It has taken almost the full period of my new life here with my Person to recondition her. That is a psychological term we use in the training process. What it means in laydog's terms is that I have trained my Person to give me treats. I use the appearance of other dogs as the trigger to elicit the treat-dispensing behavior.
When I first arrived here, I would bark myself silly every time I saw a dog. My Person would try to block my view, to turn me the other way, to even cover my eyes. She made a portable fence and carried it on our walks. Finally she began to understand the correct response which was to pop a treat in my mouth.
I am proud of how she has come along. She rarely forgets to bring treats on our walks and only occassionally is so lost in her thoughts that she neglects to notice other dogs. When she does forget I make sure to reinforce the correct response by behaving very badly and barking up a storm. It is embarrassing but she has to be trained consistently and not babied. It has been a lot of hard work but as we all know, hard work usually pays off!
1 comment:
Hey, Finn, you are one smart dog. It's nice that you were able to find a trainable Person. That doesn't always happen. Have you had other successes with her? Have you ever thought of doing your own training book or video? I think you might have a system worth duplicating!
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