Puppy Fun and Focus - Week 1
Watch the seminar here
The seminar is 1 hour 15 minutes long and covers crucial basics on how to set your puppy up for success in regards to toilet training, jumping, nipping, destruction, socialisation, stimulation and other topics.
It is obligatory to watch the seminar in order to participate in the Q&A sessions at the beginning of class!
What to know for Week 2
Don't feed your puppy 1 1/2 hours before class as driving in the car can upset their tummies and they will be more responsive to treats if they are not full. Remember to bring venison chewie, a filled Kong or similar long lasting food rewards and tons of little treats (which you can also buy at the location).
Remember not to overdo exercises. We will often split up to practise something and the trainer comes around to one pup after the other to see how things are going and give further advise. Please use the time that they are not with you to play with your puppy and to take them outside for toilet stops. If your pup makes a toilet mistake inside, please let the trainer know, so they can clean and disinfect properly.
Read the following and watch the videos as preparation for next week:
TREATS
o It is up to our dogs to decide if something is an actual reward or not! So, you have to know your dog and see if they’re working "enthusiastically" or not. If they’re distracted, sniffing around, taking the treat without really paying attention to you and going back to their business it means that the value of the treat is not high enough.
o Make it worth working with/for you. Always have the yummiest mixture of treats, especially when dealing with fear, but also when dealing with distractions.
o What are good options? Cooked chicken, cheese, sausages, ham, any other meaty yummy stuff from the supermarket. Happy Pet Freeze Dried Venison Heart from us, Ziwi Peak (the food rather than the treats as it’s cheaper) and Orijen cat food from pet.co.nz. Their Addiction treat range also sounds good although we haven’t tried that one yet.
o What needs to stay home? Your normal kibble, highly processed supermarket treats, massive treats that can’t be broken up.
o Make treats pea sized and have them prepared before the training session. They need to be kept handy, either in a treat pouch or bum bag or easily accessible pocket.
Very important info to read in order to understand how training will be done
Reflex to name
Remember what was shown in the seminar in regards to making the response to the pup's name a reflex. We need about 2500 repetitions of the classical conditioned name calling for it to start working. So, please repeat this all the time.
What to do? Have a bunch of treats on you and randomly throughout the day (whatever the pup is doing, standing, laying, sniffing, sleeping, sitting) say their name in a recognisably fun way and within 2 seconds after deliver a treat to their mouth. VERY IMPORTANT EXERCISE!
First Name - Treat After!
resource guarding PREvention
We never want our pups to feel threatened around their resources (regular food, treats, bones, chewies, beds, toys, etc.). In order to prevent issues from coming up we want to put certain exercises in place.
Feed your pups by hand. Half a meal per day for the first week and then half a meal per week for the next few months.
Don't take valuable things off them, especially not in a threatening way. You can ask them to 'Leave it' if they haven't picked it up yet or 'Drop' if they have (you can't ask this yet as we first need to train it, but once you have the tools you want to practise those cue heaps). For now you want to make the environment very puppy proof, teach your pups to bring things to you by dropping hight and encouraging them in a fun way. Worst case you swap the pup for a bunch of ridiculously yummy treats. Don't start chasing. That's scary for the pup or fun and not to be encouraged.
When your pup is having a meal you can walk over to their bowl and add something even yummier into it, so they learn you approaching their food is a good thing.
Once the last exercise has been repeated in about 5-10 sessions (depending how happy your pup is with you approaching their food) you can then pick the bowl up add something more delicious to it than their usual food and pop the bowl down again. Again, your pup is learning it's worth it letting you take the food away.
You want to watch for the following signs that will show that your pup isn't confident: 1. pup speeds up eating, 2. pup freezes, 3. pup curls lip or growls. Talk to me if this is the case.
See you and your pups at week 2. We are looking forward to meeting everyone. :)