Able is now 13 weeks old. Things are going pretty well in some regards. My other Rik has accepted his arrival much better than I thought she would. He’s learned how to sit and down on cue, he loves to play with me, and he’s getting better at his baby body awareness exercises.
But there is a double-edged sword that comes with being a smart cookie.
Our First Knottingley Park Adventures
I take Able to a local park 2 or 3 times a week. There’s long grass and gravel and uneven terrain and logs and sheep poo and all sorts of other things to explore. It’s important to get your pup out to explore new places and to give him new challenges to his balance and coordination, although at this age fifteen minutes is plenty.
His first walks at the park were on lead. I worked on the things he’d already learned at home (e.g. collar grabs and responding to his name). His responses were much worse than they are at home – very normal when a pup is out in a new environment with lots of exciting distractions. This meant that he stayed on lead and we stopped the walk every couple of minutes to do a few repetitions of the very basic levels of these skills, along with lots of yummy treats and a quick game of tug.
Last week Able won his partial freedom. I had him on lead for the first couple of minutes of his walks. I took him out of the car and started our walk on lead. He was responding well to his name, and eagerly bringing back the tug toy if I threw it. I decided I could trust him enough to let him explore on a long line, and so the lead went away.
He was pretty good, mostly. I did have to go and get him a couple of times when he was too busy tasting the sheep poo, but aside from that he was still coming when he was called and he was very happy to have more freedom about where he went.
Car Trouble
This week, Able decided that he wasn’t going to come when I called him after we got back to the car. Why would he volunteer to get shoved back into his crate and go home, when there’s 36 hectares of park to explore?
Your puppy is not being naughty when he does this. He is learning through cause and effect. You want your puppy to learn quickly – it’s how he will come to consider weaving through a set of poles and touching his contacts to be great fun – but you need to be careful about what he is learning. If you consistently do Thing A before nasty Thing B happens to him, he is going to do what he can to stop Thing A from happening.
This means you don’t want to call your puppy before something bad happens. And Able thought that getting in the car was very, very bad.
This is a problem I am sadly familiar with, as his great aunty Spring was also Not a Fan of Getting in Cars. Which occasionally led to her making a dash for freedom through a show’s parking area, until I finally got sick of it and worked for months to fix it.
I Love the Car Now
I am very lucky that we are allowed to drive into Knottingley Park and stop wherever we like. I’ve been back twice this week to do some car remediation work, and chosen to park at spots where different trails meet so that we can go lots of different directions.
My puppy and I set off down one path for a couple of minutes. Then we turn around and go back to the car. I catch my puppy by standing on the long line and reeling him in (no point calling him when I know he won’t come), pop him into his crate, and feed him some yummy treats. Then he gets out and we play tug. Then I pop him back in and he gets more yummy treats.
Then we go for a walk down a different track, and come back, and repeat it all again. The message:
- When I decide it’s time for Able to get in the car, no more fun stuff is going to happen outside of the car. He can wriggle and struggle to get away all he likes, but I’m going to restrain him so that he can’t go and sniff anything until he’s got back in the car.
- Getting in the car is usually followed by lots of fun things, like cheese and tug toys and more walkies with a new track to explore! What kind of dumb puppy would choose to do nothing exciting outside the car, when they could get in the car and have loads and loads of fun?
Side note: Because Able’s leg bones still have a lot of growing to do, I am lifting him out of the car. A good rule of thumb is that you don’t want to encourage a young pup to jump over or down from anything that’s taller than his hocks (the pointy bits on his back legs). I know your puppy probably jumps things bigger than that ALL THE TIME, but for the best chance of having a sound healthy adult dog, try to minimise it as much as possible.
When it’s time to go home, I let him out of the car a couple more times to play some tug, and then he gets some more yummy treats as I shut the door.
It’s taken two walks to change Able’s mindset, to the point where he now runs off in front of me to go and hang out beside the car so he can get in as soon as possible. And today when it was time to go, he attempted to climb up onto the back seat and put himself into his crate for the first time.
What a clever puppy!
Agility-Style Restrained Recalls
Now, back to Graeme and the restrained recalls.
Non-agility people tend to stand still and face directly at their puppy when they call him. This is something you will need to teach your puppy – sometimes you will want your dog to come straight away without you having to turn and run away – but don’t do this all the time.
Recalls are a great opportunity to teach your puppy the most basic skill of handling – how to figure out which side of your body you want him to run to, and to run hard to catch up with you on that side.
You can tell him which side you want him on by rotating your upper body slightly in that direction, holding that arm low and right back as far as it will go, and turning your head so that you can just see your puppy behind you in your peripheral vision. If you haven’t done agility before you may feel very awkward running like this first. Pick a nice flat place to practise and make sure you aren’t running towards any obstacles you need to dodge, like power poles or rubbish bins.
Get a friend to hold your puppy while you walk out a few metres – you don’t need to go far while your pup has stumpy wee legs. Get your shoulder and arm back, turn your head so that you can see your puppy, then call him and start running. Once your puppy catches up with you, try to continue facing forward while you stop and give him his reward at your side.
Make sure you practise about the same number of repetitions with your puppy coming to your left side, and coming to your right side. Agility dogs need to be comfortable running on both sides of their handler (if you haven’t done agility before, check out a few dogs running at Crufts to see why). The easiest way to achieve this is to make a point of always changing sides after every repetition when you are doing your foundation training.
Keep an eye on your puppy’s bad habits, but don’t forget to enjoy the fun stuff too!