My Wife Is the Master Puppy Trainer: I want to tell everyone that due to my unbelievable ability to be a brilliant leader, coach and mentor; my puppy Otis is doing amazing. However, that would be a total and complete lie. The complete credit goes totally to my wife Tami. She studies the Doggy Dan (Online dog trainer) and other website/blogs information daily. She lists the critical habits and routines the puppy needs on electronic flash cards and she even trains my son and I. The original plan was we do this training completely together however the reality of a pack leader with a vision and focus works with human’s as well. I am happy to follow her lead. Clarification, all humans are pack leaders. In the development efforts, someone must lead the efforts.
Morning Walks: My wife handles the middle of the night walk and I handle the morning walk. The puppy has a routine now and this morning Otis did both jobs almost immediately, when put on the grass. No accidents in the crate or cage area. This is a 10-week old puppy and this is amazing. This morning, after a well-orchestrated and routine walk followed by breakfast. The puppy did his strangle little walk around the great room. Again, a credit to my wife’s training of me and the puppy. When the dog is out of the crate, watch them and notice. Well, I picked up the puppy and took him outside again. Sure enough, he did both his jobs AGAIN. Puppy’s talk to us if you only listen, great lesson about dogs and humans.
The Vacuum is not the Enemy: Again, no credit to me on this one for sure. My wife trains the puppy every day and adds stuff on the developmental list as needed. Did you know that dogs bark at things or people because they are trying to protect us. This behavior is saying the dog is the pack leader and adds stress to the dog’s life. We need to shift this focus to allow the human to be the pack leader and the dog can relax. So, Tami vacuums the area around the dog and the puppy barks at the vacuum. NOT cute, incorrect behavior. She follows the instruction given by the dog trainer and I observe to mimic the behavior if it comes up another time. She tells the dog “Thank You” in a calm confident voice. If the dog barks again, she walks over to the vacuum in this case, looks at it, says “thank you” and without making eye contact with Otis walks away. On the third time of barking, the dog goes in time out for a few minutes. Incremental improvements every time she does this type of routine which is not restricted to the vacuum. WOW!
Best things I learned so far: Most importantly, humans are the pack leader. My favorite lesson so far is waiting until the dog calms down when they first see you is the bomb. The goal in training for behavior regardless of puppy or human is allow the trainee (puppy) to calm down before you engage. “Consistency is the mother of learning and repetition is the father”. Training is training.