When raising a puppy, I want to be a big part of their day, keeping them busy physically and mentally, and having the opportunities to expose them to all sorts of new things can be a challenge if I’m teaching all day. I am super impressed to say that the long days were not a challenge for Shrek this week.
I didn’t film all of our interactions in the arena, but here is a clip from one of our sessions. Entering the competition area should be a key to your dog to become excited and look to you for instructions on what fun game we are going to play. In this video, you see how I introduce this concept to Shrek. We enter the ring, begin playing (on leash), we stop tugging to remove the leash (he remains engaged the entire time), continue tugging some more, and then right into engagement training we go. I was very impressed with him!
There were several other interactions like this throughout the week, while students were walking courses and discussing handling options. He was allowed to explore the arena (“take a break”) while I was busy with students, but then when I was available for him, we did short sessions of recalls, engagement training, and rewarding for focusing on side cues (eye contact).
At home, we are doing some free-shaping sessions for meals. Shrek is offering a ton of different behaviors, so I will be narrowing those down and putting verbal cues to them soon. This will put those behaviors under stimulus control, which will free his brain to offer new behaviors in the future 🙂
He is doing an awful lot of sleeping! And of course, he wakes up having grown!
We started PreSport (Puppy) Foundation class on Tuesday. I so enjoy working with him and watching him figure out new things.
He loved meeting so many new friends in class all week and he had minimal fussing in his crate when it was time for me to teach. I am so so so impressed by his maturity and dealing with being put away for a nap when he isn’t tired!
He is 16 weeks today, around 11 pounds and 11 inches tall. More next week…
