I've decided to start a little series that follows the progress of Toto's training. Every Tuesday I'll make a post about the things we've worked on together throughout the week. The goal is to look back at my old posts every year to see how far we've come! I'm training Toto by myself, so this will be kind of a big deal for us. I of course do a lot of research on different training methods and I pride myself on using positive reinforcement only training. Canines are our best friends, and that's how they deserve to be treated!
Since this is my first post, I have quite a bit to cover since I adopted him on September 10th. Toto didn't know jack squat on the first day I took him home, and he was pretty sick for the next few days because he had acquired a pretty bad case of kennel cough from the shelter I adopted him from (don't worry, he's up to date on all of his shots!). I was only able to start training him after five or six days of having him when he gained his energy and appetite back, and I quickly realized that I had a pretty intelligent puppy on my hands.
Sitdown
Naturally, the first thing we worked on was the sit down command. I did the whole "lure a treat over his head until his rump hits the floor" tactic which worked surprisingly well. It took several tries, but within 20 minutes he had it down. I've been practicing that pretty consistently and we have it almost perfected. Now all I have to do is raise my arm, make a fist with my hand, and say "sit"- his bottom hits the ground instantaneously almost every time. Of course, there is always room for improvement. The next step is getting him to do the command for friends.
Name Recognition
Something else we've been working on is name recognition. It always irks me when you call a dog's name and they don't respond to it. I think a lot of people don't realize that they have to train their dog to respond to their name. I also believe some dogs are more naturally inclined to respond to their names than others. Toto seems to be one of those naturally inclined ones, though I'm pretty biased if you couldn't already tell. He was always pretty responsive to "Toto" when said in the right pitch and with enough force, but he didn't respond 100% of the time. Right now I've gotten him from about 30% accuracy to 60% accuracy. Those numbers are completely figurative but you get the idea.
Teaching Toto how to recognize his name was a little more complicated than teaching him how to sit, but it was pretty easy once I got the hang of it. I started off by taking him on a walk at the park that we visit the most. Every time he looked at me own his own will (i.e. when I didn't try to call his name or make any noise to get his attention), I would immediately reward him. I did this several times until he got into the habit of checking in with me pretty often. Then, I would anticipate when he was about to turn his head towards me and I would yell, "Toto!" then reward him for looking at me.
I've been doing this type of training almost everyday and Toto has gotten really good at it, but of course there are those times when he happens upon something on the ground that smells really interesting and he seems to suddenly develop a severe case of selective hearing. It's a work in progress. I also need to train him to respond to other people when they call his name. He's pretty decent at responding to my boyfriend, but will blatantly ignore my roommates.
Recall Command
Everyone knows the recall command. You yell, "Toto, come here!" and the dog suddenly looks in your direction, then dashes towards your open arms with a twinkle in his eye. If only dogs were born knowing how to do that, then there would be significantly less lost dogs in this world. The recall command is what makes the difference between a dog who has to be leashed and a dog who's trained enough to be off leash. Toto is really great at this command when he wants to be, but not quite good enough to be off leash in most situations.
To Toto the recall command, we need at least two people. My boyfriend and I first began teaching him the recall command by sitting a few feet apart from each other and yelling "Toto, come here!" while clapping our hands excitedly. We took turns doing this and gave him a treat every time he made it all the way to one of us. The next step was to increase the distance between us, then eventually have two or more people in different rooms yelling "Toto, come here!" in a random order.
Today we took him to a park that had a large field where we could stand a long distance apart from each other and preform the recall command. At first Toto didn't respond because he had to poop. Then he did it a few times before getting disinterested because of some really nice smelling grass. But hey, that's okay, we'll get it eventually!
Tip: Most people that I ask to assist in his recall command training want to ask him to sit before giving him his treat. I suggest that you avoid from doing this because you're just rewarding him for sitting, not coming to you. While people think they can multitask, dogs absolutely cannot!
Conclusion
So that's most of what Toto has learned so far, and I'm extremely proud of him for picking up on things quicker than I ever could have imagined. I definitely picked out a dog that is absolutely perfect for me. There are a couple of things I didn't mention, like his potty training and the "drop it" command, but since this post is already getting pretty lengthy I'll be sure to talk about them next Tuesday! Hopefully there won't be a single little puppy poop found in our house by then. I also wanted to state that I'm in no way a "professional" dog trainer, and that this is just my personal dog training experience with my own puppy. We are both learning a great deal!
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