A Full-On Weekend of Puppy Training

Our Regional Manager from Florida came to Houston for an intensive training weekend of the Houston and Dallas Puppy Raisers.

In all, we had 17 puppies, aged from 3 months old to 13 months old.

There's no arguing that 17 puppies is a lot of puppy cuteness in one place.

Not that I am biased, but, I think that Watson and her sister Cami were the cutest!

With all the young puppies, at times it was a bit of controlled chaos.

Not to mention a lot of "dog smell" in one place.

In order to train a puppy, the trainer needs to make sure that s/he is doing it right.

So we started our training by practicing without the dogs.

It is crucial that the marker-word, "YES!", is given at the exact time the right behaviour has been achieved. That is then followed by the reward - a training treat. (Personally, in my case, that would be chocolate.)

We practiced our marker-word timing with a bouncing ball. When the ball hit the ground we gave our marker, "YES!", followed by correct delivery of the treat to our "partner dog".

We learned it is pretty easy to expect a correct, or misread an incorrect, behaviour - i.e. a ball not following the rhythm and not bouncing when we expect. Similar to an unpredictable young puppy.

Once we had our "marker" and "reward" timing right, (sort of), we then brought out the puppies to put our theory into practice.

We wanted to train the puppies to position themselves correctly when given the "heel" command. We used tape on the floor next to a wall to get them in the correct position.

It is important that the dog's body is aligned straight so that when the command "let's go" is given, the dog moves forward in a straight direction.




We also worked on Impulse Control.

Guide Dogs need to learn that they can not loose focus when something catches their attention. They need to stay focused and ignore distractions.

That includes toys, balls, and a really tough one - food on the floor. (In my case, that would be walking past a plate of fresh fudge! That takes a lot of self control.)

To finish our intensive weekend, we then spent quiet time touching and feeling our dogs.

A vision impaired person can not see when there is something wrong with their dog. Therefore it is imperative that everyday the vision impaired person touch their dog - teeth, ears, belly, legs, feet, eyes - everywhere. Our puppies need to accept people touching them everywhere everyday.

Plus it is both a relaxing and bonding time between the puppy and handler.

Believe it or not, the weekend was exhausting! For ALL of us!

The training treats, and chocolates, were well deserved.