Having Fun While Training Your Dog

Due to cold weather and rain a week ago Thursday I ended up teaching two Pet Therapy classes this week. Thankfully the weather cooperated both Monday and Thursday of this week and although everyone couldn't make it to the first class, they were all here on Thursday.

We had such a great mix of people and dogs, from young to old, teeny, tiny and fearful to Gigantic and fearless! What a variety of pooches: a Golden Doodle, Black Lab/Shepherd, Yellow Lab/Shepherd, Chihuahua, Scottish Terrier, Golden Retriever, and a Haveneze (spelling?)!

Man were the dogs hyper!

With Snickers, Baby, and Jax (our most recently trained Certified Pet Therapy Dog and his owner Stacey Wendling), we had a total of 10 dogs here! Thankfully we had lots of volunteers!

At first I was thinking I should have broken them up into two groups, but they (dogs & handlers) did awesome! The dogs settled down and took their turns for each section of the training--almost like they were at the testing. Wow! I was so pleased with all their progress!

Molly and Marna added a few laughs as usual. When we did the sit, stay, then come when called, Molly always went to someone else or another dog instead of Marna. Gotta love em! That just cracks me up :) But then we realized it's because Molly takes her eyes off Marna and loses focus immediately. I pointed out that one of our other ladies, Samantha was clapping to keep her dog, Dolly's attention. That seemed to work great. So I learn something new from my students too and love it!

Some of the dogs wouldn't sit and stay long or at all. But in our group, that's okay, we don't force. We work at the dog/handlers pace and give them tips and encouragement of how to work on those problem areas.

I believe each dog/handler is special and unique. No two dogs are alike, just the same as no two people are alike. And that's awesome, because some people like big dogs, where others like small dogs. But any dog, when trained properly can be a more obedient dog.

Funny I should say that. A little boy who came to the group was holding Snickers leash a ways away from where I was teaching and he started barking loud and annoying at a kid passing by on a bike. I commanded, "Snickers, No Bark!" Everyone laughed because he hung his head like he'd gotten busted when he thought I was too busy to be paying attention. But he'll even be outside on the chain and bark to come in and I'll command, "NO BARK!" to let him know I hear him and he will stop. Then when he stops barking I say, "Good No Bark," to praise him.

That's the thing with dogs, they are just like kids, so if you really want them to mind, you have to keep right on them, praise them when they are good, but don't give them an inch when they're not!

Our Dogs that Heel & Heal Classes are offered privately as well as in group sessions. Please see our website for more details AbuseBites.com

Happy Training!