Make Learning A Regular Part Of Your Dog’s Life

Dogs are smart and always need something new to learn or at least build on a previous behavior.

A good place to start is focus on 10 min AM and 10 min PM for the 2 days that you’re off and have time to dedicate the time to teaching your dogs. Once they know multiple behaviors… then work 5 min AM and 5 min PM each day.

A list of behaviors to start with are:

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Practice often. If you can practice multiple times a day, GREAT! But I understand that many people work all day… if that is you, even 5 min in the am and 5 min in the pm is better than nothing.

Depending on your dogs attention span, you can work with him for 5 min or 30… or anything in between. The BEST thing tho is to keep it short, so he ends on a successful note.

Getting Your Pups Attention

Getting your dogs attention is one of the most important things you can teach him.A

Keep a leash on your dog for this training session to keep your dog from wandering off (at least in the beginning).

Look at me:

  1. For this lesson, we want to achieve eye contact. Count out 10 treats. Wait for your dog to look in your direction, click/treat (C/T). Each time wait for the dog to look closer towards your face before you C/T. Once your dog starts looking at your eyes, C/T. Once they know looking at your eyes brings them good things, they’ll start doing it more and more, then you know it’s time to move to the next step. 
  2. Test: Count out 10 treats. Wait for eye contact and C/T. Can you get 10 C/T for eye contacts in 40 seconds? Ready to move on.

Give it a name:

  1. Get 10 treats ready. Wait for your dog to look at your face, say his name, THEN C/T. Do NOT keep calling his name, just 1 time will do. If you say his name multiple times “Rover, Rover, Rover” he will learn that his name is “Rover, Rover, Rover” instead of “Rover”. Repeat this several times through out the day. 
  2. Test: Count out 10 treats. Say your dogs name FIRST. Does he look at your face? GREAT, C/T. Do this 10 times. If your dog does NOT look at your face, then back up to the previous step. 

Moving On:

  1. Goal: Get your dog to STARE at you. Wait for your dog to look at your face. Now delay your Click/Treat (C/T) for a count of A-B-C. Then C/T. Now call his name and he’ll look at your face at this point, wait A-B-C-D-E-F before C/T. Gradually fluctuate between “A” and “A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L”.
  2. From here you can build on it until you can get from A-Z. IF he fails at this point,  shorten the length of time the next time you ask. ALWAYS, C/T for successful stares.  
  3. Distractions: Try working with your dog in new locations (different rooms in your house, backyard, front yard, parks, etc) and in different body positions. When you change locations or body positions, you’ll want to lower criteria (don’t expect your dog to STARE at you for 10 seconds when another dog is 10 feet away at the park). 

Keep in mind: with dogs, you need to start low and work your way up… if you work in a way that your dog always succeeds your dog will have a GREAT attention and FOCUS on you! 

Bonding Tip: Training Twice a Day

Training Twice a Day

Have a quick 5 min training session at least 2 times daily. Using your dog’s kibble to help teach them behaviors that will help them calm down (tossing food to them while they are resting on their bed while you watch TV or cooking dinner, etc), or refresh on the basics (sit, down, stay, come, etc).

Or you can use real life rewards (going for a walk, playing games, getting into the car or getting out of the car, etc) to refresh or teach something new.

Training twice a day will help you have a more relaxed and happy dog and will provide great bonding moments for you both.

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