Dexter's training log

Hello,

I have been reading through various training logs and thought it would be a good idea to start one for Dexter my 11 week old yellow lab for a couple of reasons: Firstly I have no idea what im doing and find everyones feedback invaluable, I have a copy of the happy puppy handbook which I refer to religiously but I find these forums great! Also it would be a good idea for me track Dexters progress and potentially reassess my expectations for him - currently I think we are in the honeymoon period, i'm waiting for the crocopup and adolescent period to begin.

So we began Dexters training on day 2 at home concentrating on no biting, and toilet/crate training. I believe to date we have had just 3 accidents in the house 2 of them were definitely my fault for not paying enough attention but no accidents inside the crate at all. The first night he whined for 30 minutes after we took him for a wee at 3am, the second night a few mumble and now he sleeps from approx. 2100 on the floor just chilling then we put him to bed at 2200 and he sleeps right through til he hears one of us move upstairs generally 0600 but we can push to 0700 on a weekend hurrah!
We are hoping to extend this to him being comfortable inside his crate until we are ready to let him out even when we are moving about in the morning - I sometimes leave for work at 0500 as I travel a lot and atm my husband has to get up at 0500 as well to keep Dexter company so I can get ready without any howling. This is not ideal.

We have mastered 'sit' although I am convinced this is because he is most comfortable sitting and spends most of his time on his bum! Lie down is almost there although he still needs a treat in hand as we touch the floor and he tries to paw it out of our hand as he lies down.
'No mugging' and self control where we have a treat in an open hand by his mouth and say leave it then take it is coming along nicely and 99% of the time he leaves it. Sit for please works every time and we are working on putting his dinner bowl down and not letting him eat until we have said he can

'Leave it' has proven to be a life saver and he pretty much drops whatever he is doing (usually eating my flowers or horse/rabbit poo) and that includes biting which we are happy with. We tried sit for an extended period but as soon as we move he moves so we have incorporated the stay command. He is currently lasting for 2 steps backwards.
Today we are going to begin with 'on your bed' and 'in your crate'. There has been no attempts yet to climb the stairs after us (we do have a baby gate but its 3 steps up due to a bend in the stairs) or to jump on the sofa/jump up at people

Walk wise - recall and heel work is perfect when there are no distractions in a large field. So far whenever we have seen another dog I have spotted it first and got the lead back on. One dog did approach and Dexter tried to lick his ears (he does this with every dog??) the other dog didn't like it and had no problem letting Dexter know about it, he jumped about 1 foot off the ground and went to hide in the bushes.
We went for a walk with my mums beagle and recall was pretty good I would say 80% return rate even when he was very distracted so happy with that, Turns out he doesn't like water and avoided the river at all costs!
Walking on lead is a bit of a challenge. He never pulls forward if he begins to move forward (still loose on the lead) I say heel and he waits for me to catch up and walks nicely beside me....that is until he catches a scent or sees a person/another dog. We began 'look at me' which worked pretty well, we want to begin 'look at that' as suggested on another thread. I think we need to work on heelwork a lot more maybe we will take it back to the garden for a while or concentrate on a lead only walk for tonight's walk. I am convinced having 2 of us walk him is not a good idea though although we keep it consistent that I am the one always giving commands and handing out the treats

 

That sounds like a great start, and considering Dexter is only 11 weeks old it's really good. Keep up the excellent work!

 

Wow, you're fitting a lot in! Good stuff

I just have a little question, if I may? What do you want to achieve by having a different "stay" cue? For me (and I'm not saying this is the right way, plenty of people have separate cues), when I ask for a sit, I expect the sit to last until I release them from it; otherwise, what am I going to allow? A bum on the ground and immediately up? I personally feel that the sit should be a sit-and-stay-until-I-tell-you-otherwise. Since your dog doesn't have any grasp of the English language, he doesn't understand the difference between the two words; it's your responsibility to teach him what you want from a word. So, if you're happy with two different cues, that's fine, just be aware of exactly what you expect from him for each cue. If he's moving when you ask him to sit and then move away, it simply means you're progressing too fast and you need to consolidate at the earlier stages first. This can mean just C&Ting him for remaining sitting as you move one foot back without putting any weight on it, then with a transfer of weight, then lifting your other foot, then putting your other foot besides the first one, etc. Ensuring you get to a reliable ten successes out of ten attempts before increasing the complexity.

