Day 5 - Prepping for the Holiday and More

Sia works on her retrieve every other day. It's a process that she seems to enjoy quite a bit but it can also be very stressful for a dog so I want to make sure we're going at a nice, easy pace. This will help her have a much more solid foundation too. But all this hard work has another benefit...it also serves to burn off some of her energy. Anything where a dog is having to use her brain to think and process things is going to help with her energy level. And Sia has a lot of energy. As we are getting prepped for the upcoming holiday, I want to make sure she is well exercised before we join in on the festivities.

Sia helped me with food prep for tomorrow. This was also our practice time to make sure Sia is keeping her paws off the counters, especially when there will be a lot of food on the tables. She gets lots of rewards when she make appropriate choices in the kitchen and around the dining room table. We've been putting in some extra effort on her jumping as well. There will be new people and new dogs for her to interact with tomorrow and I want to make sure she is behaving politely. I will instruct everyone before they meet her how to handle it if she jumps. Anyone touching or talking to her when she jumps will just reinforce that behavior. I want everyone to ignore her and turn away. The more people do this, the faster she will learn that jumping on people does not pay off for her.

I also want to make sure she is giving clear signals when she needs to go to the bathroom so we don't have any accidents. If I can't keep my eyes on her throughout the evening, I'll put her in a kennel so she doesn't go to the bathroom in the house. She gives pretty clear signals (circling at the door, whining, and pacing) but if I get distracted, I might miss those signs. But I also know her schedule pretty well now so it's my responsibility to get her outside when I think she might need to go to the bathroom.

So we'll continue with all our normal lessons tomorrow and have the added benefit of some extra socialization in the evening. I think Sia will do well and she'll enjoy visiting with new people and new dogs (although I think she's still hoping for a kiss from Sinbad at midnight).

Day 4 -- Self Control vs. Drive

It's a fine balancing act between teaching self-control and encouraging drive to work. Sia has great drive so we don't want to squash that at all. But she needs a little fine-tuning on her self-control. This is very normal for a puppy her age. I can use the environment and natural consequences to help teach her. For instance, when she is excited about her dinner, I stop preparing the meal if she puts her feet on the counter or on me. I stop and step away from the food. She will quickly pull it together and sit to get me to continue preparing the meal. If I go to let her out of her crate and she paws at the door, I close the door and stand up. When she is calm and not demanding, I can let her out. Sia is learning to "say please" for a lot of things she wants by sitting. Sit to go out, sit for a meal, sit before playing with other dogs, etc. She's learning that by having a little bit of self-control, she gets a lot of things that she wants.

She is progressing well with her "leave it" exercises. She will leave a pile of treats on the floor but I'm going to keep my hand close by to cover it up in case she dives for it. I don't want her to get reinforced for eating things off the floor. This is particularly important for a working dog. First, I don't want her pulling on the leash to get food off the floor. Second, not all food is ok to eat. Lastly, people do not want to see working dogs eating food off the floor when in public. If it is just a treat I dropped on the floor and she leaves it, I will pick up that treat and reward her with it. It takes a lot of self-control for dogs to leave food items so it's good to heavily reward them for that.

On the flip side, we want Sia to be enthusiastic to work. I really like to see enthusiasm with recalls. She is starting to come much faster when I call her and she can come even when she is playing with another dog. We'll continue to build on this until she can come in times of really high distraction.

A really nice side effect from our recall work is that Sia is starting to check in with me even when she is playing with another dog. I'm going to reward any random check in I get from her because I want her to be really tuned into her people. It's a big deal when a dog chooses to check in with you when there are other fun things happening in the environment. This is particularly important for Sia as she tends to be a bit distracted and we want her very focused on her work.

Day 3 -- Out and About

Sia is doing great with her attention work. She is responding really well when I call her name by looking at me no matter what is going on around her. I am careful to only say her name once and, if she doesn't look at me, I am sure to follow up with her. I want her to know that she needs to look at me when I say her name no matter what. Things that can distract a dog are movement, odor, sound or touch but I can also use those things to get her attention back on me when I've lost it. If she doesn't look at me, I might tap on her hip to get her attention or I might make some noise to get her attention. If it's a really distracting environment, I use something a little more enticing for her like the smell of a tasty treat. It was important for Sia to be able to respond to her name well so we could move on to some socialization in some moderately distracting environments.

Sia is a little uncomfortable when we go into new environments or there is a lot of traffic noise. She shows me that she is uncomfortable by shaking off (a sign of stress) and darting around. When she is like this, I step off to the side where it's less stressful for her and work on getting her attention. It's an easy task for her to complete and it gives her something to do when she's a little nervous. I also want to teach her to look to her handler for direction if she is ever uncomfortable. At her age it's important to get her out and expose her to different things but I want to be very careful that I am not pushing her too far too fast. I'm not going to ask a lot of her in this situation. I just want her to get comfortable in the new environment.

