Pick a puppy

After traveling the world for 15 years my sister and her family are about to embark on their biggest journey yet:  they're getting a dog.

Being the mother-hen-oldest-sister that I am, I'm offering the cliff notes version of puppy training theories. I read them all and we tried most of them before we finally figured out what works best for us.

From our first rescued nippy miniature schnauzer Murphy,

 To our hyper and very distract-able and lovable beagle Molly,

and her puppies,

 

to our current easy going family boy Beau,

we have tried a lot of training strategies and made a lot of mistakes.

Trial and error is not the most effective way to learn.  

So here is my first suggestion:  watch this Caesar Milan video and then read the book if you are so inclined.  Can't go wrong with the Dog Whisperer.


How to Raise a perfect Puppy--Caesar Milan

Go to mat training beginnings. Twelve weeks old.

I started with 'go to mat' training for Beau. The goal is to be able to have the dog go to a mat and lay down and be quiet whenever we need him to. 

At first my goal was just to get Beau to look at or sniff or even better, sit on the mat--but he wasn't interested in the mat, just dinner..  (actually I had the mat too far away--I should have put it where he would naturally sit on it...)

So to get him to notice the mat I just started tossing treats onto the mat.  Then I clicked and treated rapidly before he could get off, even though I don't think he really realized that he was on the mat at that point--he was just happy to be getting dinner.  Every ten treats or so, I tossed the treat away so he would leave the mat to get the treat.  But he still wasn't intentionally going back on to the mat to get a treat. hmmm...

 After a few minutes of this, I finally remembered to put the mat at my feet where Beau was more likely to lie down so that I could more easily reinforce the behavior--quickly treating about every second with two pieces of kibble.  (he likes his kibble...?) And then throwing a treat off the mat to give him a chance to go back to it on purpose.  For the first four or five times I had to draw his attention to the mat by patting it and then he went and laid down for another round of rapid reinforcement..

Finally, after about six cycles of 10 treats, he left the mat to go get his tossed treat, paused for a second and then trotted onto the mat.  Yeah!  So I click and give him the rest of the bowl for dinner.  That's it for training today.

**By the way--I like to use meals/food for training,  I like to have a dog  work to get his food.  Some people think it makes a dog who will only work if there is food around but I never had that problem with Molly and I don't think I will with Beau either.  I think it makes a dog who is always trying to figure out what you want him to do.  Works for me.**

What's in a name?

For everyone who's not interested in dogs and/or training--sorry.  You can skip this if  you want.  I am going to try to keep a journal of puppy training for a couple of reasons--for fun, to keep myself focused and for future reference.

Our puppy's name Beauregard.  This literally means 'beautiful gaze'  or 'beautiful to look at' in French.  We call him Beau around the house but the kids are very particular to tell people that his name is Beauregard. I am wondering if we should register him with one of those fancy registration names like Beauregard of the Idaho valley or something elegant like that.  I don't know. 

Funny how the simplest things make me so happy...

Beau asked to go outside by whining at the door for the first time.  woohoo!

We still have potty training accidents but it is getting better both because he holds it well and we know when he needs to go out better.  I should have bought the gallon sized pet cleaner solution. 

Beau has been sleeping through the night on the floor of our bedroom.  I know-I know--so much for the 'just for tonight' short term solution to the puppy sleep training.  We have all seen Lady and the Tramp right? 

But he never even asks to get up on the bed and he has never had an accident in our room and he immediately lays right down.  So I'm not complaining.  Molly never slept through the night.  I'm not kidding.  Until we got a dog door when she was 18 months old I got up EVERY SINGLE night and let her out to the bathroom.  I didn't even get up with my babies that long...  But trying to avoid a screaming puppy or pee on the floor is quite motivating.

Speaking of dog doors--I have plans to put a dog door in the family room this weekend.  

I hesitate to even write this because I don't want to jinx anything but... we don't have our yard completely fenced in and Beau has never ventured away.  Did you hear that!?  When I was trying to train the beagle (Molly) to stay home I remember watching a family carry groceries in with their dog just trotting along beside them and seriously feeling my eye tear up with jealousy.  I know we are still in the puppy phase but we have never experienced such a miracle.  A dog that stays home!

Working the training levels:

All training is done with feedings.  We don't just give the dog any of his food.  He has to earn it.  The first day I waited for Beau to sit from being tired of trying to get food from my hand.  I just clicked when his butt hit the flour.  Bingo.  He got that the first day. 

Once he was offering sits continually, I started moving his treats so he would stand up to get them then I started adding the 'Sit' cue just as his butt hit the floor.  We did about 100 repetitions of that.  Very quickly. And then I started saying the cue 'sit' just before he sat.  We did that for the next day and now he is responding to the sit cue in all areas of the house from me or Rustin or the kids.  We haven't tried it outside and we haven't added any other behaviors yet--which is the tricky part. 

We are working on target (my hand) for a treat but haven't really added the cue.  I just started to try to get some downs this morning but it's hard when he's starving.  I used Sue Ailsby's method of putting the treat back and just in front  of his paws.  At first he kept standing up to try to get the treat and I realized that I needed to keep the tread closer to his body on the floor so he would fold in.  Bingo.  But that was luring.  Still need to get him to realize that laying down in the trick.  That's the trouble with luring.  I will try to capture some downs when he offers them when I'm not feeling too lazy. 

Today Benson sat on the floor with a bowl of food and Beau started to mug him for just a second and then he quickly backed up and politely planted his bottom and Benson started dolling out the food. Beau was very polite after that.  This is great because a wrestling session  yesterday ended up with a deep scratch on Benson's ear.  Seriously ouch.  I spent some time having Benson practice being in charge. 

I have a million questions and worries but Rustin reminds me that like Rome, good family dogs aren't built in a day. 

What were we thinking!!!

I knew I would say this but I forgot how exhausting a new puppy is.  ugg.

Potty training stinks.

The kids slept on the floor by the pup for the last two night but last night everyone was ready for their own beds.  What to do...

 Last night I broke the *this dog will never see the inside of a bedroom* rule and put him on a mat on the floor next to my bed (when exhaustion kicked in at midnight...).  He whined for a second and put his paws up on the bed but I pushed him off once and he didn't ask to get up again.  No accidents during the night but I took him out three times.  Tonight I am going to try to get him to go back to sleep instead of getting up. For the next couple of nights I will have him sleep on the floor next to my bed but then hopefully to the crate without crying all night... 

Crating  would have been easier for Beau  if he had spent time in the crate with his litter mates.... so we will work  on it gradually.

I forgot that I love training.  I don't know what it is--something about learning to communicate with a creature.  And dogs love people...

Training:  we are using regular puppy kibble and we are training during meal times.  We have lots of offered sits now.  Beau does great with the "Puppy come game."  I also started working on targeting today as well as clicking for sitting politely to get dinner from my hand.

Tomorrow all my puppy-sitters go back to school so we'll see how it goes!