Like I said, it's not that there's anything inherently wrong with teaching "stay", but if you're only ever going to be using it with another cue (sit and stay, down and stay, stand and stay...) then, to me, it seems pretty meaningless. If not, you should be clear on what each cue means in its own right, without the other. What do you expect when you say "sit" without a "stay"? And vice versa?

I've learnt loads through having my own training log, and reading others (although most of them are waaaaay over my head at the moment!) - I hope you get the same from yours. I look forward to reading more about your successes with your young serial killer

 

I just had another thought; dogs do respond to different types of noises, and that could well be why "stay" is having more success than the "sit" alone. In the book The Other End of the Leash, there's a section on when the author studied words that were used for training all sorts of different animals in all sorts of different languages. Without fail, the cues to get the animal to move were short and clipped, and the cues to get the animal so slow down or stop were long sounds. Animals, including ourselves, instinctively respond to the difference. So, it's probably just the way that you say "stay" that he's responding to. Most people, when asking their dog to stay, draw out the vowel sound, "staaaaaay". So it's a quick win because the dog will often respond to the general sound of the word, without actually understanding the word itself.
I use this, without having trained it (I must get around to it at some point), when I'm on a narrow hilly path and have one of my two on lead; their instinct is to leap up the slope quickly, but that would end up pulling the leash. I can't ask them to walk to heel, because the path is too narrow, so I just say "sloooooooooowly", and they naturally react to it and slow down. I could be saying "steeeeeeady" or "caaaaaabage" for all they care; it's the tone that's working rather than it being an actual cue.

 

That's impressive! My pup is 12 weeks and nowhere near that progress! We just started classes and formal training so hopefully that will help speed things up. We do a lot of training at home but it's difficult when all he does is bite!

 

Hi Fiona,

That's quite interesting I never really thought of it like that, I think alot of words just fall out of my mouth and then I stick with them once they work - I feel like im in training too . We tried sit with the hand signal (stop sign with my hand) raised whilst I took a step back without the stay signal and it worked....2 steps...it worked. This makes me think he is responding to the hand signal more than the word itself. I must admit i do extend the vowel, as with leave i tend to long the word out to 'leeaaaaaave' although this mornign i realise what i shoudl be saying in self control situations is 'wait' or maybe i'l try 'caabaaaaageeee'.

What do you use for your release word? At the moment he moves when I give him a treat. This is also applicable for heel work too, he heels nicely and I try to say 'Go' for him to run ahead/play but he obviously doesn't understand and im not sure how to click and treat a release?

Newlabpup I think we were very lucky with Dexter he picks everything up so quickly considering he is so young and rarely bites at all! Im hoping this doesn't come round and bite us in the butt when he is older and bored because we aren't stimulating his brain enough then eats the walls or something!! We start puppy classes on Thursday this week so we will see how his training holds up with 5 other puppies in the room

 

Well done to you and Dexter, you've made a brilliant start. A timely reminder that I need to look at my training log. Enjoy your training classes.

 

Sorry, War & Peace coming up here..... go grab a cuppa

I realised halfway through that I don't know if you're using a clicker or not. If you're not, I strongly recommend getting one and reading up on how to use it. There are some really good articles on the main website you can read through. A good book I can recommend is this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Clicker-Training-Perfect-Foundation-With/dp/189094839X which comes with a DVD which really helps. Also, look at the Kikopup channel on YouTube.

Believe me, way more than half of it is training yourself, that's for sure! I find it helps to sit down and plan what I'm doing; I keep a note on my phone I can refer to for each of my two, with what I want to focus on. You can use that to jot down what cues you are using, too.

In general, you don't want to add a verbal cue until the dog is reliably giving you the behaviour for a visual cue. The visual cue is generally something that follows on for a lure. So, for a "sit", for example, the process goes something like this:

1. With a treat between your finger and thumb and the rest of your fingers open, lift it from the dog's nose upwards, to encourage a sit. When dog sits, click and treat. (* there are other things you can do here, if your dog isn't sitting, but I'l skip them for brevity's sake).

