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Puppy Fun and Focus - Week 2

What have we done in class? The most important thing today was rewarding our pups for choosing to look at us. This is something you can't do enough. Naturally you will get a more focused dog that looks at you for guidance and who doesn't want that!?

We have also worked on teaching our pups the positions SIT, DOWN, STAND. For now we were just luring as we don’t want to name it ‘til we love it. We will explain how to get from luring to 'having a behaviour on cue'.

And of course we had a Socialisation Session where the pups got to practise their play styles. Keep in mind that we offer weekly Socialisation Sessions, every Saturday where we have different groups of pups socialise with each other and the different humans around. There are 3 supervisors to ensure the pups have a happy experience. Flick us a message if you'd like to sign up for this Saturday.

Enjoy the videos and explanations of week 2.

Very important info to read in order to understand how training will be done

YES-Marker, open the PDF, consider printing it for the family.

Default Eye Contact

If you want a dog that walks nicely on a loose lead, this is the homework you want to really nail:

1. Since this is the foundation for our lead walking exercise next week, please pick the side that you want to have your puppy on when you are walking. It doesn’t matter if you prefer the left or the right side. Choose what side you’d like your puppy to walk on, but don’t do any walking yet.

2. Hold the end of lead in the opposite hand to your lead walking side stationary against your body.

3. Wait for a DEFAULT eye contact which means you are not asking for it, but you just wait. Keep looking at your puppy, so you don’t miss the moment.

4. When our puppy makes eye-contact, mark it with a ‘Yes’.

5. Now manœuvre yourself next to your puppy, so they are aligned next to you like little Otis in the video. Do not pull your puppy in position, you just move around.

6. Then give your puppy a treat from the hand that is not holding the lead. Face the hand backwards like Otis’ dad does in the video, so puppy doesn’t need to leave the position next to you to eat.

7. Don’t move and start again with Step 3 until your puppy is acing this exercise. What does acing look like? They are sitting/standing next to you without moving around and offer one eye contact after the other.

Once your pup is acing the exercise don’t make it harder but instead practise in a slightly harder environment until they ace it there and then increase the difficulty of the environment again and again.

Sit/Down/Stand

We lure our pups into the position. Remember to always reward from the other hand, so we can fade the lure out quickly. Please do NOT use molding instead of luring: pushing the pup’s bum down is not okay and will also put the behaviour on the wrong cue.

PLEASE NOTE: In this video Lisa is giving the lure. These dogs know the exercise already without a lure, so it doesn’t matter too much, but you should always reward from the other hand so your pup gets used to not needing a lure.

We won’t be practising this exercise in class, but we can’t stress enough how important it is to work on this as much as you can. And who doesn’t like to train their dogs while watching a movie? ;p

Apart from this on-lead exercise you also want to work on giving constructional affection when your pups are chill. If they are relaxing somewhere you could walk up to them and sometimes just calmly put a treat down and leave and sometimes kneel next to them and see if they’d like a cuddle. They might not, so it’s important you wait for the invite.

See you all for week 3. :)