This week we had lots of applicants in for interview, well more of a chat really, for our new Canine Behaviour & Training Technician program that’s starting next month. CBTT7 will be starting soon and we can’t wait!
Awesome Pets & their People
Molly was back for more Daytraining this week and we were able to achieve more polite leash walking in new areas with much improved responsiveness and reduced vigilance from Molly!
And by making dog walks more dog, we can take some of the pressure off loose leash walking all the time, which dogs find really hard:
We had a home visit for follow-up with Teddy as part of our continued program to help him settled in and become more comfortable with triggers.
We also hung out with his sister Daisy and the dogs played with the snufflemats their owner has made for them!
Ted learns that triggers mean yummies, and soon mean to look to his mum:
Help your dog pass major triggers, when there’s no other way, like a large dog in a window (only a couple of metres from the pathway) barking at us, as is the case here:
Doing a U-turn to avoid triggers that may cause stress and a reaction requires lots of enthusiasm – Ted’s certainly got that:
Ralph came for a training session and we discussed adolescent excitement, dog-dog play and lots and lots of recall training.
Ralph and his people will be working through our recall exercises over the next month or so to improve responsiveness and self-control.
First step is to condition a new recall cue, so that hearing those words causes a whip-lash turn:
Once we can surprise Ralph with his new recall cue when he’s mildly distracted, we can begin to build an approach and collar grab into our recall routine:
Putting it altogether we can play the high energy game Recall Relays so that recalls mean fun and rewards:
When we can play recall relays in lots of different environments, we can begin to really challenge our recall cue by adding distraction recalls:
Not only does our new recall cue mean that the dog will always be rewarded, but also means that to access distractions they must recall first.
Lola came for some behaviour work – she is even more adorable in real life! She has spent much of her early life confined to a crate but is now in a great new home and we will be working through some behaviours to help her settle and better cope.
Teaching default sits is a great exercise – think of all the things that your dog can’t do if she’s sitting…!
Newly rehomed dogs will often require help with separation; we get started with Lola right away:
Providing dogs with fun puzzles is great but especially for dogs who need a confidence boost:
People Training
More Canine First Responder course delivery this week for the Animal Care students of Ormonde College of Further Education, Kilkenny with everyone earning their certs and a greater understanding of what to do in an emergency.
This weekend, our CTI3 learners are back for their second weekend of tuition, working on Canine Health & Disease and Animal Learning & Applications.
They are working hard on learning about canine health, responsible ownership, disease and disease prevention, emergency care, environmental enrichment, learning theories, canine signaling, the effects of aversives and training techniques luring, capturing, targeting and freeshaping. They will certainly deserve their rest after all that!
Looking forward to a sunny week, next week!
AniEd Ireland 