2. After a couple of successful attempts at 1, use the same hand movement, but without a treat - you're just pretending to have one. When the dog sits, click and treat from the other hand, so he begins to understand that the treat is still coming from somewhere else - he doesn't have to see it to perform.

3. When he successfully performs the sit with confidence (ten out of ten times) to the "pretend" lure, it's time to add your final cue. There is a prescribed technique for this which is "new cue, old cue, behaviour". Choose your new cue - in this case, we'll use the word "sit". So, you say "sit", then make your visual cue; if he's confident enough with this, he will sit, you C&T. If he doesn't respond, you have moved on too quickly and you need to go back a step. If he does, repeat a few more times, new cue, followed by old cue, followed by his behaviour. Then, try leaving a couple of seconds between the new cue and the old one. He may well anticipate the old cue, and sit before you use it. If not, that's fine; just give the old cue, and try again. Eventually, he will click that "sit" means sit. You can then fade the hand movement, so all you need is the verbal cue.

So, that's it. No verbal cue until he already has a very solid behaviour, created by luring and/or shaping.

Now, dogs are very visual so you may find that he responds better to a visual cue than a verbal one (my two certainly do), so I have kept the hand gesture, but sharpened it up, so it's an open palm, facing upwards, and moving in an upward motion. It's just an extension of the lure motion, so it was easy for them to learn - I just put this in at step 3 above; new cue (open palm), old cue (thumb and finger together). They got the idea very, very quickly, and the hand cue is very strong.

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Unless you've taught him what a hand or verbal signal means, very specifically, he is simply responding to your body language, and it's not trained per se. So, what I did was teach the sit, as above, but then, once it was solid, gradually extend the time between the sit and the C&T. So, to begin with, you're clicking as soon as that bum touches the floor, to encourage a snappy response, but once you have that, and the dog is really confident that "sit means sit", you can very slowly start increasing the time between bum down and click. It'll start off as simply one second, and slowly build up - but don't make it ever more difficult; you can mix it up once you get onto longer durations, so he waits for maybe 1s then 5s then 2s then 10s etc. Just so he doesn't know when to expect it. If he breaks the sit, just calmly put him back in a sit again and go back to shorter durations; it means you've gone too quickly.

Once he has a reasonable duration with you right there with him, then you can start introducing movement. Like I said before, this should start really small, like lifting your foot off the floor. At this point, you need to reduce the time back to nothing. We only increase one level of complexity (the three Ds - Duration, Distance, Distraction) at a time, taking the other two right back to basics. So, cue, get the behaviour, lift your foot, put it down again immediately, C&T. If he's comfortable with that, try putting the foot back behind you, so you're taking half a pace backwards. Again, move it back immediately and C&T. After a few repetitions, try moving both feet back a pace. This way, you are ever so gradually building the behaviour up and setting him up for success.

That is the number one thing in my mind with positive training; it's up to you to set your dog up to succeed. If he doesn't succeed, it's because you have done something wrong, generally by moving too fast through the progression.

You don't have to say anything - unless you have trained him what a word means (see above), it's meaningless. To teach inpulse control, you just make sure that he gets rewarded for doing something right and nothing for doing something wrong. Let's look at another example - going through doors. I don't have an issue with my dogs going through doors in front of me, but what I want them to do is wait until I'm ready for them to go through, so that I can make sure it's safe on the other side and so they don't barge me, which is just rude. Here's how I achieved it - without saying a word.

Stand in front of the door with your dog. Open it a tiny fraction. Your dog will probably try to go towards it. If he does, close it again (obviously being careful not to catch his nose!). Repeat. He will very quickly learn that he can't get through the door by pushing. Then, you can slowly open the door a little more. Again, if he tries to get through. Close the door. Wait for him to back up. He will, you just have to wait. Keep on doing this until the door is wide enough open that he can get through and chooses not to. You can then release him by using your release cue to go through. I haven't told him to wait; he's just learnt that being patient gets him what he wants and trying to be pushy gets him nowhere.

I have two releases. One is "OK, then!" which means "break your position, but stay focussed on me", and the other is "Go play", which means they can do whatever they want (within reason).

