If You Just Need a Plan!

I worked with a wonderful client over the weekend who told me that she just needed a training plan for her new dog.  She likened it to the workout program her personal trainer gave her for getting back into shape. She said what she really wanted, and hoped I could provide, was a simple outline of what she should be doing everyday with her dog to make sure he was headed in the right direction.  She indicated, too, that she'd tried to find simple guidelines like this online, but ended up down a rabbit hole of suggestions and exercises, some of which she was pretty sure weren't good for her dog! So, when I told her she really just needed to put in about 5-10 minutes a day to reach her goals for her dog, she was ecstatic!  This was something she could commit to and she took out a notebook to write down the plan.  Here's what I told her:

1.  Work everyday on the important behaviors you need your dog to reliably do.  Run through them quickly and efficiently, kind of like stretching before you go for a run.  Then spend the remainder of your training with your dog working on a new/fun skill/behavior.

2.  The basic behaviors I think every dog should be able to do reliably:  sit, down, stay, stand, come, drop it, leave it, and walk nicely on leash.  My client's dog had reliable sits and downs, but that was about it.  So, we worked together on luring him into the other behaviors.  I showed her how to turn leave it and drop it into a game so her dog would be more likely to comply rather than resist giving up treasured things he finds.  And for the loose leash walking, I told her to work indoors, sans leash, luring her dog using treats and her voice FIRST, before moving outdoors with a leash and trying the same techniques.

3.  The list of behaviors I gave her for adding in fun/new skills:  touch, bow, turn, through, back it up, sit up, dance, spin, speak, whisper, flop, and roll over. I then had Henley demonstrate each of those skills for her!  He did each skill twice, once for her to observe, and once for her to see how I got the behavior in the first place.  

4.  Don't get frustrated!  Rome wasn't built in a day, as my grandmother used to say.  It might take her dog weeks to get through just the basics and that's absolutely okay!  But, even if he's still struggling with the basics, she should introduce something new and fun every day to try, learning how to keep his brain engaged and keep herself motivated.

5.  Always end on a positive note.  Regardless of how that 5-10 minute session went, always end the session with something easy or fun that your dog will be 100% successful doing, even if it's "just a sit."  Because, you know what?  A dog who can sit still, even for just a few seconds, has potential and that should be rewarded and celebrated!

We will be meeting again in two weeks to check her progress.  She referred to that as accountability for herself!  In the meantime, she's going to send me video progress reports which should be fun for us both.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

I simply could not resist sharing this picture of my granddog, Westley!  

My daughter taught him to do "junkyard dog face!" This trick is hysterical.  When I've tried it with Henley, he just ends up yawning or sneezing!