The 365 Days of Dog Training Continues .... today with a different dog!

I am spending the entire day with a clients 14 week old puppy.  She is sweet but barks for everything.  She barks for attention, she barks when she is frustrated, she barks when she is excited, she barks for EVERYTHING.  As a pet owner I can understand how this might be frustrating.  As Lulu's owner I fully understand how this can simply drive you nuts.  So I decided to help.

When I met the clients the first time I casually explained well first you teach your dog to bark on command and then you teach them to hush on command.  Using a luring technique I learned from Ian Dunbar and in the majority of cases this is a very effective way to teach this behavior.  However, this puppy is no ordinary dog.  She loves to bark almost as much as Lulu and her barking is extremely self rewarding so any encouragement of her barking results in hours of barking.  Needless to say I forgot my own golden rule of training - train the dog you are working with NOT the dog you expect them to be.

Today after several hours of listening to a barking puppy I remembered some clicker training I had done at a shelter years ago.  I conditioned her to the clicker quickly and then started to click the brief moments she was quiet between barks.  Worked like a charm.  Then we started playing some games focusing on not barking.  Then we started playing chase games to initiate come.  Now this puppy who had frustrated the dickens out of me just a few hours age is sleeping peacefully at my feet totally happy and utterly exhausted.

This is what a good day of dog training feels like - I am happy with her and she is happy with me.  We both learned something valuable.

I guess the moral of today's story is when the first thing you try doesn't work don't be afraid to try something new and ALWAYS TRAIN THE DOG IN FRONT OF YOU and not the one you imagine them to be in your mind!

Thanks for reading and happy training!