A year has past…
So a year has past since we lost my dear sweet Pika boo. Not a day goes by that his little pitter patter is not missed.
Little Houston is growing and learning lots and helping us focus on the here and now. We took the 5 Minute Forumula to a Brilliant Recall and all my dogs, have benefited from Susan’s Garrett’s wonderful dog training expertise.
The main idea behind the 5 Minute Formula is to build value by strengthening the fun relationship you have with your dog. So when you say “come” your dog comes sprinting to your side, because they absolutely love being with you, whether i be for playing, a yummy treat or a lovin’ belly rub.
Shown here is a game we learned from the 5MF. Before playing this game i worked a lot on teaching Jake to tug a toy…like years. So it seems like a simple game but for a dog who only knew to chase a ball this was a big feat. I also worked to teach him to retrieve other items…surprizingly Jakey the tennis ball fetching addict would not retrieve any other item, without a lot of patient training. I will share a video of Jakes other retrieves when in get some time. In the meantime, here is Jake playing with me and tugging a toy….the Famous Susan Garrett Smoke yah game.
Now my puppy Houston loves the smoke yah game, but he is 8.5 months old and is being trained to retrieve any toy i ask. I also have worked to teach him to hand the toy to me and return to what we call the Reinforcement Zone or RZ. The RZ is next to our body so we can reward our dog and also hold their collar. Oh yah, the collar grab game from Susan’s Crate Games video…that is the first game we teach so the dog is HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY to get their collar grabbed. How do we teach that? grab the collar give a treat…simple. Do that a lot of times in different situations and your dog will not fret when you grab their collar.
Here is Houston learning a wonderful retrieve.
I don’t have a video of Jake retrieving different objects because we are still working on him coming to the reinforcement zone. Jake has not had a lot of rewards when close to the body, he finds a reward away from the body with the tennis ball being thrown, so I am trying to teach him a new fun place to be and that place is with mamma. Today I worked with him with my friend and I hope to have him returning to the RZ with the toy in the next couple months.
Yes it took me two days to teach the puppy but it is harder to teach an ol’ dog new tricks.
(Today I am thankful that I have friends who understand the type of dedication it takes to have a happy socialized engaged wonderful canine companion.)