Training and playing games with your dog has so many benefits:
- Exercise
- Stimulating their Brains
- Strengthening Your Bond
- It’s fun for both of you!
While I’ve slacked off on training Luke for a while now, I did sign up for a new online class at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy this month, “Calling All Dogs”. This class is to help train your dog to have a reliable recall, to have a dog who pays attention to you no matter the distractions. I waffled between this class and a trick training class, which I know both Luke and I would have enjoyed too.
While Luke’s recall has been decent in the past, lately we’ve noticed he ignores us when we call him into the house from his yard, especially if he’s eating something he shouldn’t be! While we’ve learned that tapping on the window gets his attention better, that’s only going to work when he’s in the yard. He’s also been less reliable about paying attention to me when we’re on walks. He’d been pulling a lot more and not checking in with me like he used to. While I doubt that I will ever be comfortable enough for Luke to be an off-leash dog, due to his fears, my hope was that this class could help him to be more attentive, especially since there’s always a chance a dog could get loose! I also keep in mind that any new things I learn could help with any future dogs that join our family as well.
Part of the class introduction said this: “The foundations for a great recall are a great relationship, a dog who believes it is HIS responsibility not to lose his human, and a human who knows how to effectively and creatively reward her dog. We will work on each of these elements separately before combining them into a recall in increasingly difficult environments.” This sounded like just what we needed, and my hope was also that it could benefit us on walks overall.
When one of the first lessons included “giving in to leash pressure” to get your dog’s attention, I knew that we’d made the right choice. This means that putting tension on your dog’s leash or harness gets them to turn towards you. I always “audit” the classes at Fenzi, which means you have access to all lessons and materials, but you don’t have to turn in videos for homework (though you can see the other students’ work). This works well for me, so we can do this at our own pace.
It turns out this was the right time to take a class, with colder weather and storminess lingering here. It gives us something to do on those days I just can’t drag myself out of the house into the cold. We’ve been working on the leash pressure now, luckily we have our long hallway so I can walk Luke up and down it and around the house. When the weather gets better, we’ll take it outside.
As we have time, we work on that, and then we play “find the treat” where I hide treats around the house and Luke sniffs them out. Luke loves this game, and it’s so much fun to watch him trotting around the house searching out his treats! Luke knows when I get his blue harness out, that it’s time for games or training, so we always put that on, so he knows. It’s the same type of harness he wears to walk, the ComfortFlex*, and I know he can’t tell the difference in colors! But I keep the training harness in a different place, so he does know the difference from when we’re going to be training and playing, as opposed to taking a walk, by where I take the harness out of.
There are other treat, toy, and body awareness games in the class that we’ll be trying soon. Some of them we can start indoors, and then we’ll move them outside more as the weather gets better. Even though we haven’t gotten far enough with the harness pressure for him to be aware of it on walks, I do already feel like he’s paying more attention to me when we’re out there. Sometimes when I slack off on training with him, I forget just how much we both enjoy it, and just how much it brings us closer. Even though we may never work up to off-leash recall, I know we are going to learn a lot along the way that can benefit us both, and our relationship, in many ways.
I think I’ve gotten lazy with my senior dogs. I feel like there is SO much more I COULD be doing, but I’m not. Fingers crossed for spring? 🙂
Fingers, toes, and all paws crossed here!
That’s one good thing about seniors, if you don’t train or play all the time, they are fine with that!
It’s nice you are able to work the training in the house. Good work!
It’s been a LONG winter already! We can’t wait to take it outdoors too though! 🙂
Sounds like fun … and a good winter-time activity to keep pups from getting bored.
And the Momz, ha ha!
That’s neat that you can audit the class and that it is online. I never thought about taking an online dog training class, but that might work well for Ruby. Ruby is pretty good with recall (because she almost never leaves my side). Her only issue is eating the cat food. Sometimes she will grab it and gobble it down even when I tell her to stop. This is her biggest issue that we need to work on.
Hiding the treat around the house and having them look for it sounds like a great winter game!
I know that you are an introvert like me. I hated going to classes because of the social aspect. Online is just perfect for me, and as it turns out, Luke as well. He and I are alike in that way, just like you and Ruby. ♥
I totally love your ideas. I think it’s important to continually “train” our babies as they do tend to get slack, just like we do. 😉 Making it fun, as in a game, can keep them interested for sure. I have been training Titan now for 9 plus years and don’t think I’ll ever stop. He loves it too much! Thanks for sharing these ideas!
You’re welcome! With our first few dogs, I never had a lot of interest in training. Now that I’ve really gotten into it, I’ve realized what I was missing all that time!
That’s a wonderful class!!! I couldn’t agree more about training… and you do it a great way, so that you can do it at your own pace. I’m glad that you and Luke are having such fun.
I always procrastinate on taking classes because I’m waiting until I feel I have the time to really put into it. This way, I don’t need to do that. We just work on it as we have time, and that’s best for us.
I am too lazy to put the effort into dog training. I just let my cats train me. 🙂
Heehee. I bet they’ve done a good job at it too. 🙂
We enjoy taking the boys on walks but Bentley has gotten rather grumpy around other dogs as he has gotten older. I don’t like to take him around a large group of dogs anymore. Pierre on the other hand is a little social butterfly.
Kobi and Sheba were our social butterflies, Cricket and Luke, not so much. I’m so grateful we bought our new home with all of our land so we have peaceful places to walk.
It’s too bad Bentley has gotten grumpy, hopefully you can still find nice quiet places to take him out.
I agree. They need socialization, exercise, training and lots of love. We treated our Little Bit like a queen and it showed. She was well behaved wherever she went. We sure miss our girl.
Have a woof woof day, Luke. My best to your peeps. ♥
Sounds like Little Bit had a wonderful life with you. ♥
A terrific idea especially when the weather doesn’t make it easy to be outside. I’ve been reminded bored poodles are not a good thing. Now I’ll have something else to offer in the mental stimulation category. Thanks for the reminder!
We can always count on our dogs to remind us, in ways we’d probably rather not, that they need something to do! 🙂
Ya done good Luke, you always do! My Dad needs to take the recall class with you, he is always telling the Mom “I don’t recall”.
Heehee. Sounds like your Dad definitely needs some training!!
I love playing find the treat! It’s always a win-win game!
That’s for sure!!
ha!!! you are so right… you really see a difference when you did nothing for a week (or a month) … I promised myself to start on the first day of march with daily training& new games…
We hope you were able to stick to your goal! 🙂
Just like with humans, learning and training is something that should be done for an entire lifetime. We need challenges and are proud of ourselves when we meet them just like human minds need challenges to feel success. Enjoy you class.
Thank you! We’ve come a long way from just training our dogs to do the basics, and then forgetting about it, that’s for sure!