Day 31 – recap

January 31, 2011

Over Socialise Your Puppy Month we have favoured socialisation and foundation exercises over training exercises so as to make sure to take advantage of puppy’s critical socialisation period.

Now that Socialise Your Puppy Month is over,  why not build upon the training exercises we did introduce, by starting Train Your Dog Month to really bump up puppy’s education

Let’s have a look at all we achieved over the last month:

Socialisation Exercises

Each week we worked on introducing puppy to lots of new people and lots of new situations & sounds. We used our weekly plans to keep track of all the positive experiences puppy to which puppy was exposed.
These plans are still available here; scroll down to the very end.

Each week puppy should meet 20 new people and have a number of experiences from each category.  As puppy’s confidence grows we asked puppy for simple training exercises so that they can start to learn how to behave appropriately in varying situations.

Socialisation exercises: Bite Inhibition Training

Bite Inhibition is one of the most important things to teach puppies so that they learn to use their mouths gently in social situations.

We started by reacting strongly with a yelp and withdrawal every time they deliver their strongest bites and progressively targeted softer and softer bites until puppy only lightly mouths in play.

At this stage we can begin to eliminate all mouthing and biting by asking puppy to let go of your skin anytime their mouth comes in contact with you.

foundation exercises: Crate Time!

Over the month we have taught puppy to love going into his crate, to be patient exiting his crate and to teach them how to spend time in there alone.

We removed the lures and taught puppy to enter his crate on cue and to sit at the back of the crate to be released.

We also worked on building the amount of time in the crate and the distance you are from the crate very slowly so as to prevent puppy getting upset in his crate.

Crate training has also helped with toilet training puppy, naptimes and anti-destruction training.  At bedtime we started with puppy in his crate right beside the bed but worked to slowly move him away and have him sleep soundly all night away from you.

foundation Exercises: Handling

During Socialise Your Puppy Month we practiced handling all of puppy’s body areas everyday. 

By teaching puppy that being picked up, held and touched all over we can help to make basic health and grooming procedures comfortable and even enjoyable for puppy.

Foundation Exercises: Resource Guarding Prevention

We worked on Resource Guarding Prevention every day practicing with toys, food bowls and high value yummy stuffed Kongs.

We taught puppy that anytime he is in possession of something good things happen whenever a human approaches. This must be done slowly so that we never push puppy into thinking that his possession of items is being threatened or challenged by people, otherwise puppy may learn to aggressively defend his possession of items.

It is important that puppy is watched closely when practicing resource guarding prevention exercises and any signs of guarding or discomfort be heeded by moving away from puppy. This teaches him that he need only use small and subtle signaling to get distance - but its important to step up prevention exercises too, ideally with the help of a behaviour professional. 

Training Exercises: Collar & Leash Manners

With these exercises we taught puppy to be calm about having his collar and leash put on.

We taught puppy to stick his head in through the opening of his collar so that he learns to happily have things placed over his head, and in the process learns to be calm and quiet while this is going on.

When teaching leash manners we taught puppy that the sight of his leash is a cue to sit and wait calmly and patiently to have his leash attached.

Training Exercises: Know Your Name Game

This simple exercise teaches puppy that as soon as he hears his name he should immediately give you eye contact.

As we progressed this exercise we began to hold puppy’s eye contact for a little longer thus teaching another training exercise: Puppy Focus.

Hand Targeting

This is a super useful and simple training exercises that is useful in many situations and we used it to develop a puppy recall.

Tug & Thank You

We introduced the game of tug with rules to teach puppy a ‘thank you’ cue and to teach him to play a great game so that we can use it as a reward.

The rules of tug teach puppy about focusing on you, keeping arousal levels low and to give back items when asked.

We also use our established ‘thank you’ cue to teach puppy to let go of skin as soon as started to eliminate puppy biting.

Recall Relays & Distraction recalls

These two exercises help to teach puppy the value to coming when called.  We started with teaching recall relays as a fun, high energy game teaching puppy the recall routine, particularly hand targeting and having his collar grabbed.

Distraction recalls begin to teach puppy that responding to his name is rewarding and teaches him that coming away from distraction is also rewarding because he gets to go back to what ever he was doing.

Position Changes

Position changes are the backbone of training and some of the most important exercises we teach puppies.

Position changes include the following exercises:

• sit-down
• sit-stand
• down-sit
• down-stand
•  stand-sit
• stand-down

Making these part of your everyday life with puppy will help puppy to understand how to apply these behaviours in lots of different situations.

Follow Me!

This exercise teaches puppy to stay with you, with or without a leash attached.  This exercise is the precursor to teaching loose leash walking exercises. 

By being exciting we teach puppy that sticking with us is the best idea!

Loose Leash Walking

We started by simply teaching puppy that any pressure on the leash means everything stops – this must be consistently applied anytime the leash is on.

We also mixed some leave it training with loose leash walking with our Zen on Leash exercise. This teaches puppy that the only way to get to the things that he wants is to make sure to keep the leash loose.

Leave it

Leave it is a vital exercise for safety and to teach puppy that good things come only to calm puppies!

We introduced a couple of different ways of teaching puppy how to leave treats in your palm and also taught him to leave treats dropped on the floor. Towards the end of our program we began to apply the leave it exercise to other items too.

Jazz Up & Settle Down

One of my favourite training exercises, not just because its fun but also because it’s a great impulse control teacher.

This exercise involves getting puppy all jazzed up on cue and then quickly and suddenly settling him down. By teaching puppy to go crazy on cue we can use this as a way of allowing puppy to let off steam on cue and under control.

We also teach puppy to calm quickly and this helps to teach puppy some impulse control.

Puppy Parties

Every Saturday of Socialise Your Puppy Month was a Puppy Party day.  These get-togethers are a great way of boosting puppy’s socialisation opportunities and practicing lots of training exercises with lots of people involved.

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