Homework Exercises

Remember: Use a clicker during these sessions, if no clicker mark with a yes!. Dogs learn through successful repetition and patterns. It’s better to get 10-15 good reps of something than to spend a long training session filled with mistakes and frustration (for you and your dog!). Be sure to practice small 10-15 minute training sessions multiple times a day instead of one long session once a day. If your dog starts losing interest in the training session: 1) Switch up your food to a different/higher/better reward source to regain attention 2)If doing a more complex command/task, take a step back to something simpler. 3) Attempt to get one more good successful repetition and then end the training session.

Intro to Clicker – 10-15 pieces of food each meal for a week (Creates Clicker Association)

• Take a handful of your dog’s food before you feed them.

• For each piece, click and then give them the food.

• They don’t necessarily need to do anything to get the food for this exercise. They

cannot: Jump, Paw at you, Vocalize (whine or bark).

• Whatever you click for – you will get more of the behavior! You can “Click for Calmness”

(see Settling with Me).

Puppy In The Middle (Practices Recall, Engagement)

• 2+ people spread out in the room, each with the same type of food reward with them.

• Each person practices calling the dog to them.

• Say their name, and when they turn towards you, mark with either a YES! or the clicker,

and then say Come! You’re marking for the dog turning towards you.

• Reward your dog out of your left hand.

• Each family member takes turns calling the dog back and forth.

It may take a while for your dog to turn from the person in front of them – that’s okay keep calling them! You want to see their speed of turning towards you increase. You can call/encourage them when they start running towards you. Your dog will also “learn the game” – where they will start hopping back and forth before you call them. Don’t reward them if you don’t call them. The person they turned from last should recall them back.

Treat Chains & Release (Practices commands, engagement, impulse control, and is a building block for stay and other commands)

A treat chain is where you have 5-10 treats ready to periodically give to your dog.

• After you give the initial command you are working on Click and reward.

• At a certain interval usually starting 15-30 seconds click and reward the dog for remaining in the same position. Do this several times.

• Over time increase your duration when you are doing the treat chain. Start with 30 seconds between rewards, then as your dog gets better increase to 60sec, then a couple minutes, etc. before you know it your dog is doing the position for longer periods.

• You can also Chain with distance – instead of counting seconds, consider steps your dog takes with you (see Structured walking) or steps your dog allows you to leave them (see Place).

o Start out with a couple steps away, click, return and reward. Repeat.

• This actively teaches your dog to remain in the position until told to do another command or to be released. If they get up – just put them back and repeat.

• This is an implied stay and if you stick with it, this is how you get your dog to stay continuously.

Your dog will be given a release word in training – “Break” meaning that they are allowed to stop whatever command they were doing. It teaches impulse control and for your dog to wait. The Release word is used for several things:

• Use “Break” when you are letting your dog out of their crate or out of a gate.

• You can make your dog sit and wait at doors and release when you want them to go

thru the door.

• Use “Break” to release them from stationary commands – Sit, Down, Place, Settling

• In training we may use “Break” to release them to reset for another repetition or to

build distance (see Heel Drills for example).

• “Break” is paired extensively with Place Command

• “Break” can also be used when you’re playing outside or recalling your dog – you can

release them to go sniff/play/leave you.

Sit/Down Treat Chains & Release – 10+ reps per session. (Practices Sit, Down, Stay)

• Most basic exercise. Have your dog sit or down. Click and reward for the position.

• Initiate Treat Chain with 5+ treats at whatever interval your dog is capable of.

• Save the last treat for the release.

• When you get to the last treat say “Break” and toss the treat. Click as the dog gets

up to chase their reward.

• Practice often to increase your dogs duration. Before you know it your dog will

remain sitting with you for 5+ minutes!

• Once your dog is to the point that it is doing long durations of treat chains you can

start saying the word “Stay”, swiping your hand in front of their nose and stepping away and continuing the treat chain (similar to place – see place distance) This is how stay is taught!

Engagement Exercises 15 – 30 minutes per session. (Practices Engagement, Focus)

Engagement is the cornerstone of training. If a dog won’t look, interact or show interest in being rewarded by you, they are very hard to train. This is where we establish a pattern of payment for the dog.

Engagement Exercise #1

• In the house, sitting or standing, attach dog with a leash, drop leash to floor and sit/stand on it so the dog is tethered near your person. Some dogs may not need this step. In this instance, the leash is just being used to keep the dog close, nothing else.

• Sit quietly. Every time your dog glances to look at you, click and reward them.

• If the dog is not looking at you after a few minutes, use their name to call them to you.

You want to see the speed of looking at you increase.

Engagement Exercise #2

• Environment change from #1 to a porch, garage, or their own yards. You can expect them to look at the environment, but you want to establish a pattern that attention pays.