The biggest one is the first one, and best worked on within a formal training session, because he'll already be "in the zone" for working and therefore focussing on you. Let's say you want to release him from a sit. Ask for a sit, wait a couple of seconds, then say "OK then!". Just the excitement in your voice will probably be enough to get him to move - as he does, C&T. If he doesn't move, then encourage him by stepping backwards and slapping your thighs. It will work if you make yourself exciting. Make sure you are clicking him moving. So, what you are doing here is training him that "sit means sit until I give you the release word". He gets a treat for moving, but only when you have used that release. You can see that you need the behaviour (the sit) to exist first, but you should add the release in fairly soon after teaching that, so he associates the two things.

For "go play", I really trained this by teaching self restraint when removing the lead. I didn't want the type of dog that runs off as soon as its lead is unclipped, so I started very early clicking as soon as I removed the lead, and giving a treat. In fact, even more than that, the lead only gets removed when the dog is sitting down - I don't tell them to sit, I wait for them to offer it. It's like them saying "please". Then, I take off the lead, immediately click and give a treat. As they began to anticipate getting a treat, I could extend the time between me taking off the lead and the treat. As soon as I give them the treat, I say "go play", and, again from the excitement in my voice (and the fact they've got their reward), they run off for a sniff. Then, I work on it a bit more and give them a second treat after the first etc, so they don't know how long it's worth their while staying with me. All they know for certain is, once I say "go play", it's play time for them.

Sorry, I did warn you it was a bit of an epic post

 

I use a stay as well as other commands mostly because not everyone who asks my dogs to sit will remember to give a release cue

I'm saving War and Peace for later!!!

 

We are using a clicker and its been so useful!

For the remainder of the week we concentrated on going back to basics, not using any verbal cues although I find they fall out of my mouth before I can stop them and my husband struggles even more than I do!
I stopped saying 'leave' for impulse control (leaving the treat on the floor) he seems to understand he is not allowed the treat until I say its okay,cue word is 'take it' but this has caused some issues which I will explain later.
We began working on sitting while the door is opened - complete failure - we need to allow more time for this one, its a struggle as out hallway is narrow and the door pulls inwards so we trip over ourselves.

So we attended our first puppy class last night - im not sure how I feel about it yet. There are 5 other dogs 3 very boisterous, very jumpy uppy and very loud and 3 including Dexter, better behaved and quiet - almost shy.
We began with attention exercises - click when he looks at me etc, but Dexter already does this and was focused on me for 80% of the session. Then we worked on keeping all 4 paws on the floor. My issue here was that Dexter doesn't jump up. very rarely anyway and if he does we say 'down', he goes down we click and treat - its working for us but she had us c&t for just standing on all 4 paws...essentially we were C&T for no reason in Dexters case?

Now Dexter most defiantly does understand the word for heel, when we walk on a loose lead if I say it he comes and walks next to my foot (my error here is not being consistent on it being on the left hand side - we need to work on this) and when we are off lead he does the same. The problem came in puppy class when we were luring them into heel position before we begin to walk. Here is where iv gone wrong....when I walked across the room in the session with Dexter, about to lure him into position he follows my foot and sits to the side of me (either left or right foot) and looks up at me, whole body facing towards me waiting for instruction. We obviously want him in heel position next to me but body facing forwards, so began the long training session of him following my hand around until he was in correct position and then c&t. gruelling but not a huge problem and highlighted an area to work on (trainer suggested positioning Dexter between me and a wall so he faces forwards)

Now after a while I think his attention began to wane and he got confused, after a few attempts when I was holding the treat out to him to lure him into position he was just watching it I think waiting for me to say he could take it? Then he sat, then lay, then stood and repeat...he didn't know what I was asking him to do.
Im hoping this is due to tiredness more than anything else as I was at a loss of what I should do in that situation. We called it a day and will try again later today/over the weekend.

 

It's true that they can get brain-fade, especially at his age. If that happens, just give him a really, really simple cue for him to follow and end the session on a high. Always end on a win!

You should actually be pleased that he started doing all sorts of things when he didn't understand. That shows that he knows to try things to get that click. It demonstrates confidence in your puppy, which is fabulous. Dogs trained by punishment don't have that same confidence to try new things, because they get told off (or worse) when they do something wrong. Over time, he'll probably stop being so dramatic about throwing behaviours at you, although every now and again, Shadow will do it. It's always when I've done too much with him; he throws himself into a down, runs around me into a heel position, touches my hand with his nose - everything. If we're in the middle of learning something new, I'll just give him a very easy lure into the position and a treat, then ask for a hand touch, which is one of his favourite things in the world, so very easy for him. Then the session is over and we have playtime.

