Monday, March 17, 2014

Class is over now what?

Well since classes are over and our next class does not start until March 17th, I thought now what do I do? He is doing so well with sit, down, come, wait, leave it, drop it and even stay, what is next?

After talking with a friend of ours who will be helping us do his advance training I had an idea of what to do while we waited for our next class.

We have been working on long sits, long downs, stay, shake (where he puts his paw in your hand to shake), place (in longer intervals) and leave it as it pertains to food on the floor or ground. We also work still on his basics both on leash and off (in the house and fenced yard). So far is long sits and downs are at a minute or two. I always do different intervals of time and we are slowly adding time as we go. As a 4-5mo old puppy I rather go slow than push him to fast. We have also been working on the crate training.

Luke hates his crate (a lot). The trainer told us to put Kongs and busy treats in his crate to help keep him occupied and keep it fun. Luke has a low food drive so that did not work out at all. He would ignore the food and fun toys and keep barking and whining. So I have come up with our own routine of slowly getting him to like his crate.

First problem was how to get him to willingly go into his crate. What I did was put him on his leash and do heel work and as we neared the crate I said "crate" and walked him right through the open door, giving praise and a quick treat and let him come right out. We did this over and over throwing some mid heel sits and downs to make sure he was always kept interested in the training. I also kept it short, only about 5min or so.
Now I can tell him crate and he will walk right in.

So now on to getting him to like being in it for more than a few minutes. Here is how we are working on it. We do short intervals of doing long sits and long downs with the crate door open. Then I will close the door but not latch it, take a step back wait a moment then step back to the door give him the wait command then open the door and give him the lets go command for him to come out. Everyday we switch it up a bit and add a little to it. I am now able to give the "crate" command, he goes in and I latch the door and walk out of view for about a minute or two. Of course during all this training I am using lots of praise and his favorite treat. I find that keeping it short and fun make all the difference. We still have a lot of work to do but it is a great start.

We are also going to work on some new outings

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