Engagement Exercise #3

• Environment change from #2 to a park bench or parking lot.

• Let your dog look around.

• Click and reward whenever they look at you.

• Use a treat chain to keep their attention on you.

Engagement Exercise #4

• Start doing engagement exercises around major stimuli your dog typically struggles with such as other dogs, people, livestock, etc.

• Higher value rewards will work better for this.

• Your dog may take a long time to calm down. Wait this out, watch for an increase in

speed, the dog doesn’t show interest at all.

• Treat Chains are super helpful for keeping engagement for longer.

• There is a distance involved – sometimes dogs need to be further away from a stimulus

to work at their best, so start far away and ease closer.

Settle with me – 10-minute session. (Practices stationary positions Sit/down, settling, impulse control, leaving food)

• Have an open container of dog food rewards (or a favorite toy)

• Sit in the floor, legs criss-crossed with the reward in the center the puppy should come

over to investigate. They may perform pushy/unwanted behaviors like jumping, licking,

trying to steal the reward.

• For this exercise DO NOT correct them. Cover the reward and wait for the puppy to give

up and back off. Click when they get off of you/build distance/show any calming down.

• Click and Reward any of the following behaviors while you are sitting with your dog:

o Dog backs away from rewards after attempting to get it.

o Dog goes into stationary positions Sit or Down

o If dog has been jumping, it puts all 4 paws back on the ground.

• Encourage the dog to continue “settling” when they are in stationary positions by using a “treat chain” method where you click and feed at a 30-60 second interval. When you’re ready, release the dog with their release word.

Settle with Me Part #2 – 15+ minute sessions (Practices settling, impulse control, reinforces calm behaviors)

This should be done after the dog has been settling well for a few different sessions, this is the “second stage” (and the more useful one). It’s similar to the previous training session but is in other areas.

• Choose somewhere to sit that you’d like to practice for the dog to settle at. Next to your desk, couch, an under an outdoor table (simulating an outdoor restaurant patio)

• You may choose to leash your dog for this session so they don’t wander off, but if they usually stick close during training with food that’s not necessary.

• Similar to other settling sessions your dog may get excited over you having food/sitting down, etc. Wait for them to stop jumping on you or offering settling behaviors listed above to click and reward.

• Your dog may naturally offer you a settling/down position, if they do. Click and reward. If they don’t ask for a Down! Command, click and reward.

• Use a treat chain to encourage your dog staying in the position.

• In this session – you can be actively doing something – maybe typing on a computer,

eating lunch, watching TV – but keep your dog in your peripheral and periodically feed

that treat chain.

• If your dog gets up, simply call them back, Click when they return, ask for a down and

reward again and continue. If they keep popping up use a leash to keep them close. Just lay the leash down and keep your foot on it (or sit on it). If they still pop up with the leash, consider how long you’ve been training and end the session if its been a while. Try to end on a positive note!

Puppy Push-Ups – 5 to 10 reps per session

• Practice your puppy's commands by asking them to go from Sit to Down back to Sit.

• Click and reward for each successful command:

Sit – Click – Reward – Down – Click – Reward – Sit – Click – Reward

• Release the dog to reset.

Touch! Drills – 15 to 20 reps per session (practices touch command, confidence building, engagement, luring, focus)

Touch is a command that helps with all the other commands. It helps us keep our dogs focus with something simple and easy. Touch is the building block to very important behaviors such as Recall (come when called), Heel, Loose leash walking, and can help us phase out treats by luring with a hand that is empty.

• Offer your left hand (empty, palm out) and say Touch!

• When your dogs nose makes contact with your LEFT palm, click and reward with your

RIGHT hand.

• You might start this with your hands close together, but the goal is for your dog to

ignore the food in your right hand in favor of interacting with your left to get the food. That’s a pretty hard concept for a puppy when the food is right there but once they figure it out it becomes a very easy, confident building task for them.

• Go back and forth encouraging movement from your dog (they don’t have to be doing anything but touching so they don’t need to sit, down, etc).

• We use the LEFT hand so this can be a building block to Come! And Heel! But you can use the other hand for fun. Encouraging to the Left side will increase the want for the dog to stay there close to you.

• Eventually start keeping the food rewards in your pocket and not directly in the other hand. This further helps us phase out treats because its not in the dogs visual. Always Click, or say yes. Reward often & always with the right hand.

Heel Drills – 10 to 15 reps per session. (Practices Heel, Recall, and Release Word)

Heel is a position at your dog on your left side. When first practicing, you will Click in 2 different places – Click when your dog makes a turn into your body, ask for a sit, click and reward for the sit. Only reward for the sit. Touch! Is a helpful command and a precursor to heel. If your dog struggles following your hand work on getting them to touch to your left side.

