Tonight, we were downstairs and I asked him to go up with the kids. I was staying down to do some laundry and he was starting to get into trouble. He didn't immediately comply (and he was off lead), so I stalked him until he finally went upstairs with the girls. Just now, he was outside for his last potty of the night. I called him inside. He started heading to his doggie bed outside on the deck. I stared at him until he came inside. I would say he's making good progress, at least in a familiar setting without distractions.
Earlier in the week, he was in the bedroom with us. The bedrooms have baby gates on them, so he has to be invited in. He started to get into trouble, so I pointed to the gate and told him "out." He went right out. We also stopped him from whining or barking at the gates by shaking a penny can when he was being a pest. Prior to that, he would cry at Abby's gate very early in the morning when he wanted her to get up and play. She thought it was cute...the rest of us, not so much!
Ted still needs quite a bit of help walking and I haven't been very good at practicing with him. Here's my confession...I hate being cold. I know, I need to suck it up and walk the dog. It will happen as I am determined to have a well behaved dog.
Our next training item for Ted will be the Christmas tree, which goes up on Friday. Stay tuned and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!
Ann
