What a bittersweet day today! It was the last day of my Pawsitive Puppies Program and it was so sad to see all of their wagging tails go off into the distance! The six week program wrapped up today and each puppy was awarded a diploma for all of their hard work and play. The best part of the session was doing Loose Leash Walking Rally (say that three times fast) where all of the dog/owner teams started out with equal amounts of water that they had to carry in a very small one ounce glass to a cone and back in order to dump it into the empty glass. The team that was able to get the most water into the empty glass without splashing a lot was the winner. The catch is that the owner must hold the leash and the one ounce glass in the same hand while walking their puppy on a very loose leash. I wish that I had gotten video of the game because it was too cute when the puppies tried to drink the water out of the glass! We also played follow the leader and simon says because training and playing go hand in hand. Especially when working with puppies, training should always be fun and rewarding, not demanding and militant. The key is to bring out the best in your puppy through positive reinforcement and fun!
All of the puppies and their owners were introduced to the basics of positive reinforcement training and were taught the tools that humans need to communicate with their puppies. Every puppy was taught how to do sit, down, stay, leave it, come touch, look and heel. Now its up to the owners to enhance these behaviors through training games and practice so that these tools may be used when undesirable behaviors pop up throughout the puppys adolescence. For instance, instead of screaming and yelling, "No bad dog!" when your puppy lunges for another dog on a walk, you can calmly ask your dog to sit from a reasonable distance away from the approaching dog and tell them to wait. With plenty of praise and rewards, your dog will learn that you want him to sit and wait calmly when another dog approaches instead of doing his usual high energy, overly excited greeting.
Just remember that "No!" means nothing and that dogs must be shown how we want them to live in our human world. The key is to interrupt a behavior with a disruptive noise like a kissy or clicky noise and then immediately redirect the behavior into something more desirable like a down stay or playing with a toy. Be positive, happy and consistent with your puppy and he will begin to respect you and love you for being his friend and leader.
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