Hello Everyone!
Finally done with College and with one class left to take this summer, I am finally able to dedicate more of my time to Dugan! I am very excited to finally be working with him regularly towards a goal. We are setting some goals and working towards accomplishing them. We are signed up for obedience classes with a built in CGC for later this summer- very much looking forward to that. But also, I would love to get Dugan certified to be a therapy dog. I realize it is going to be lots of work, but he has such a good personality I would love to share that with others in a positive and constructive way. So for a while now I have been creeping around the site absorbing as much of the wonderful knowledge as possible. But I need clarification on a few items.
One thing I know about Dugan is that he is very motivated. As far as I know or can tell he is food, attention, and toy motivated. But he has some strange behaviors that have recently developed. I have posted briefly about these actions before but want more answers. We might need some videos. When playing fetch, we always work for a toy throw, but never on anything new. This is my fault because I don’t know how to use a ball that’s probably the size of a softball-his favorite squeaky toy – to learn anything new. Any suggestions there…tugs don’t work for us in that department either as I cannot nail down a “drop” command. That along with “shake” I can’t accomplish to save my life. When we work with food he gets SUPER hyper. Doesn’t matter if we are doing this first thing after morning potty or after a day at the lake with this gal pal Mica (female choco lab) swimming, running, fetching, chasing etc. He could be dead tired and still get the zoomies when we try to work with food. Can anyone explain this or had similar experiences? If I need to my husband can record us and we’ll post it.
I realize that I am probably the problem and have gotten into some bad habits like overusing his name. But I think there is something else because when we first got him I taught him “bang” (playing dead), “left” and “right” turns, “back” up, “stay, wait,” and we’re working on my version of “easy.” We have a new niece – which he is great with – but he is learning that “easy” means I hold it in front of your nose until I say ok at which point you take it ever so gently. This is a preemptive initiative for small kiddo’s.
Would appreciate any input! Happy to answer all questions!
Dani & Dugan
Finally done with College and with one class left to take this summer, I am finally able to dedicate more of my time to Dugan! I am very excited to finally be working with him regularly towards a goal. We are setting some goals and working towards accomplishing them. We are signed up for obedience classes with a built in CGC for later this summer- very much looking forward to that. But also, I would love to get Dugan certified to be a therapy dog. I realize it is going to be lots of work, but he has such a good personality I would love to share that with others in a positive and constructive way. So for a while now I have been creeping around the site absorbing as much of the wonderful knowledge as possible. But I need clarification on a few items.
One thing I know about Dugan is that he is very motivated. As far as I know or can tell he is food, attention, and toy motivated. But he has some strange behaviors that have recently developed. I have posted briefly about these actions before but want more answers. We might need some videos. When playing fetch, we always work for a toy throw, but never on anything new. This is my fault because I don’t know how to use a ball that’s probably the size of a softball-his favorite squeaky toy – to learn anything new. Any suggestions there…tugs don’t work for us in that department either as I cannot nail down a “drop” command. That along with “shake” I can’t accomplish to save my life. When we work with food he gets SUPER hyper. Doesn’t matter if we are doing this first thing after morning potty or after a day at the lake with this gal pal Mica (female choco lab) swimming, running, fetching, chasing etc. He could be dead tired and still get the zoomies when we try to work with food. Can anyone explain this or had similar experiences? If I need to my husband can record us and we’ll post it.
I realize that I am probably the problem and have gotten into some bad habits like overusing his name. But I think there is something else because when we first got him I taught him “bang” (playing dead), “left” and “right” turns, “back” up, “stay, wait,” and we’re working on my version of “easy.” We have a new niece – which he is great with – but he is learning that “easy” means I hold it in front of your nose until I say ok at which point you take it ever so gently. This is a preemptive initiative for small kiddo’s.
Would appreciate any input! Happy to answer all questions!
Dani & Dugan