One of the things I'm working on with Shadow at the moment, actually, is walking on my right hand side. I was so consumed with walking on my left that that's all I taught. But there are times when it would be really useful to have him on my right, so we've just started working on it. My cue for this is going to be "close" when we get that far. For now, though, he is really struggling with it because he has such a strong relationship with my left-hand side. So I would suggest that it might be a good thing not to get as hung up about training the heel at left and only the left as much as I did. I have a visual cue for walking to my heel which is a straight arm down by my side with the finger pointing down (again, a very easy transition from the hand position when I was luring), and so I'm working on that being the same on my right-hand-side, before I bring the verbal cue in.

As for the straight sit, it's something I should have practiced more when mine were young and is something I've revisited more recently. Willow really struggled with it, although she seemed to really crack it yesterday evening - fingers crossed. I tried the wall thing, and she hated it. Absolutely would not go between me and any obstacle. So I just went to luring her to start off with, then, as always, dropping the lure pretty quickly. My visual cue is like the lure - a circular movement with my hand by my side. I have found that the more I do this kind of training, the quicker they become at having that "aha!" moment and, after that, they have the confidence to repeat it.

 

So Dexter is 14 weeks today and I must admit we have been a bit lax with his training for a week and a bit due to work commitments and other such stuff. We haven't really tried anything new - I have purchased the Labrador handbook and total recall in an attempt to progress but haven't had the chance to sit and actually read them yet.

Points of improvement: Dexters heel position has much improved he can sit/stand at my side (predominantly left but we are happy if its the right also) and face forwards ready to walk at heel, this is best on lead, off lead he tends to walk at either my left or right but gets so excited anticipating a treat he ends up walking directly infront of me which has resulted in accidently standing on him or tripping over him - we have work to do here!

His sit is awesome, jus the verbal cue needed, no lure or treat shown to him prior to the cue

Lie down is coming along nicely we have just started to single without a treat, its 80% successful although he stands straight back up so we are working on lie&stay

sit&stay is pretty good, as advised we have dropped the stay cue - we really didn't need it) he generally can handle 4 steps backwards, not so keen on side steps but we are getting there

Wait and leave are good also, he can watch his food bowl for a few seconds wating to eat until we give the okay cue (we showed this off at puppy class last night and had a proud moment) His leave is okay if its not exciting....horse poo, flower bulbs rabbit poo not so much he just loves to put them in his mouth! If we are on a walk and he has horse poo or picks something up in his mouth if we say leave he drops immediately gets his treat then picks it straight back up for a repeat cycle - like he knows he will be getting a treat. Not sure what to do here because I am not picking up that horse poo to throw out of his eyeline!

Points to improve:
His recall was amazing until this week, maybe its because we haven't worked on it much this week but iv noticed a massive change, when he is in the garden he comes on cue if we are already training, but if he is popping out for a wee its getting harder to call him back into the house. When we are off lead in the field, if there are literally no distractions AT ALL he will come, but even a leaf blowing past is a distraction. I guess in this instance persistence is going to be the key.

Other dogs....this has come a big difficulty, if we see a dog on a walk we have always put him on the lead, but as soon as he sees thim he tries to get to them (lots of pulling on the lead, jumping) one he reaches them, theres some play, face licking and more jumping) we started using 'Dexter look' when he came across a distraction and this works for loud cars, bicycles, even some other people although its starting to fail. it will not work for other dogs and he is starting to get stronger than me so to avoid my arms being ulled out of their sockets I would love to sort this out soon...any advice definitely appreciated!!
Last night at puppy class was particularly difficult to hold his attention because he wanted to play with the other puppies and when they had their 5 minute play off lead he was unstoppable his excitement levels got so high he was borderline bullying the other dogs jumping and being boisterous, we need to figure out how to calm him down in those situations - I personally think it was all play nothing aggressive but the other owners seemed concerned about their puppies. I also think puppy day care has a part to play in that as he is allowed to play with the other dogs and some of them are big and boisterous!

wow that was an essay....teah me to leave it so long to post next time!!

