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.
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