Tonight we taught Clara, otherwise known as the Energizer Bunny, Down and Leave It. These impulse control cues will help stop the negative behaviors such as the jumping and mouthing that she does when she gets excited.
Now that Jetty has learned Stay and has a week of practice, we put it to the test to help stop her jumping. When there was a knock on the door Jetty would run to the door, as most dogs do, and then her owner would call her back and put her in a Sit/Stay until the guest entered. We practiced that over and over and she got to the point that when there was a knock she would look to her owner to be reinforced!
We finished up our impulse control day by teaching Lilly Wait, Stay, and Leave It. We also taught her how to be quiet, as she has a tendency to bark for attention. Lilly did very well!
We taught Susie Wait, Stay, and Leave It, and she excelled at learning all 3 of them. Her owners will use them to strengthen Susie's impulse control when people go by her house, and when she is on walks.
The theme of the day is impulse control, and we started with Breah, who jumps on visitors when they enter. We worked on strengthening her Sit, which she already knew how to do, and we taught her Down. She also has some housebreaking issues and after we put some protocols in place she only had 1 accident in the house last week!
Clara is a beautiful, 6-month old Labrador Retriever mix that has typical 6-month old issues: nipping, jumping, and full of puppy energy. But she loves to learn, so this will be fun.
I used a higher value treat tonight to try to help Sammy feel more comfortable with the things that scare him, including me. He seems a little bit better week to week, but the progress is very slow.
Lilly is a young Basset Hound mix who gets super excited when people arrive. She jumps and barks for attention and, up until now, has received it. We will now ignore that behavior and only reinforce the behavior we like, such as sitting and being quiet.
Although Jetty greeted me with excitement and jumping we took steps to remedy that tonight be teaching her the impulse control exercises Leave It, Wait, & Stay. She picked up all three very quickly and we even had her in a down stay as the door bell was rung. This will take consistent work but tonight showed she can do it.
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AuthorJeff Dentler, CPDT-KA, IAABC-ADT, FFCP, CTDI Archives
April 2024
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