Recall:
Building a strong association to the word ‘come’ is so important for a solid recall. Like all training, we don’t want to rush the steps towards a strong recall. We want our dogs to learn that coming to us when called is the most exciting thing in the world! More exciting than other dogs and even MORE exciting than food they found on the ground!
Recall could even save a dogs life if it meant they came back from almost running across a road or from a situation we don’t want them in.
Obedience:
These are our basics; such as sit, drop and stay. They are really important for our dogs to know to create good manners and help with self-control.
We can really build on these behaviours by adding in new distractions and changing environments we train in. By doing this, it will create really solid obedience.
Other behaviours we can teach our dogs to help with manners are ‘place’ (bed) and ‘leave it’. These commands can be really helpful around the home, especially if we drop food on the ground and we don’t want them eating it!
Confidence building:
We want our dogs to feel confident in the outside world and to have resilience when they might face some more stressful situations. Puppies have a critical period, up to 16 weeks, where we want them to experience as much as they can to help them grow into confident dogs.
We can help build on their confidence, whether it be confidence around unfamiliar people, dogs or new environments.
Dog to dog reactivity:
It is important to understand your dog’s threshold and triggers and signs that show they are uncomfortable. Dog’s need to know that they can retreat from a situation if need be; otherwise they can resort to fight or freeze.
Understanding WHY your dog might be displaying certain behaviours (such as barking) and getting to the root cause is crucial, rather than just trying to ‘fix’ the problem behaviour.
