Let’s Get Ready
A day of celebration! You are doing awesome, and you are on your fourth lesson. We have been talking a lot about expectations, yours and your puppies. We have been explaining what means focus to you isn’t the same to the puppy, we have talked about trying to come to the common ground where you truly understand and can communicate with your puppy. If you truly are giving effort you should be enjoying the day of celebration.
Teaching your puppy should be an enjoyable time. Not something you dread, or feel stressed about. You are literally shaping their personality with every word you say and every hug you give them. Once again…why did you get a puppy? It made you happy. So each thing you do with your puppy should be enjoyable.
Good job!
Kim & Christina
Teaching your puppy how to wait and have patience will be huge in having the puppy understand what we expect from them and how to live in our world. It also helps them learn to understand scary things. If a plane goes overhead making a loud noise, we simply “count them out” like we do the wait. We wait while the scary thing goes away. They quickly learn “wait” is a temporary issue that will soon go away. If they comply they will receive what they want whether it is the sound of something scary leaving, or a hug or treat from us.
Smoke Alarm
As you begin to work on the waiting command, be sure to keep it short. Work duration in baby steps. Don’t stress if your puppy breaks the wait or takes a few days to begin to understand. All good things in due time. Each puppy has a different, all-be-it short, attention span. By working on duration and slowly adding movement in, you are teaching them to have patience and impulse control. Each time you practice you are building this into puppy. Remember to refresh your puppy’s memory by starting practice with a short duration first. If your puppy seems to be breaking the wait more than staying put, go back to the beginning.. I can not stress enough the idea of short, frequent sessions, with some play time after. Don’t try to teach the wait command in one or two sessions. You will stress out and your puppy will burn out.