We're practicing her leash skills in low distraction environments right now because she is a little stressed with traffic or in new environments. Right now we're taking baby steps with the leash walking and trying to get a really solid start to her foundation. It's really important that she does not pull on the leash. This could knock someone over who was unsteady on their feet...especially when she gets bigger. So we are practicing walking across a room without pulling. I don't want to practice this on a larger scale yet because we would never get very far and I want her to be successful. I will never take a step forward if she gets ahead of me on the leash. Walking ahead or pulling on the leash can be very rewarding for a dog. It's almost like giving them a cookie for pulling every time you take a step forward while the leash is tight.

This week is going to be all rain so we're looking at fun things to do in the house to keep Sia entertained. Play is a really important part of training. It's rewarding, it relieves stress, and it releases energy. We always make sure to take breaks in our training to play. I also want a lot of that play to be between humans and Sia (as opposed to by herself or with other dogs). I want Sia to know that all good things come from her people so she is really keyed into her handler and enjoys working with her handler.

Day 1 & 2 -- Settling In

Sweet little Sia is settling in well. She was pretty excited to be in a new environment with new dogs. So the first couple of days we have spent a lot of time working on attention (look at me when I say your name), eye contact (continue looking at me no matter what is going on around you), and self control. All of these skills are an important foundation to everything else she is learning. If she can't pay attention or gets distracted easily, it doesn't really matter how good she is at her other skills.

In addition to teaching Sia to pay attention, we are also starting to teach her to respond during higher levels of distraction. We started at with pretty mild distractions like Sia sniffing the group and we'll work our way up to more and more distracting environments. Practicing recalls (coming when called) in distracting environments is a good way to teach Sia to be enthusiastic about responding no matter what is going on. When I call Sia to come, I use my voice to encourage her and I also move backwards from her making it more exciting for her. When she gets to me, I give her one small piece of treat after the other of something really tasty. I want it to really pay off for her to come to me and I also want her to stick with me for a little bit instead of taking off right after she comes to me.

It's also really important for Sia to feel confident in whatever she does. She was pretty nervous about my wood stairs. She may be exposed to stairs in her every day life, but a lot of dogs need to be exposed to all different types of stairs in order to be really comfortable on them. One of the ways I teach dogs to be comfortable on stairs is to carry them almost to the bottom and let them walk down the last few steps. This allows them to have success and build up confidence on the stairs. The next time I take her on the stairs, I will carry her a little bit shorter distance so she has to complete a few more stairs in order to get to the bottom. This worked great and by day two she was running up and down the stairs without hesitation.

Exposing the dogs to different surfaces, stairs, environments, etc. is an important part of socializing a dog. They also need to be exposed to trustworthy dogs and have good interactions with other dogs. The adult dogs in my house are great with puppies. They set boundaries with them, teach them appropriate interactions, and they do not over correct the puppies. Sinbad is willing to share his toys with Sia but if she does something that is inappropriate in the dog world (like putting her paws on him), he will tell her its not ok by barking at her. I can also use these interactions to work on distractions with Sia. She should be able to respond to my requests even if she is playing with other dogs.

We're starting the beginning process of some of her new commands like "Bed." I'm first going to teach her the action of going to her bed and then I will work on getting her more settled into it so we can build a good stay. Once she has learned the action and has a little bit of a stay, I can start to teach her to go to her bed from a distance. With all training it should be broken into small steps and not rushed in order to build a nice, solid foundation.

Teaching a retrieve is a a process that can take several months. It's important to not rush through or skip steps so it will be a useful skill when she has matured and potentially starts to work. I will start to teach her an informal fetch to help build up enthusiasm for retrieving items and also to use as a reward or stress reliever. I make sure I'm fully prepared for the session (tasty treats all cut up very small and ready to go) before I start. I keep Sia on a leash while we are working on it so she doesn't wander off and I make sure there are not many distractions in the room while she is learning. Sia does like to gather shoes so I want to make sure that she is never corrected for that. I don't want to discourage her retrieving at all so I just trade her a treat for the shoe and thank her (this is also part of teaching "drop"). Then I make sure my closet door is shut so she doesn't get into my shoes again. I do put some unusual objects in the toy basket that she is allowed to get into. Some are metal items and other things that are sometimes difficult for dogs to have in their mouth. Allowing her to play with these items makes introducing them in the retrieve later on much easier.