Twinks Gets Fit...

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

It's Me or the Dog Tuesday (on Wednesday)

I don't have much of a post for this week. I've been working with the dogs more using the "Leave it" command and they seem to understand. We also are working on impulse control by making them "wait" when we're letting them in from their room/outside. Gracie's great at this while Budaj is a bit jumpy and will try to barge through. Gracie also has taken to step 1 of the clicker training, associating a click with a treat.

Using positive reinforcement with Gracie, as well as gentle voices with her (since she's such a sensitive soul), and encouraging her to use her noggin to earn treats, seems to be helping her gain some confidence. She's not as skittish. Want proof?

This is probably the only photo we have of her where she's "smiling" for the camera. She's usually terrified and shows it in pictures. We have photos of her at the dog park "smiling," but she had no idea her photo was being taken. She was so sensitive about the camera that she could hear us turning it on and her ears would go back. Now she's getting a lot more relaxed and happy in general. A cute little girl might also be helping. Gracie adores Little.

Budaj's destined for some agility training in the near future and they both are going to get some much-needed leash training since our temperature lows are supposed to be dropping soon and I'd like to start up a fall/winter/spring walking schedule (summertime is just miserable) and ideally, this would include them behaving with Kaelyn in the stroller. Of course, that won't happen until they're perfect angels on the leashes and then trained with walking beside an empty stroller or with the Hubs pushing Kaelyn in the stroller and me handling the dogs, or vice versa.

No comments:

Post a Comment