November 2019 -- Day Four

A little morning romp with a puppy who just here for a short time this morning.

She does play better and gets a little more energy out with the puppies vs. the adults so this was a good opportunity for us to get some energy out right off the bat.

Asking for a periodic sit or a down during play helps her to bring her arousal levels down.

It also teaches her to go from that high energy state to a controlled state quickly.

We're teaching her to turn her energy on and off quickly.

I expect her to be high energy and I expect her to need to burn it off...

But there are times when I need her to pull it together quickly.

We're reinforcing the behavior we want when she is greeting someone. She may be excited to see the person but we really need her to be under control when she does.

Building in that self-control into all aspects of her life helps her get in the habit of sitting for what she wants.

And she starts to look to her people for guidance because they hold the key to her getting what she wants.

There is a time and place for being energetic and playful.

We definitely want to give her outlets for that. But it's a balance between exercise and self-control exercises to help her learn to be calm. If all we did was exercise her, she would only learn to be at that high energy state, not the calm, under control state.

She's real good at the full mouth inspections of Bug.

He's tolerant but will look away when he's done.

We're adding more and more distance to her recalls.

I'm still at a distance where I could get to her quickly if she didn't respond. I want to avoid repeating "come, come, COME" because she will just learn to tune me out. I want to only say it one time and have her respond.

If I didn't have the enclosed area where I could get to her easily, a long line works really well.

We practice regularly because a huge part of her success with recalls is her reinforcement history with us.

Our recalls are only as good as the amount we have rewarded her previously for her recalls.

If I only use her recall when something really exciting is happening, she's going to have a hard time responding. Recalls should be a regular part of her life and they should always be rewarded.

Whenever possible, I release her to go play again after she comes to me. This makes that reward even more powerful. She not only gets praise and rewards for coming but she also might even get to go play again.

That starts to change that recall from something that she has to do to something she really wants to do.

You become part of the fun and not the one who is going to end the fun.

Even taking a break to work on basic obedience during play becomes a fun thing for her to do.

Anything to earn a treat, for sure!

Lots of opportunities to reinforce that calm behavior in the midst of distractions.

We can use an enclosed area to work on her loose leash skills, too. We'll do some practice on leash and some off leash. When we are teaching loose leash walking, we are really telling our dogs to walk nicely next to us, regardless of the leash. So, practicing without the leash and reinforcing her for walking nicely next to us reinforces those good leash skills. It's also a very useful skill to have if you are out on the trail and need your dog to walk beside you.

We start out in low distraction environments so we can teach her what behavior we want. I pat my leg and talk to her to encourage her to walk next to me. As she is doing that, I'm rewarding her for walking right next to me. She only gets rewards if she is in the correct position so it pays off for her to pay attention to where I'm at and where I am moving to.

I make quick turns and keep my pace fast so she has to really pay attention.

It also makes it a little more exciting for her.

When I stop, I lure her into a sit so she knows she is still on task.

And I reward her for being in that position.

 I use the same rules when she's on leash. First, self-control to get the leash on.

My leash is loose, she needs to do the work to stay in position.

"Let's go!" and we are off and moving.

If there are distractions ahead, this is a good position to have her in so we can just work on attention as the distraction passes.

 This helps teach her to pay attention to us even when there are a lot of exciting things going on around her.

It's more important to work on attention then it is to try to walk past a distraction with her pulling on leash or ignoring you if she is off leash. We have to start, though, in easier situations and slowly increase the distraction level so she is responding better.