When I started to do "Puppy Push Ups" with Sia today, she looked at me like, "You're kidding, that's kids' stuff." Puppy push ups are exercises you do with puppies when they are first learning their sits and downs. Going quickly between the different commands helps the puppy get into those positions from a variety of positions (frequently "stand" is thrown into the mix as well). Clearly Sia already knows these well.
But now that she's a little bit older, we can through some twists and turns in to make it more challenging for her. This will fit in perfectly with what we've been working on over the last week and a half!
Now we can work on in with distractions nearby. Not only that, but we can interrupt play and ask for a quick down, sit, down, sit, down and then release. Sinbad is happy to be the distraction because he knows he will get to play with her when she is released to play. It's hard work, but someone has to do it.
Sia and Chase can also do their push ups in tandem. Clever girl...
And we can do group push ups. So it's not just exercises to do with the very young but, with a few twists, it can increase the level of difficulty to an appropriate level. Sia is becoming so much more responsive even when there are a lot of distracting things going on.
Of course, let's not forget a nice play session with Chase to reward everyone for their good, hard work!
Sia says "None of that baby stuff for my leash walking!" Sia is doing great with her leash skills. She walks very nicely right next to me giving me lots of really nice eye contact. There are times when it is difficult for her to walk towards something (like walking up to my house when she first gets here) but a few quick little u-turns helps to remind her where she is suppose to be.
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