Frustration in Training

All dog owners who are actively training their dog go through frustrations. I know I have and more so recently as our dog has been slipping in its behaviors lately. Our dog Cola knows very well where her bathroom spot is in the house but sometimes she will forget or choose to go somewhere else.

It has been cold lately in the house and I think she prefers to stand on the warm carpet to relieve herself. Her bathroom spot is in the kitchen where there is no carpet and the floor is colder, especially in the morning. One of the ways we have been reminding her to go in her spot is by blocking off the living room in the morning so that she does not have access to the warm carpet until after she has gone. This has been working very well as part of our re-training her.

I wonder if others of you have experienced similar slips in behavior with your dogs?

For more dog training tips be sure to check out the SitStayFetch program

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Puppy Training Tip

Just a tip I found, hope it helps!

f you can structure the environment in such a way that the puppy is never rewarded for jumping and make sure the puppy is consistently rewarded for sitting instead, you will have an adult dog that doesn’t jump when greeting people. In fact an adult dog with this type of history will impress your friends by sitting when it greets guests.

There are other great instances of this principal, such as getting your new puppy accustomed to going potty on a particular kind of surface. An example may be teaching your pup to potty on gravel and it will be less likely to go on surfaces unlike gravel. I find this principle particularly troublesome when dogs stay with me that where conditioned as young pups to potty on concrete. When these dogs stay with me for a short amount of time it can be almost impossible to recondition them to potty in a more hygienically appropriate area of my yard.

A good deal of this resistance to change can be explained by the phenomena of imprinting. There are certain times when a puppy’s brain is developing in a way that enables life experiences and successful behavior to become permanently wired connections. By training at this age you are actually building your puppy’s brain and its future behavior.

During puppy training you need to remember, puppies don’t have the endurance of an adolescent or adult dog. Puppies can be very active for short amounts of time and then they need to rest and sleep. Some believe this rest helps the puppy build those important brain connections, as well as the muscle and bones of a developing body.

When puppy training we must respect, understand, and use the rules Mother Nature has imposed upon the system we experience as a developing individual.

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Dog ObedienceTraining Tip from My Daughters

My daughters have learned through trial and error that using cheerios as a reward for following commands works really well with our young dog.

If you have any health concerns for your dog please check with your local vet before following this training tip, otherwise enjoy the success you can have in training your dog with the reward of cheerios, after all we all know that moms having been using cheerios for years to train their young children!

Enjoy more great tips from the dog training program SitStayFetch.

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Dog training tip

Want your dog to sneeze on command?
Simply have some pepper in your hand for your doggy to sniff (not too much - we dont want to hurt the poor fella).
When he smells it he will most likely sneeze, when he does then say "sneeze" and praise the dog.
After a few sessions you can try without the pepper to see if the dog has learnt the command. If not continue going with the pepper for a few more weeks.

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Good Citizen passes

Back in December we had our usual Good Citizen test night. Well done to everyone who passed...all that practising paid off!

Bronze

Silver

Gigha missed the photo for Silver but Morags chuffed with her pass!

Gold

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