Yesterday we started the basics of coming when called. Today we continued on with that lesson adding some mild distractions in.
I start out by getting Sophia's attention. I do this by saying her name. We're in a fairly low distraction environment right now so I have a lot of success with this but, if she didn't respond when I said her name, I would have not have called her to come. I would have gone up to her and either put a treat to her nose to lure her away, made some noise (clapping sounds, encouragement, etc.), or tapped her on the back to get her attention. Once I have her attention, I can call her to come ("Sophia, come!") in a happy, enthusiastic voice.
I'm to the point where I'm adding a little bit more distance with her but I'm still moving away from her as she is coming towards me. That adds a little bit of excitement for the dog and they tend to want to follow you.
As she is running towards me, I am encouraging her the whole way ("That a girl, you're doing it! Good girl!! That's it!"). When she gets to me, I reward her multiple times, one treat after the other, while I'm praising her. These are really small treats...her normals treats cut into 8 tiny pieces. She just needs to be able to taste the treat and she thinks she's getting paid off really well for coming when she gets multiple treats. I want her to think coming when called is much more rewarding than anything else going on in the world. I am also praising her and petting her on the chest (I avoid the head because a lot of dogs don't think this is very pleasant). Occasionally I will also grab her collar and give her a treat too. This gets her use to someone quickly moving towards her and grabbing her in an emergency.
Now that she is doing really well at coming, I can start to add in more distractions like the barking dog next door. I'm only going to call her when I think I will get her to come (I don't want her to practice ignoring me) but, just in case, I'm prepared to get a treat to her nose and lure her away from the distraction. As usual, when you prepare you don't need it. She's doing great! I think tomorrow we'll add in some more distractions...maybe even playing ball with Sinbad.
We're still working hard on the jumping. It's still really hard for her when she first greets me. I've now started to say "ah ah ah," and turn away from her when she greets me with a jump. If she doesn't stop, I say "Oops, try again." and put her in the crate for about 30 seconds. If she is sitting quietly in the crate, I let her out and try again. She is learning fast and will quickly offer a sit after being released from the crate. What a good girl! I have to read her body language a lot when giving her praise so I don't over do it. If I'm too excited or too high pitched, she starts to jump. She likes it a lot when I tell her what a good girl she is and slowly rub the sides of her face. She is a girl who just about melts for praise.
I am starting to be able to walk with her beside me with no jumping. Yea Sophia! When her greetings are a little more calm, I will add walking fast with a lot of hand movement.
Her house training is going well. She tried to tell me earlier that she needed to go out but I was busy working on the computer. I caught her just as she was starting to squat. Perfect! She's been getting a lot of praise for toileting in the appropriate locations but this was a perfect opportunity to tell her what was inappropriate. I interrupted her by saying "ah, ah, ah" (not so loud to scare her but just enough to get her to stop) and picked her up and took her outside. When she toileted outside she got a lot of praise and a chance to run around and play. If she had been in another room and toileted, I would have missed the opportunity to teach her.
We're working on toileting in the parking strip so she gets use to different areas for when she's at the school. She does pretty well but sometimes gets distracted by noises in the neighborhood. If she does get distracted, I move farther away from the distraction so she can focus on the task at hand.
All in all another very productive day! She is such a nice girl...
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