Mella seems to have a pogo stick on each corner, especially when excited, din-din's being prepared and I'm afraid this is going to hurt her joints. She literally springs vertically to over a foot off the ground often skidding as she lands on the kitchen tiles. Thoughts please?
Re: Jumping! The jumping is probably ok, but the skidding combined with the jumping is something I'd want to avoid. Twisting on landing is best avoided. What about teaching her to sit quietly on a mat while her dinner is being prepared? Someone can click and treat her while she waits (might need a gentle hand on the collar while she is learning). Once dinner is put down she can be released to eat it. That's what we do
Re: Jumping! As far as food goes - we did the no sitting quietly, no food, thing. It's very quick! As far as mad puppy hooning and jumping on slippery floors - I honestly think covering the floors is best. My house looks just crazy with rubber backed rugs and doormats everywhere (my boy has a bad leg right now, I wouldn't normally go to the extremes of putting doormats along the edges of rugs : ). I'm hoping that I can get rid of this once he is older and more sensible, but that's still up for debate. It might be that I have to put some kind anti-slip flooring down permanently. In his pen area, where he spends most of his time (which has the same slippery tiles as the kitchen) I tried anti-slip gym flooring. It was great, and cheap. But then I left him for an hour and he chewed the lot! : Current solution is a large child's play mat (complete with psychedelic colours and farm animals), which so far has been perfect (and is cheery, if a bit mad).
Re: Jumping! He chewed the gym flooring??? Charlie! I must have missed that! We did the calm sit before feeding too. Did it without the clicker and only took a few days. This was with one person holding a collar or supervising the sit whilst the other prepared the food. This was quite easy for us but I guess they are all different. If we forget to say our release word "on you go" she just sits looking up mournful until we realise. So with power also comes responsibility ;D
Re: Jumping! We also done the sit and wait calmly or no food until she did it only took a few days and now I can put her bowl or kong down and she will look up, into my eyes until I say 'go on then'. We built up the wait time slowly from as soon as she looked at us to looking at our face and holding eye contact good luck
Re: Jumping! [quote author=JulieT link=topic=4614.msg56536#msg56536 date=1393145295] As far as food goes - we did the no sitting quietly, no food, thing. It's very quick! [/quote] I'll second that - it's very, very quick indeed! She jumped, I stopped preparing food... Problem sorted. Funny how motivating food is! Clare
Re: Jumping! [quote author=drjs@5 link=topic=4614.msg56548#msg56548 date=1393149309] He chewed the gym flooring??? Charlie! I must have missed that! [/quote] Oh yes! It was so predictable I didn't bother to post about it. All was fine until....he found the edge (the pen moved a little so the edge was inside the pen) and pulled it (what else would you do with AN EDGE?), and a square of flooring came up - then it was game on to dismantle and chew the whole floor. He even moved his bed to make sure he chewed it all. I love Charlie, really, very dearly. Sometimes though.... : ;D ;D ;D
Re: Jumping! I teach 'sit' with food from day one with an 8 week old pup. That's the way life goes on from that point. Its not too long before you never have to say sit again when it's feeding time.
