✨Golden Scholars✨
My first impression of these puppies:
✅ People Focused
✅ Self-Confident
✅ Adaptable
💙🧡💚💛
These puppies are going to be ready to hit the ground running once we start training! We were greeted with wagging tails and happy faces when we picked them up. They immediately wanted our attention and were happy to be loved on. They were thrilled to get out to play, but never went further than a few feet away from us. They settled down to sleep within minutes of being in the car.
I've observed no signs of stress from any of them so far. New people, new car, new environments, new smells... These pups are taking everything in stride. These are some well-balanced pups!
We're going to have a lot of fun seeing what these babies are capable of over the next 4 weeks
💙🧡💚💛
Tomorrow we pick up our next group of golden scholars! The puppy yard is ready for them 🥰
✨Manding (automatic sit)✨
I've been asked before if you can teach an older puppy to Mand and the answer is Yes! Here is a quick video of 10 week old puppies and 11 month old Luna practicing how to Mand. We use the same techniques regardless of age.
*I got Luna at 10 months old so we've been actively working on training to improve her manners.
⏩What is Manding??
Manding is teaching a puppy how to communicate with us. Instead of jumping to tell us they want something, such as your attention or food, they learn to sit instead.
⏩Isn't that just teaching them to sit?
No, because there are no verbal or physical commands used to tell a puppy what we want from them. We wait for them to make the choice on their own.
⏩How do I teach them to Mand?
Wait for the puppy to offer the behavior. Once they sit you use a marker (I use the word "yes!") to let the puppy know they've done something correct followed by a reward to reinforce the behavior.
Over time this will become a conditioned response and your puppy will automatically sit when they want something instead of jumping all over you 🤗
✨Tips✨
▪️Young puppies only need to to practice for a few minutes at a time. Keep it short and fun! Try to end on a positive note when your puppy was successful.
▪️Practice frequently throughout the day. Training opportunities present themselves ALL the time. The more consistent you are, the faster they learn.
▪️Remain calm and walk slowly if you're just starting or your puppy is easily excited. We want them to be successful so by adding too much exciting movement (running, skipping, etc), too fast we may accidentally encourage the behavior we don't want as they race to catch us.
▪️Puppy jump on you? Ignore it. You may want to knock them off or shout "No!", but try to stay still and wait for them to figure out what gets them a positive response. Any reaction to jumping, even negative ones, can accidentally reinforce the unwanted behavior.
✨Scent Work Training✨
Hazel will now alert to the smell with a sit 🥳 she is also starting to use closed boxes during her search 🤗
✨Scent Work Training✨
Luna & Hazel have been practicing searching daily for the last couple weeks which included expanding their search area, adding more boxes, and adding height to their searches (boxes on chairs, bins, etc). They really understand the concept so they're ready for the next step!
Today they were introduced to Birch, which is the scent used in AKC novice searches, inside of a scent tin.
Sniff/touch the tin=Reward
Then they practiced searching for the box which had 2 pieces of kibble & the birch smell inside. Once they find the correct box, I reward them with a higher value treat.
They're both doing great! I'm hoping they'll both be ready for their first scent work trial in a couple months 🤗
✨Scent Work Training✨
Hazel will also be continuing to train for scent work. At Fast Cat events I've had a couple people tell me she would excel at scent work because she uses her nose quite a bit when she runs at the event. She was exceptionally fast at finding the hidden kibble! I think she needs more boxes to search through haha
Benefits of Scent Work:
▪️It's fun
▪️Builds confidence
▪️Helps burn mental and physical energy
Scent Work brings out and uses your dog's natural hunting instincts. Training generally starts by getting a dog excited about hunting for hidden treats or a favorite toy. The dog is immediately rewarded when he finds the treat or toy building even more excitement for the game.
Our first lesson is introducing her to "containers" (cardboard boxes) and allowing her time to understand why it is important to check these containers (to find the treat!).
I have 12 boxes set up around a room, 3 of them have kibble inside for her to find.
Since this is new, I'm not using a search word like 'Find It' instead I'm simply waiting for her to find the treat and then marking the behavior with a 'Yes!' and praise ☺️
✨Scent Work Training✨
Luna has a nose on her! She's earned her beginner scent work title and I think she can really excel in this sport so we're going to continue her training 🤗
Benefits of Scent Work:
▪️It's fun
▪️Builds confidence
▪️Helps burn mental and physical energy
Scent Work brings out and uses your dog's natural hunting instincts. Training generally starts by getting a dog excited about hunting for hidden treats or a favorite toy. The dog is immediately rewarded when he finds the treat or toy building even more excitement for the game.
Our first lesson is introducing her to "containers" (cardboard boxes) and allowing her time to understand why it is important to check these containers (to find the treat!).
I have 12 boxes set up around a room, 3 of them have kibble inside for her to find.
Since this is new, I'm not using a search word like 'Find It' instead I'm simply waiting for her to find the treat and then marking the behavior with a 'Yes!' and praise ☺️
✨Socialization✨
Luna & Hazel went out to their first parade today! Both pups did fantastic with all the loud trucks, music, sirens, and people walking by. They weren't bothered by any of it and were extremely well behaved the entire time. With as much attention as they received from everyone passing by, they may have even won for best entry even though we weren't in the parade 😂
Look how happy Hazel looks running FastCat 🥹😍
Hazel earned her first qualifying runs towards her FastCat title 🥳 her fastest time was 8.93!
Spent our last evening together snuggling both of these sweet girls 🥹 tomorrow they both go home with their families 🩷🩵💜
