December 2019 -- Day Two

 We kept up our practice of rewarding her automatic sits for greetings. She's not quite ready to go without reinforcement for this one.

 If she is not getting rewarded at least periodically, she'll try other behaviors to see what works and it's probably not going to be a behavior that we want her to do.

 Really, any chance we have to reinforce calm, under control behavior, we want to jump on that. Even 10 minutes a day, scattered throughout the day will go a long way towards Margot being less impulsive.

 We practice in different locations and under different circumstances. Whether I am busy reading, cooking in the kitchen, eating a meal, etc., it's a great opportunity to practice her stays.

The more she gets use to the movement around her, the better able she will be to handle exciting things in her environment.

 All of this helps her prepare for greetings, mealtimes, and just calmer behavior in the house.

 As she gets better, I can slow down on my rewards but I'll increase the frequency if I'm increasing the difficulty.

 As I am opening the door or knocking on the door, I'm rewarding throughout that process.

 We're teaching her to be more settled when those exciting things are happening.

 We practice without the Treat & Train, too. We'll eventually wean off of the Treat & Train altogether but, for now, it helps up speed up the training process and helps us get through some of those really challenging behaviors for her.

 I just have to get in there quickly with the rewards if we are doing it without the Treat & Train. If I deliver the treat low and fast, she's less likely to get up to get the treat.

 We worked on a variety of surfaces with her temptation exercises. While she did try to counter surf a couple of times of the last few days, she was much better than her last visit and she did really well with her temptation exercises.

 She easily sat and patiently waited for me to reward her.

 If her counter surfing is continuing at home, it's a good idea to practice this periodically. You need to act swiftly, though. If she goes for the temptation, quickly whisk it away and you are done with the exercise. Dogs need to know right away that a behavior caused something good to go away.

 She did good giving up items she had in her mouth and we did practice more trades for treats.

 If we are playing with her and ask her to drop the toy...

 I put the toy behind my back...

 Reward her....

 And give her the toy back. This helps her learn to give up items easily because she's getting a lot of good in return.

 This girl had to kiss all her friends goodbye on her last day.

 She did so well responding even when she was running full force with her friends.

 It was a good opportunity to build in those self-control exercises. From high energy to under control, fast.

 We'll keep reinforcing that so she learns to bring that energy level down fast.

She is doing so well offering all her good behaviors. She just needs a little more continued reinforcement to keep her headed in the right direction. So much fun to have her back here!

December 2019 -- Day One

Welcome back, Margot! Everyone was very excited to see her and she was pretty happy to be back here.

We'll start out her stay right by getting some good exercise in. It's really our best hope for getting some good work done.

We'll warm up with some recall, too. I want to make sure she is responding well and listening even though she is really excited.

As fast as she was to run off with the other dogs, she was equally fast to respond to me when I called her to come.

Those good results are the culmination of all the practice.

It's fresh in her mind how rewarding the recall can be.

She knows each and every time she gets rewarded for it.

Her polite greetings will be an ongoing work in progress. She's so social and such a bouncy girl. It takes a lot of repetition for her to figure out that sitting works better than jumping.

It's an easy thing to reward throughout the day. It can just be her kibble from her meals or additional treats. She's so busy here, we just use additional treats.

That was a nice break in play with a little self-control built in, now I can release her to go play again.

It helps her willingness to comply when she understands that it doesn't mean she is going to miss out on the fun.

We know we are on the right track when she things we are just as fun as everything that is happening around her.

Thanks for that random check in, Margot! I'll definitely capture that behavior and reward it.

It's the best of both worlds for her.

Much like the recall, using the Treat & Train only works if you have practiced with it in increasingly more challenging situations. We're conditioning her to stay on the mat so, if we started out at the hardest level, she wouldn't have the history of rewards to tell her that staying on the mat was more rewarding than what was happening at the front door or at the dinner table.

We can get her use to us moving away from her....

Little by little getting farther and farther away while rewarding her for staying. If we were doing this without the Treat & Train, I would have to return to her to reward her every time. I can reward much more frequently with the remote and help her progress through the stay much more quickly.

I can add in the distractions of opening the front door. My door is less exciting for her than your front door so it might be harder at home. She has a lot of history with her own front door of fun people coming to the house or leaving to go to some fun place. It's important to work with the front door when no one is there because it starts her out at a level that she can be successful at. If we only tried to use this at the highest level of excitement for her, we don't have the reinforcement history to make it worth her while to stay.

In the meantime, I keep adding distractions to help her learn to stay.

There are two buttons on the remote. The "Dispense" button just dispenses a treat when you click on it. The "Down Stay" button will automatically dispense the treats at the intervals that you have selected for about 2 minutes total.

You can set the intervals between rewards for the "Down Stay" option. So, in the beginning, we might want to set the interval low but, as she improves, we can set it for a little longer in between rewards. In the beginning, I might set it at a Fixed rate of reinforcement but eventually we want to move towards a Variable rate of reinforcement so she's not anticipating when the treat will come.

If you don't have the Treat & Train ready and someone is at the door, having her on leash offers some control so she's not inadvertently getting reinforced for bad manners at the door.

Stepping on the leash allows her to sit comfortable but also allows me to open the door.

This is something I practice when there are no guests as well. She needs to understand what behavior is expected of her before the excitement of someone being at the front door.

Now I'm free to open the door while I am rewarding her for staying in position.

She looks like she is ready to break so I can just say her name to get her back to me.

If she pulls it together, we can remain at the front door.

And I will reward throughout.

If not, we make a quick exit explaining to the person that I need to put her in her crate and will be right back. That way she doesn't learn that she can still greet the person when she is out of control.