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!