Foundations Week 1 - Session 1 Exercises

 Teaching your puppy to sit

• Show your puppy you have a treat.

• Hold food close to your body, slightly higher than your dog’s head.

• If puppy jumps, do nothing, just wait

• When they get tired of craning their necks to look up, they will sit.

• As soon as their bottom hits the ground mark with a “yes” or click and give reward.

• Toss a treat away from you so you can practice again when they come back.

Common issues:

• moving your hands around too much, causing puppy to jump at them, chase them, stay still and calm.

• repeating verbal commands over and over again before puppy understands the exercise. Don’t rush to add verbal commands, wait until puppy is reliably executing the behavior.

• Puppy sliding into down, work on a surface puppy has traction on, not a slippery floor.

conditioning your dog to a clicker

• If your dog is sensitive start with clicker in your pocket or in a sock, or with someone holding it a bit further away incase the sound is worrying to them.

• Click the clicker staying as still as you can, then give your dog a treat.

• Be sure you are keeping the clicker hand still.

• Be sure to clearly click and THEN treat, don’t do the click and treat at the same time, slightest pause between.

• Try to get the treat to the dog’s mouth 1-3 seconds after the click, slower than that and they are not going to quickly pair.

• Repeat 5-10 times per session, unless you see any signs of stress from your dog.

• Look for signals your dog is pairing the association (eyes brighting when they hear the sound, ears raising, treat anticipation, etc)

Play!!!