Happy Thursday! Last night’s training session with Lacey went very well. We went to our local PetSmart store, and using a 20-foot training lead, we worked Lacey on her recall skills as well as her sit and sit/stay commands. As mentioned previously, she’s been getting rather vocal about her lessons and resisting them because she’s bored, so last night’s session was planned to be different for her.
The exercise was conducted by having Tanya “hide” in different areas of the store. The first few times, I had Tanya position herself so that Lacey would see her. This was done to set Lacey up for success and build her confidence. After repeating the exercise this way a few times, I then had Tanya hide again, but only have her arm showing. Lacey did very well with this exercise, too, and after repeating it several times, we then moved on to locating by voice only. Tanya moved to different areas of the store and stayed completely out of Lacey’s sight. While she chose where to go, I turned Lacey in a different direction so she would not see where Tanya went. Then, when she was ready, Tanya called Lacey. Lacey had to locate her by voice only…. and she did a spectacular job of it!
We repeated all three exercises several times over the course of the hour, and Lacey did not vocalize even one time. She was completely engaged. By the time the session was done and she was released, Lacey was a very tired, but very happy puppy.
When training your dog, it is very important to keep the lessons interesting. When they become routine, the dog becomes bored and they will either act up and make you work to get them to do as you’re asking, or they just won’t do the exercises at all. So, if you’re finding that your dog is getting bored, try doing things differently. Make the exercises interesting to them, and before you know it, they’ll be asking you to work them. Have a great day! 🙂