Had great fun yesterday playing drop. He did brilliantly with potatoes, kids shoes, pants, kids toys and nappies (clean!). Over half even brought and dropped in my hand. So thanks v much Snowbunny and Stacia for your ideas. Worked a charm! And he got to play in the park with his brother and we then bumped into a few other dogs and he didn't cower away or try and hide. So hopefully got some confidence back there as well.
So we’ve not learnt much new stuff this last month but he’s been a little delight over Christmas. Only one decoration got chewed up and the Christmas tree falling over twice was nothing to do with him Leave it - going great. Even left some yummy horse poo the other day! Probably just a fluke - but I’ll take it. 'What you got' / Drop it - pretty good these days for most things - including socks at the moment! But tissues and wet wipes are still a stumbling block, they are just far too delicious! So will have a go this month at upping the treat value for these and see if we can make progress without him eating too many during the process! Walks are good. Although I do find lead walking with the kids in tow difficult , so trying to avoid that for now until he’s a bit more solid. On the days I can’t do an off-lead or get out without them, I think garden play is probably better than having a bad lead walk. Two new things are: - Seek - for hidden bits of kibble. Not sure he’s actually sniffing yet rather than looking but his nose goes on the floor and he tries! - ‘Find it’ - only did this a few days ago but he’s picked it up instantly and LOVES it! ‘Find Fish’ gets him charging round looking for the hidden fish teddy and he always gets the right one despite all the other stuff on the floor. I’m really really impressed with him Did it in one room to start off with and have just moved into another room. If I can get him doing it in the garden it will be awesome!! Couple of things have slipped through the net to tackle this month: - Door manners are rubbish. But that’s me - for some reason I struggle here with telling him what to do rather than leaving it until it’s too late. So I need to sort myself out on this and be more proactive. - Brushing Teeth. He got a tooth brush in his Christmas stocking (with some more fun things of course!) so starting that this week - Settle / In your bed. He’s brilliant in the pub - just chills under the table. But he does struggle at home with the kids now and just wants to be on the go with them all the time. So I think this one will be really useful if I can crack it. - Jumping up at people. This is just starting to creep in, so want to start tackling this asap. So hopefully next month I’ll have some progress on these things and maybe another fun game to play at home! Next level puppy classes also start this week so we’ll see what that brings.
Sounds like you're doing a fine job with little Boomer, such a good idea to keep a log of progress and area's for improvement -- why didn't I think of that!!! I'm sure it will be of great use to other new puppy owners aswell.
Thanks Selina To be honest it's my uselessness that's the main motivation here. I'm good at having the intentions but rubbish at actually delivery! So hoping that the updates here will shame me into making sure we progress on at least one thing a month! I find it too easy to get lost in day-to-day life otherwise and before I know it - he'll be a nightmare teenager pup. (He probably will be anyway but at least I'll have tried!!)
So update to help keep me in check...this month has had some good and some bad. - Door manners; not huge progress. He’s good in the house now with baby gates and the back door. But he goes into a bit of shut down once his harness is on, so door manners leaving the house isn’t happening. Next steps - I think I’ll either leave the harness off until he’s out of the door and just use his collar. Or (which I think I’ll try first) remember to put the harness on 10 mins or so before we leave so he’s got time to chill out about it first. - Brushing Teeth. I’ve not attempted once. Monster fail for me. Back on the list for this month! - Settle / In your bed. Doing well now with meals when I can focus on him. He lays in his bed nicely with just the occasional treat popped his way.. And we’re kind of there on cue. (Slightly hindered because any training of this gets sabotaged by the baby tottering over to throw himself in the bed first!) - Jumping up at people. Well, if I’ve got a clicker in my hand - I can do the CanCan around the house, waving a joint of beef But his favourite is now launching all 23kg of lab at my back when I’m standing at the kitchen counter. But if my brain works quick enough and I can be proactive - he doesn’t do it! So it’s not a disaster just yet. The next level puppy classes have been great - just finished. The lad did me proud and we came first in the final week competition I think that was partly down to all the advice on this site and partly down to my pocket full of hot dogs and chicken that were generously dished out It was things like recall away from the group while the pups were playing. Lie and stay off lead for 1 min or so (close proximity) Sit and stay off lead next to you in a line while one dog ran past doing a recall Then do the recall past the line of dogs Off lead figure of eight round 2 tennis balls with treats on top. He almost snaffled one of the treats! And then an off lead heel in a line with the other dogs for about 20 m and back. I loved this one. He was trotting along, so close to my leg, just looking up at me with the biggest smile on his face - just wonderful and so proud of him!! It’s a shame it’s all finished so I’m really keen to do something else with him in the future and we both had such a fun time. So aims this month are: - Mainly consolidate on what I’ve done rather than rushing to do more new things. - Get a bit more proofing in place and develop some longer / harder stays etc and up the distraction a bit. - But also, I think I need to reduce the treats - I’ve kind of forgotten the bit about reducing treats once the behaviour is known - so I think I need to calm them down a bit as his daily allowance struggles sometimes to last the day!! But saying that, I have just got the DVD from Absolute Dogs which looks great fun. We started with Middle and he’s almost managed the whole ‘clock’ positions. 11 - 1 are still a bit sticky at the moment and he needs a little encouragement to go behind me then. And I’m also quite keen to follow some the Puppy Gundog retrieve exercises that Pippa has written. But I’ll try and resist that until March! So all in all - a good month for the little lad!
Well that's a really good read. The stuff you did in the puppy class was quite tough - 3.5 year old Coco could NOT figure-of-8 around balls with treats on- never in a million years! We are the class clowns when it comes to exercises around treats, at least everyone has a laugh . Well done both of you. You'll really enjoy the Games on the Absolute Dogs DVD - we have such fun & it's really strengthening our bond. They help me think outside the box a bit and make up our own games too.
To be completely honest...I think it sounds better than it was I'm not sure he knew the treats were there until the last turn which was when he tried to grab them!! I certainly can't get him to do anything like this at home yet when he knows there are treats there It was a very relaxed class with lots of laughing when it all went wrong (which happened more often than not) - I think that's why we enjoyed it so much. I'm more into the fun element than the perfectly behaved pup. Really good to hear you have great fun with the Absolute Dogs DVD - I've only looked at the Middle one so far but really liked the way they demonstrated it and broke it down into such easy to understand steps. Perfect for us! Looking forward to watching more
Middle is the best thing ever - my dogs love it. Willow was reluctant at first (she's not the most confident of dogs, bless her) but now offers it as a behaviour if she doesn't know what I'm after. It's a fun game for our repertoire and we're always working on strengthening it, getting a zappy "middle" recall from a distance and using it as a boundary, so they have to stay until released, even if I'm throwing treats and/or toys around
