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Kindle Notes & Highlights
your investment in training will go out of the window in times of need unless puppy feels safe and secure.
The most valuable, precious period is between 3 and 12 weeks of age. Although socialisation really is a continuous process throughout your dog’s life, the potency of positive exposure diminishes day by day as puppy matures.
As soon as possible, get yourself out and about with puppy to as many different environments as you can and let them learn and experience that the world’s okay. This will not happen by itself. It takes a little commitment from you but it can, and should, be fun for both of you.
Set up situations where puppy is around a wide variety of passive people, and if treats are being introduced to the environment, let them come from you. Puppy still gets to make the association that good things happen in the presence of other people, but retains a focus on you to ensure they’re not pawing or jumping at total strangers in the hope of hitting the jackpot.
You’re far better starting at a good, safe distance and gradually decreasing the distance as confidence grows, than you are staying up too close, puppy having a bad experience and you then having to make a retreat.
As much as possible and where safe, avoid having a tight lead or any obvious restrictions on puppy’s movements when exploring new environments and things. You can have a long thin line from the puppy’s harness to ensure they feel no restraint or restriction. That way they can move at their own pace, slow down, stop or even back away if need be.
If I were you, I’d call in to the vets tomorrow and ask if it’s okay if you pop in every now and then over the next couple of weeks to give puppy a few treats. If they say, ‘Yes’, then cool, crack on. If they say, ‘No’, also cool, just find another vet and take your business elsewhere.
Get to the entrance of the vets, then as soon as you go in the door treat, treat, treat, treat, treat; have a little party for a few seconds … then go outside again.
puppies will often go through what’s known as a ‘Fear Period’ between 8–12 weeks of age.
during the age of two to three months you may well notice puppy being a little more cautious, a little more sensitive in situations. Sometimes they will bark. It is crucial that during this period you DO NOT PUNISH the barking.
Bring the BEST treats you possibly can for your outings with puppy.
If you love it, reinforce it!
Also, do not use the long line to pull puppy into you. That’s uncomfortable for them and it won’t create a good positive association for puppy coming to you.
you see another owner with their dog at the park and you think the dog may be an appropriate meet-and-greet for puppy, please ask from a distance first. Never assume that all other dogs will be happy with a puppy running up to them
Let’s say on average that initially you say ‘Hi’ to every one in five dogs that you meet. That’s a sensible target and will help avoid creating a ‘frustrated greeter’.
Play is at its most potent when it’s a social activity. Do not expect puppy to play on their own.
During play, meet puppies at their own level. Not just from a height perspective, but concentrate on playing with no more strength, speed or activity level than a sibling puppy of the same age would assert.
In addition to food, you now have another currency to exchange for the behaviours you love from pup. You can reinforce puppy automatically running back to you down the park with a great game of tug or have a quiet game of ‘What Hand?’ as you wait in the vets for puppy’s health check.
Let me expand on this idea of MEBs. Don’t want your dog to bark with excitement when you get home? Cool, teach them you’ll only say hello when they’re holding their favourite teddy (They can’t bark and hold their teddy at the same time). Don’t want your dog to pull on the lead to go over and play with their doggy pals? Okay, teach them that only when they give you eye contact will you say, ‘Go play’ and take them over for the meet-and-greet. They can’t look at you and pull at the same time. Perfect MEB.
After a few seconds of nothingness, say ‘Colin’ in a nice, cheery voice. Wait one second and then put a treat into Colin’s mouth, regardless of Colin’s behaviour. It’s not important if he’s not looking at you at this stage; what is important is that we are consistently ‘charging the battery’. ‘Colin’ – wait one second – treat.
Without doubt, this is the one exercise that makes all other exercises easier. If I had to name one exercise as my number one, this is it! It is the foundation of everything else in this book. Simply put, if puppy’s not looking at you, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re not listening to you either! Done correctly, strong and reliable ‘Eye Contact’ can be the spine of everything else.
The fact that you’re saying ‘Good’ to ‘mark’ the behaviour means that you don’t have to be in a rush to deliver the food. For perfect conditioning, ensure you say ‘Good’ then start the process of moving your hand to feed. Separate the two actions. If you don’t ‘mark’ the behaviour with a ‘Good’, then puppy will still enjoy the food, but they won’t know why they got it, which means they won’t know what behaviour to repeat next time.
I like to let puppy know it’s ‘Training Time’ by having a little play as I say, ‘Wanna do a bit of training, buddy?’ I’ll then do a few repetitions of eye contact to get us in the zone. Sounds silly, I know, but it’s a nice way for us both to focus on each other. Imagine having dancing lessons but never knowing when they’re taking place; you’d be all over the place!
for all recalls, we want to be reinforcing puppy running to you, not just a slow walk or trot.
NEVER call puppy in an angry voice, no matter how tempting! An angry voice or body language does not predict great things are coming from you for puppy, therefore you’ll ‘poison’ your cue, leading to a hesitant recall in the future.
If puppy just happens to offer a behaviour you love, like coming to you on a walk, even if you haven’t cued it, then ‘capture’ the behaviour by reinforcing it with a great treat.
What gets treated gets repeated!
The way you’re training puppy is by employing what is known in dog training circles as ‘Operant Conditioning’. You’re asking for a behaviour, and then positively reinforcing that particular behaviour in order for it to become more fluent and reliable in the future.
While we’re at it, to ‘Don’t touch’ or ‘Don’t do’ is not a behaviour, therefore we cannot teach it and put it on cue. So there!
‘Positive Conditioned Emotional Response’ (+CER – namely, you see puppy excited in anticipation when they hear the ‘To The Fridge’ claxon),
‘No’ may well be the most overused word in puppy training, yet it probably has the least specific meaning to a puppy!
Simply put, do this: Control and manage the environment so errors don’t occur. Reinforce heavily the behaviours you do want. Take ‘Leave’ and ‘No’ out of your puppy training vocabulary.
What does the word mean … not to us, but to Puppy?
For us to give a cue and expect a decent response before we’ve even taught puppy what that the cue means is crazy.
‘Play is the highest form of research’ – Albert Einstein
Dogs won’t always know what you’re saying, but they’ll always know how you make them feel.