 

He sounds like he's doing just fine for such a young dog. I know it can be hard but even a few minutes training each day will reap dividends

A couple of things occur from a quick read. I would pick a side for him to walk so that you can be consistent with your expectations and reward position, this may help you stop him coming round in front for a reward.

Also many, many flower bulbs are poisonous to dogs so it's really important you stop him eating these.

Regarding excitement levels, when he really goes off the scale the only thing you can do is get him far enough away so that he calms down again. Once he's calm you can move closer. Many dog trainers talk about being "over threshold" which basically means he's not capable of responding to you any more as his brain is just spinning. Puppy day care is probably a double edged sword - essential to have someone to look after him and gets him loads of exercise, doesn't do much for his self control though

Keep working at it you'll get there !

 

I agree with Barbara, do just a few minutes of formal training per day, 5-10 minutes is fine - but remember that EVERYTHING you do with him is actually training as he is learning all the time. So if you let him pull on the lead, he is learning that most of the time it is ok to pull on the lead unless you are actually in training mode... (I speak from bitter experience!). You don't need to tell yourself 'ok, I'm going to do ten minutes of training with Dexter now' - you can incorporate your training in with your afternoon walk for instance, and just refuse to move forward until he is walking next to you nicely.

With other dogs - I found that the best way to recall Poppy as a puppy was to let her have a run around and play, then take advantage of a moment when she was quite close to me and was looking at me. At that time I said 'Poppy, HERE' firmly and clearly, and then just turned around and walked off. She was torn of course between following me and playing with her puppy friends - but ultimately being with me won over the pups! Once she did come to me, I gave her huge praise and lots of delicious treats.

 

I have worked this week on making sure Dexter is on my left side and it did defo improve his walking in front of me lead although he sometimes does still go to the right he is very quick to pick up on my cue to come heel on the left.
I have concentrated in making sure I am doing a little bit of training each day sometimes setting time aside for sit, down, stay etc and also incorporating recall heel work and stay on walks

I'm finding his training is amazing when there is no distraction, even on a walk if we are alone in the field no cars people dogs of leafs it's brilliant but everything is a distraction so I'm training myself not to repeat cue words and only say them when he is doing them. I know it's on me to do the proofing part of this im struggling though around other dogs I just feel that we are not making any progress I say 'look' and he returns his attention to me for long enough to gobble up a treat then he's right at the end of his lead trying to get to other dogs again. I will try more high value treats

Puppy class is tonight and I must admit I'm a bit anxious, with so many puppies around its like all training goes out the window unless he's really focuses on a task. We will see how it goes anyway

 

Puppy class went much better than last week and I have a more positive outlook today! We worked a bit on walking past other dogs using the 'look' cue, first time wasn't great second time much better it seems that if I already have his attention and we don't get too close I can hold his attention much better.i guess the only way to work on this is the proof it so we are going on a dog hunt on this afternoons on lead walk.

We also did a little bit on sitting before going through a door, but we did it with a makeshift jump over thingy ma jig so Dexter was perfect because he didn't realise it was a door and he's more than happy to sit down so we have been practising this with doors at home. Again the problem is he doesn't care about any doors other than the front and back doors which he goes through for walks or wees. Considering starting to train on these doors but the trainer did say not to because he will be too excited?

The other thing we practised was 'settle' this is particularly hard for us to practise at home because he is rarely hyper enough at home for us to need to ask him to settle and he is happy to entertain himself lying at our feet so tomorrow morning we are going into town to a cafe and we are going to sit outside and we WILL finish our coffees!! Hopefully he will settle okay although I'm pretty apprehensive because at 15 weeks he is still very young and excited whenever he sees anyone! I have visions of coffee and tables flying everywhere!

