Puppy Fun & Focus Class - Week 2
Hi everyone,
I hope you enjoyed the first session. A bit of insecurities and craziness is normal, but you are doing really well! You can see why long lasting chews definitely help you and your pups in class or situations like being in a cafe.
Let's have a look at this week's videos:
Helping our pups to settle on their mat
If our pups learn at home to settle on their mat, it will be a lot easier for them to do it in other environments as well. At the beginning they don't have to lay down on the mat yet. Just being on the mat should feel really rewarding for them. Have them on there for their sleep-times as well, while you are watching TV for instance and remember that if you have told your pup to go on their mat, you should also be the one releasing them. At this point that release should come pretty quick to make sure we are not setting our pup up to fail.
Playing with the toy
Use your special toy and make sure you play enough to really teach your pup how much fun the toy and you are. Let your puppy win, otherwise play is never rewarding. We will do DROP later on in class.
Instant reward and "punishment" to teach not to jump
Be consistent with yourself, your visitors and strangers on the street. Don't set your pup up to fail. Strangers should completely ignore your dog and visitors need to ignore until dog is calm. Ideally we insist on a sitting dog for any attention.
Sit plus teaching release-command
The goal is to gradually increase the freezing time and then get away from freezing because our pups actually understand the word "Okay".
WATCH
We want to be able to get our pup's undivided attention in any environment. So, we start in an easy environment and ask for just a few seconds of watch and then we gradually increase the time the pup needs to look at us and gradually also the difficulty of the environment.
Introducing the lead to the walking training
Remember to do little sessions of lead-walking and only take it as far out of your driveway as your dog can handle. If your dog isn't focused on you and drags you to the park you are reinforcing wrong behaviour. You can drive your dog to the park in the meantime or not go to the park and practise lead-walking up and down your driveway with play sessions in-between. That's just as tiring but a lot more beneficial. Don't reprimand your dog for pulling. Our goal is for your dog to CHOOSE being next to you. No-one chooses being next to someone that hurts them.
What to know about distractions
This video shows beautifully why we need to practise in easy environments first and very gradually make it harder. We can't go from our living room into a busy park and expect our dogs to be good. That is setting them and ourselves up to fail.
Please keep socialising and use the Positive Interrupter on a regular basis (gradually in more challenging environments). See you next week.