New Year, New Goals
We’re not really into New Year’s resolutions around here, but we do like to reflect on the year that has passed and think about what we want to accomplish in the coming year. It’s family goal setting, and the dog doesn’t get a free ride. Dog training is definitely on the list for 2020!
Our dog Pippa is 2 1/2 years old and we still have a lot of work to do with her to take her from ‘cute puppy’ to ‘good dog’. She’s really good around the house when there’s not a lot going on, but she ramps from completely calm to losing her head the second anything (or anyone) interesting happens. That makes it difficult for us to trust that she’ll behave well in most situations. Here are five things we need to work on with our dog this year:
Dog Training Goal #1: Reliable Recall
We have been working on recall with Pippa since we got her, but she still doesn’t come to us reliably. At home, in the house (ie low distractions), she comes to us like a champ when we call her. However, the second we step outside with her, she thinks listening to us is optional. This means that most of her outside time is spent on leash, except for when we’re in our fenced yard. Even in our own yard, Pippa will try to evade us if she’s not quite done playing when it’s time to go inside
Reliable recall is important to us so that we can give Pippa a bit more freedom in public spaces. We need to know that she’ll be safe within the boundaries of non-fenced dog parks or dog-friendly beaches. We also need to know that she won’t terrorize some poor person or dog who happens to be in the area and isn’t interested in engaging with her.
The plan we’ll follow for improving our dog’s recall is from Susan Garrett’s Dog Training Blog. My hope is that Pippa recalls reliably by the spring. Have any recommendations for reliable recall? Let us know!
Dog Training Goal #2: Keep Calm and Carry On
When Pippa’s at home with our family, she generally stays out of trouble and spends a lot of time napping. Little changes to her environment (such as the mail being dropped through the slot) get her excited momentarily, but she quickly calms back down. We can handle that.
What’s tricky to handle though, is her over-the-top enthusiasm about visitors. When new people come into the house, we have to hold her back so that she doesn’t attack them with love. Pippa gets so excited about visitors that we have to keep her on a leash whenever we have people over. She forgets about ‘her spot’ (a mat she’s supposed to sit on) entirely. She will relentlessly try to reach our guests for the entire duration of their stay. Obviously we need to help her fix this. Suggestions?
Dog Training Goal #3: Boundary Training
When we’re at home together, Pippa is free to roam in all of our shared living spaces. We keep the doors to our bedrooms and bathroom closed though. This is mostly for her safety, as she loves to retrieve and will pick up anything laying on the floor. When you live with teenagers, there are a lot of things laying on a bedroom floor! She also loves to steal the toilet paper roll if we leave the bathroom door open.
We’d like to teach Pippa that each doorway is a boundary that she can only cross when invited, so that we can start leaving doors open again. We’ve been doing this informally with our master bedroom; she’s learning to wait at the door rather than enter at her leisure. I’d like to make these boundaries more clear to her so that she will stay out until she’s invited to come in.
Dog Training Goal #4: Drop It
I want Pippa to reliably drop whatever she has in her mouth when we give her the command. Sometimes she’ll drop the item, sometimes she won’t. It would be fun to actually get the ball back from her once she retrieves it! This is also useful as a safety measure, in case she picks up something she shouldn’t have. Ideally she wouldn’t pick up anything she shouldn’t have in the first place, but ‘Drop It’ feels like a smaller hurtle. It would be nice to make ‘dropping it’ less of a struggle than it is now.
Dog Training Goal #5. Run Dog Run
Pippa needs a lot of exercise, and running with her would be ideal to make sure we’re both hitting our fitness goals. Being able to go for runs with the dog is one of the reasons we decided to get a medium sized dog, as opposed to a smaller breed.
The trouble is that running with Pippa (on-leash) is a lot of work and can be dangerous; she will sometimes stop dead in her tracks, sometimes she races ahead, dragging me behind, and sometimes she lurches left or right, leaving me feeling like I might dislocate a shoulder or pull a muscle. She also likes to jump at me intermittently, as the faster pace gets her excited and she thinks jumping is a fun game.
I see running well with a dog as an extension of walking well with a dog. We’re continuing to master our loose leash walking, which is still a work in progress. The fundamental problem is that Pippa is extremely easily distracted and is always looking for better forms of entertainment than what I am offering her at the moment. I think we (ie her people) need to build the value of our relationship in her mind, so that it will rank higher than whatever else happens to be nearby.
Do you run with your dog? If so, have any ideas for me with my eager dog?
I would be thrilled if we can achieve these five training goals for our dog this year. Wish us luck! Now if only I could train my teens to keep their rooms clean ; )