• Get your dog in the Heel position (sitting on your left side)

• Using your release word (Free, Break, Okay, etc) release your dog by tossing a treat out

in front of you 6+ feet. Click when they get up.

• Call your dog back to you. Click when they turn or run towards you. Reward with left

hand when they get to you.

• Once the dog is to you, give the heel command. Click for the turn, click and reward for

the sit. Repeat.

Place Command

Anything can be a place but for the first month of working on the command make sure it’s the same thing – use a dog bed, cot, towel or blanket. Say place and reward the dog for getting on it and laying down. With place we enforce Duration, then Distance and Then Distractions over the course of 3-4 weeks.

Duration Practice – 15 minutes or less per session starting out.

• Feed dog for going to place. Dog should lay down on place.

• Use “treat chain” method, marking & rewarding on a 30-60 second interval.

o The goal should be to increase the time interval as the dogs training progresses.

• After 5 reps, release the dog and repeat.

• Usually work on this in the first week – 10 days of being taught place.

You can also practice duration with place by using bones, chews and stuffed toppls/kongs to encourage the dog to stay on place.

Place Distance Practice – 15 minutes or less per session starting out.

The dog should have at least 5 minutes straight completed in Place Duration before working on distance.

• Put dog on Place, click and reward when the dog is down.

• Use treat chain to build some duration.

• After a few successes, start taking steps away from the dog on place.

• Click and return to reward the dog periodically.

• This is still a treat chain – just with steps instead of time.

• After sufficient time has passed, release the dog. Repeat.

• DO NOT Release or Call the dog from a distance, always walk back and release them.

Place & Distractions 10 – 15 min

• Similar sessions as the others – put the dog on place

• Practice a few successful repetitions of place.

• Periodically create “distractions” Click if the dog didn’t get up during the distraction, go

back and reward.

• Examples of distractions:

o Opening/closing Door or Cabinet o Going to Fridge

o Sitting Down

o Picking up leash or keys

o Taking a couple steps into the other room or out of sight o Dropping something

o Picking up a dogs favorite toy

o Throwing the toy (for experienced dogs)

Sending to Place Drills – 10 reps per session

We want our dog to be able to be sent to place, so we will practice that too.

• Practice walking your dog from about 10 feet away towards their place.

• Point and say place as you walk.

• Click when your dog gets on place.

• Ask or wait for a down. Click and Reward for the Down.

• You can do a couple of treat chains and then release and repeat.

o This exercise is not about Distance, Duration or Distractions, just about sending

the dog to place.

• After the dog is released go back 10 or so feet and then send them again, you will walk them up to the place for a few reps

• After a few reps start out walking with your dog as you say “Go Place” and then you will stop your momentum just short of the place, click and reward if you dog goes on without you. Reward when the dog is in down position only.

• Release dog and repeat. The goal is for your dog to continue on to place without you walking them every time. We would love for our dogs to be able to be sent from across the room.

Structured Walks – 10 to 15 minutes every day, increase over time. USE FOOD REWARDS!

Remember: your dog is always on your LEFT side, and at first, it is useful to hold food and reward out of your left hand as well or use Touch! Command. The goal over time is to switch the reward to not being visible and instead be in a pocked or fanny pack/treat pouch.

(Leash Pressure – should ACTIVELY be used on all walks)

• When the dog starts pulling, stop all motion and do not go forward.

• When the dog feels tension on the leash/the collar is tight on the throat, the dog should

turn towards you.

• Click for the dog turning toward you (choosing you basically) and reward at your left

side.

(Loose leash Heeling – very nice for in town/around crowds)

• You may ask them to get into the heel position if you’d like a more structured walk. Click & Reward for Heel.

• Using a treat chain, say “Let’s walk!” and go forward. Every 5 or so steps, click and reward your dog. Just like with time duration treat chains - you can increase your steps over time until your dog is being rewarded every 5 steps, every 10, every 15, etc. (THIS TAKES TIME! Stick with 5-10 steps for several days and then slowly increase over time)

• Practice turns, sits, speeding up, or slowing down.

(Auto Sits – just good manners)

• While working on all the other leash work, randomly stop and ask your dog to sit. Click and Reward for the sit.

• Either continue forward and stop at a later point -OR- initiate a treat chain to get them to sit for longer periods (similar to how they may do if you are resting or talking to someone)

It's important to note that as you take your dog to new places or around new stimuli, your dog may naturally attempt to pull again. Don’t step forward if they do – you might as well be giving them a big steak because they see going forward/freedom as a reward as well. Take a few minutes and wait them out/call them and they will fall back into the groove of things. If you get lazy with leash walking methods your dog will too! Dogs can revert back if you don’t stick with it.