I thought I would be clever and teach Ripple to close the drawers that he is so fond of opening. Unfortunately I have now created a drawer opening frenzy as he opens them ten times as much in what appears to be an effort to discover at what point I click and treat . Silly me, why did I think I could outwit Ripple .
Good boy, Ripple. It's good to have a dog that is willing to work. You need to 'finish' things in order to stop this - so get the draw thing on cue. Getting something on cue means the dog does it when you give the cue and doesn't do it otherwise (in most cases, there are exceptions). Once you have properly associated your verbal cue, you can click both for an action on cue, and for nothing when you don't give the cue. I find it helps Charlie to have a default when he is learning this. So I have a small mat and the default is be still on the mat (I later fade out the mat). So it goes: cue, action, click and treat; mat click and treat - I might then just give him a few treats for staying still; cue, action, click and treat; mat click and treat.... Once he gets it, then I get rid of the mat and if he goes to the action without a cue I don't reward but it seems to help him to have a default action in the mat at first.
You have to be two steps ahead. Not easy when they have 4 legs and you only have 2. The sun is shining, it is a perfect spring day, hence the silliness
