Our sweet Oliver has been in training “school” since February. Once a week for 7.5 months we have gone to Petsmart for his school. (In all that time we have only missed ONE night! We really make it a priority because he loves it so much and it’s his only time to socialize with other dogs. He gets soooo excited when we say “let’s go to school!” and he loves his teacher so, so much!)
He has learned many things, some of which are sit, down, on your bed, heel, bow, stay, wait, take, crawl… and many more. He was already very well-behaved when we adopted him (almost a year ago!), but now the three of us communicate better and we’re on the same page with what we need him to do. It’s making life easier. Especially learning to walk on the leash better. That was one thing that was a huge struggle… and now he’s great at it.
Last week he “graduated” from Intermediate class. We are so proud! He will stay in there for a few more weeks to get better socialized, and then we’ll move on to Advanced! I know we are all ready to learn some new things!
One thing we have had to do is PRACTICE. Lots of practice time. We try to do some every day. We were just going through everything by memory, but I found that we were just practicing the same things over and over, and not trying to learn the new things or any of the random “tricks” she throws into the class. So I decided to make a “game” to help us better practice EVERYTHING.
All I needed were some buttons (I have lots leftover from my button crafts), and an empty medicine bottle.
On each button I wrote one of his commands.
Then I somewhat decorated the bottle and labeled it Oliver’s Button Game (So creative, I know).
Now when we practice we shake the bottle and he gets real excited about practicing, and then we pull buttons out and practice the commands that are written on them. I think it’s a lot of fun and it helps Oliver be more engaged.
What are some of your dog training tips?
Hubby, Hound, & Home 