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.