I’ve not done well sharing about our training! There are many reasons for that – mostly that we have so much going on that I decide to spend the extra time on training than typing. We’ve taken some video for class and lesson materials.
Tonks is a very athletic puppy and high – energy puppy. She sleeps so much less now than even just a few weeks ago. Tonks tries to solve her own problems – resulting in her being able to climb all gates in the house and she has even started to scale the outside of crates to see what is on the outside – she hooks her paws on the top and then uses her back feet to scale up the side! She loves to play and tug and interact with me. She likes playing with others.
Strengths:
- Play and food rewards. She is happy about different reward games. Sometimes she says she would rather have food – but I can always persuade her to play, even when hungry.
- House training: She now will even cry or scratch at the door when she needs out!
- People and dogs: She is very happy about people and dogs. She loves everyone!
- Cuddling: She’s only very cuddly when tired – but this is adorable! Many puppy owners want to pet puppies more than the puppy wants – us included.
Weaknesses:
- Self control: We need to play more self control games in different contexts so she learns to look to me and to resist rather than helping herself to whatever she wants. This will help with climbing gates, crating, and with her response to people and dogs!
- Crating: Just like when I was raising Viktor earlier this year, we’ve not done a lot of crating. I do think it’s important for dogs to learn to be crated even if it’s not used at home (vet emergencies, traveling, etc). Tonks is good while crated in the car for traveling and in the car at the training center. But her crating at home and inside the training building is… a disaster. It’s not something we’ve worked on much until last week. We have before videos and will hopefully soon share ‘after’ videos. A lot of it is probably frustration about confinement or distress about confinement – it’s not about separation, she’s sometimes upset even with me nearby.
- Trained behaviors: There are a lot of online (and real!) class options where puppies learn many tasks/tricks. And while I love training and wanted to do some of that…somehow it hasn’t happened. She needs to learn more behaviors, cues, offering behaviors, and about shaping. We do have a few things (backing up, pivoting into heel, lying down) and some cues related to rewards (get treats, look to me for treats, get the toy)
- A weakness for me: Not taking enough pictures!