Monday, March 14, 2005
Pug Training
Yesterday was week 7 at Buddy’s training class, and pretty much the last productive week ... next week is graduation, and pretty much just a play games and run over stuff session.
It’s really been a worthwhile thing to go through, and I’d recommend it for anyone with a puppy. It’s mostly not about teaching the dog, but about teaching you how to teach your dog.
Through the weeks, we have learnt how to get Buddy to St, Lay Down, Wait, Stay (yes, they are different. Wait is a short pause, and you come back, Stop is a longer pause, and you call him to you), Come. My favourite has been Leave It, although we need to work more on that one I think ... we have also tried to go through things like pulling on leashes and jumping up at people coming in the house, and neither of them I’m too worried about, as he’s only little and it’s not a big problem.
We have also covered all grooming and health problems, gotten a lot of valuable information on how to deal with a puppies teenage years, how to deal with house training ...
The trainer only deals in positive reinforcement, and it is very effective. Obviously there have been times when we had to time out our dogs, and by now we are all familiar with our startle word (a loud noise or work you yell when you need to interrupt them from doing something bad), but it’s all coupled with given them treats for things they enjoy, and it really helps. The dogs now work to please you, so they get treats and praise.
It’s helped Buddy a lot! We still have issues, he’s not completly house trained, and sometimes he gets very wound up and will do naughty things in the house (ripping up his pee pads, biting Brutus, chewing hair and stealing socks are his favourite), but with startle words, then redirecting him to a toy, he’s getting the hang of it.
He’s not going to become a perfectly trained canine good citizen any time soon, but it has helped immensly to give us the tools we need to train him as he grows.
I defenitely like the puppy class!
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