 

Heh, yes, settling is a tough one for puppies, that's for sure! It might help to try starting when on lead walks. Tell him "game over", or whatever you want to say, then stand on his lead and ignore him completely. Make the lead so he can comfortably stand, but no more than that. If the lead is long enough, hold the other end in your hand; if not, I like to put my opposite foot through the loop (which could be a bit dangerous with some strong dogs, so use your noggin). You mustn't talk to him, or even look at him while you're in "game over". When you're ready, collect up his lead, which will be the signal to start paying attention again. Give him a treat, and off you go. Practice this regularly, starting with very short sessions (only a few seconds) and working up to longer. You can do it sitting down on park benches etc, too, so he gets used to the cue ("game over", followed by a foot on the lead) meaning nothing interesting is going to happen, so I might as well just chill out. Obviously, practice this with no distractions to start off with, and only increase either the distraction level or the duration at any time. when you make one of these more challenging, reduce your requirement of the other and gradually build it back up.

You can eventually transfer this to situations such as cafes and restaurants; if you go tomorrow and you find that the cafe is too distracting, I'd postpone that until you've done some other precursor training first, otherwise you might just be setting him up for failure. And, don't forget, other people are a real issue when out "in the wild" and find it hard to resist coming up to a cute puppy and ruining your training.

As for the doors, it's entirely up to you; I didn't train patience at doors until very recently (and we're still proofing), so didn't ask for anything when letting them out for a wee. I'd say this depends on your dog as to whether it's advisable; if he's too excited or if he's busting to go to the loo, then you're asking a lot of him to sit and wait. I'm also not convinced that training on some doors and not others is the way to go. Training is all about consistency, and he may find it really difficult to learn the reasons why he's sometimes allowed to go through and sometimes not. That's why I waited until mine were a little older.

 

Not too much to report over the past couple of weeks, I have again been slack with training although I am managing to incorporate bits and bobs into the walk as well as recall and loose lead walking so I guess we are doing okay.
As suggested we started to practise 'settle' a couple of time per walk I will sit on a bench say settle foot on lead drop a couple of treats on the floor and not look/talk or any attention for a few seconds (between 10 and 30seconds) all of these times have been without distractions I'm a bit worried to add one in at the moment- Dexter doesn't settle in that he sits/lies down he's still standing watching the world and waiting for treats but he does settle in the sense that he's not trying to run off?
Puppy school is becoming a complete waste of time we are 6 weeks in with 2 to go but we paid for them so we will prevail. I wonder whether the next level up will benefit Dexter or not, I don't want his learning to be impeded because we didn't take him

Sit is getting shaky we need to work on the proofing because he was so good at it before, waiting to go out of the front door is perfect now he doesn't move until we say 'okay' although I sometimes have to say 'wait' to remind him - this is the word we use to make him wait for anything like food or toys etc so I feel like he knows the word

Jumping up has just started and I'm u sure how to tackle this because it's not a constant thing and by the time he's back on the floor he's not jumping up again

Other than that we are working mostly on 'lie down' 'in your crate/bed' and 'look' when there are other dogs which infuriates me because just as I get his attention the other dog owner wants to come and pet Dexter which sends him into a frenzy again! He is doing well though and I'm so happy with his progress at 16 weeks and he is so massive already

 

waiting patiently with Marley at 14 weeks
IMG_1674 by daniella dingley, on Flickr

Dexter at 15 weeks
IMG_1678 by daniella dingley, on Flickr

Todays walk at just over 16 weeks
IMG_1793 by daniella dingley, on Flickr

 

This weekend was absolutely full of new experiences for Dexter and whilst I was worried the whole time Dexter took it in his stride and did really well.
We went to stay with my in-laws for the weekend so new experience number 1 was a long car journey approx 2 hours, up until now Dexter hasn't spent more than 20 minutes in the car. He just rolled over onto his back -as much as the harness would allow and slept the whole journey.
Experience 2. Sleep over in a new house; we took his crate and toys and blankets and he was fine no whining in the night and only 1 accident on the carpets whoops. They have a huge garden so he thought it was playtime every time he went out rather than wee time!
Experience number 3 constantly having people around. It's just me and my husband at home with regular visitors but never 6 people at any one time, he handled it well and made the most of the attention!
Experience 4 was the beach , pebbles sand and sea - he LOVED IT! it's November and the U.K. So it wasn't too busy except for regular dog walkers so he was really well behaved and explored all the new sights and smells
Last new experience, the pub! Again it was November and we were in a beer garden on the beach so we were the only looneys there. He settled well and just sat and chilled with treats dropped in the floor to him every now and then, I'm guessing he would have been a bit different had there been a lot of other people, but I'm happy for now, baby steps ....