Little puppies love to sniff! How much sniffing does your puppy do?
It is NORMAL for dogs or all ages to be startled. What is ideal is to see is a fairly fast recovery.
In this video we stopped to check out the parachute guy. Mica noticed him, was being curious and doing some air sniffing, but also wanted to check out the new area we were in. So she wasn't overly bothered by the weird thing in the sky. When the guy was running sideways with his parachute she definitely had a moment of "UMMM HEY SOMETHING WEIRD AND NOT NORMAL IS GOING ON HERE". But she wasn't distressed, was easily encouraged to walk away, and was soliciting treats from me after. We even played a bit with a cool stick we found in the grass 😂
There's so much pressure to have a dog that will never react anything and be okay/neutral with absolutely everything. That's a great goal, but sometimes unrealistic. They are a living creature in our bizarre world, and to be alive is to react to the world around you. What I'm looking for is: in the face of great excitement or worry, you can choose to just walk away and trust that I can handle it.
Taking some cookies tossing fun and shaping it into a whiplash name response!
Featuring Tilly and Frankie
Someone asked a good question last night:
In puppy classes they took way back when, for "sit" they just pushed their bum down. Is that wrong?
That totally was a really common way to teach sit! Luckily we've learned so much since those days that we know that it can be faster and more effective to teach in other ways.
Having a sit at a distance with just a verbal cue is one of the benefits to teaching it differently and why I chose to not teach it by just pushing their bum now ❤️
I LOVE seeing shy puppies come out of their shell. These two were a little nervous when their set of classes had started, and were interested but too unsure to actually physically check out the other dogs.
With puppies we never Force interaction, but always encourage curiosity and braveness. So proud of these two, who clearly became fast Friends ❤️
I've had people ask me how I teach puppies to jump up in the car and, to be totally honest I don't do dedicated training sessions for it. Rather, it's just a skill gained over time as they become older and more able to do it.
I always put puppies in the car crate in this order:
- Open the crate
- Toss cookies to the back
- Scoop up the puppy and put them in
- Close the crate
The cookies are just consolation cookies. "You're going in whether you'd like it or not, here's some cookies for your troubles."😂
After a while, I'll start to do this:
-Open crate
- Toss cookies in the back
- Pause and observe the puppy
I just pause for a couple seconds and see if the puppy is showing interest in getting the cookies on their own or if they are not interested. If they're not interested I just scoop them up and put them in the crate. Overtime you will notice the puppies starting to show interest in jumping in on their own. If the puppy does happen to jump in on their own, after they eat the cookie in the back of the crate when they turn around I have cookies ready in my hand to feed them at the front of the crate. Then close the crate.
Then I have a pattern like this starting to happen:
- Open the crate
- Puppy jumps in
- Mark that jump with a 'yes!' or 'good!' and reward at the front of the crate
If your puppy isn't necessarily jumping in on their own without cookies being tossed in, sometimes I make a hand motion towards the crate after I open it as if I was going to toss in a cookie, so when they jump in then I celebrate and sprinkle cookies all over the crate. My goal is to switch to a treat being presented after they jump in as soon as possible, but I take as long as necessary.
You could also add a verbal cue to this once they start getting to those last steps. I say 'hop up' before they were about to get in on their own anyway, so we can start pairing that verbal cue with the behavior and a reward.
So this is one of the things that when you ask me a traini
During hunting season I'm not worried about hunters. I'm more concerned with the carcass piles the dogs will find 😂 Would your puppy recall off a deer bone?
As someone who has had SO MANY dogs and puppies come through my home, I can say with my whole heart: don't lose sleep over how mouthy your puppy is. Puppy biting, while painful and annoying:
- doesn't mean that your dog will grow up to be aggressive.
- doesn't mean that the biting will happen forever.
- doesn't mean you are doing something wrong.
The good side of nonstop construction for months on end: the past two weeks Tilly has spent her time observing loud trucks, weird things, men in uniforms, weird men on the street every time we walk out the door, etc. she remains ✨unfazed and unbothered✨ 💅
Am I the only one that finds this crazy impressive?!
This is one of my favorite games to play with dogs but especially puppies. Yes, she is just hunting for a piece of beef lung in the grass. At 12 weeks old she has a tiny attention span, but her commitment to the search is impressive!!!
Raise your hand if you agree 🙌
I think good dog handling looks a lot like defensive driving. You don't have to have any fancy training under your belt to be able to handle a dog well out in public, as long as you're keeping defensive driving in mind!
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