Woohoo, Ebony finally has the down command down pat.  Although she has learned most new commands quite quickly, she struggled with this one. I had to cut up chunks of lamb dog training roll and let her sniff and lick the treat from a sitting position down to the lying down position. I must admit that I was complaining to the neighbor about how much she struggled with the down command. To demonstrate, I pointed down and said “down”. She immediately laid down even though I didn’t have a treat. I thought it might be a fluke so I took her home and had my housemate distracting her. I said “Ebony, watch me”.  She sat at my feet, looking intently at me. Then I pointed down and said “down” and down she plopped. Woot!

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Fergus, my male Golden Retriever, was a breeze to house train.  One of the things that expedited his training was he started using the Christmas bells by the door to let us know that he wanted out. Some of the reading that I have done, including The Goldendoodle book, have mentioned using bells for house breaking Goldendoodles. We set up hooks inside and outside the backdoor and hung bells. We attached bells to dowels to prevent injury, instead of string or rope.

Within hours, Ebony figured out that ringing the outside bells gets one of those tall humans on the run to open the door for her and let her in. Getting her to ring the bells to go out hasn’t happened.  We ring the bells ourselves whenever we let ourselves inside or out.  To get outside, we wait for the dogs to ring the bells themselves but after several minutes we will nudge their nose or lift up a paw to ring the bell before opening the door. Hopefully, they will get the hang of it soon. Fergus still has not rung the outside bells. He seems to be perfectly content to sit while Ebony rings the bells for him! Initially, we talked about how smart Ebony is but maybe Fergus…

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Ebony continues to struggle on loose leash walking. That is until she sees that we are heading for the Puppy Class at PetSmart, then she happily prances beside me on the leash.

This week, we focused on three commands in class: leave it, take it, drop it and down. Jennifer taught us the leave it command in three steps.  First, we held a primo treat in one hand while holding a clicker and regular treats in the other hand. We were to show our puppies the primo treat in our hand and once they start sniffing or licking tell them to leave it. As soon as Ebony turns away from the treat, she gets a click and is offered a treat from the other hand.  I tell her to “take it” and from now she hears that everytime that she is offered a treat that she is allowed to have.  It didn’t take my Goldendoodle puppy long to figure out that she wasn’t going to get that primo treat in my right hand. 

Next we sat on the floor with our dogs and placed that primo treat on the floor and covered it with our hand. Once the treat caught her attention, I told my puppy to leave it. Again, as soon as she turned away from the primo treat she would be offered another treat from my left hand and told to take it. She figured out that she was not getting the treat under the right hand.  I had to keep switching primo treat to a different hand and moving it to different places on the floor to get her attention so I could tell her to leave it.

The third stage was trickier.  Standing on her leash, I put the primo treat down on the floor.  As the puppy lunges for it, we were supposed to cover it with our foot and say “leave it”. With my standing, that primo treat was looking and smelling REALLY good to  Ebony. It took alot more correction at this stage for her. 

I had my own issues with “leave it”.  My problem was trying to manipulate the clicker and offer her a treat with the same hand.  Although my hands were feeling better than average it was really difficult to manipulate both the treats and the clicker in the same hand, due to my multiple sclerosis. Jennifer suggested getting one of those stretchy wristband keyrings so I can drop the clicker to dispense treats and grab it again easily.

To teach our puppies how to “drop it”, they needed something in their mouth.  All the other dogs eagerly grabbed toys in their mouths, but Ebony’s favorite toy is Fergus. She will grab toys from Fergus but if he was not attached to a toy she shows very little interest.  I couldn’t get her to grab any of the toys.  For the other dogs, they were told to drop the toy from their mouth by holding a treat next to their mouth. The puppies were told to take it (the treat) when they dropped the toy.

We finished the class with the “down” command. To get the puppies to lie down, Jennifer had the dogs sit first. Holding a treat in one hand and the clicker in the other hand, use the treat hand to point to the ground and say “down”. Letting the puppy smell the treat and lean over so you are pointing closer and closer to the ground. Usually the dog will scoot his front feet down with the nose following the treat.  As soon as Ebony lies down she gets a click and hears “take it”.  After she has completed the command she is told “all done” to release her from the down position. If the puppy raises their rump off the ground before completing the down command they are told “uh huh, try again”.  The puppies are made to sit again and then given the down command again. Ebony struggled with this command. I switched to a chunk of lamb treat and let her lick on the treat while moving my pointed finger to the floor. If she lifted up her rump, I take away the treat and tell her to try again. She finally succeeded using this technique.

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Ebony isn’t the kind of dog that is always pulling ahead of you. She is more the type to dig her heels in, or try to, and let you know that thank you very much but she just is not interested in where you are going. She does not share Fergus’ sheer enthusiasm for car rides and when going for a walk she has had to be practically dragged past the car before she perks up and prances along side. So although she demonstrated near perfect puppy loose leash behavior in puppy class, it was a different story at home. We have some work to do here.

To train her to walk on a loose leash, Jennifer suggested that I come up with a word or phrase to let Ebony that we are on the move and she needs to stick close to me. Loose leash walking is different than the more formal heel command where the dog must remain at your left side. To get Ebony used to loose leash walking, I used the command that our trainer Jennifer uses of “Let’s go!” Then, I walk. If I am lucky, or no where near the car, my cute little Goldendoodle puppy will prance along side me. Periodically she gets a click and a treat for staying near enough me as we walk that the leash is never taut. If she stops and the leash goes taut, I stop too. I am not supposed to pull on the leash and get into a tug of war with her. I just say “Let’s go!” and wait for her to come to me. As soon as she does, she gets a click/treat and off we go again. Jennifer has cautioned us to be patient with this and realize that it may be a few minutes before our puppies get bored of sitting in Ebony’s case or bored of pulling ahead on a leash that is neither pulled back or forward. For my goldendoodle, it has been under 5 minutes before she decides that it won’t be so bad to tag along with me.

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The first week of puppy training class, Ebony was the only student.  She certainly got a lot of attention but missed out on some socialization time.  I talked to Jennifer about enrolling the neighbor’s occasionally unruly 3 year old lab mix, as I would have the kids to whom she belongs on three of the classes. She approved the idea and my neighbors were ecstatic. So we added Chip the lab mix, and the two kids. The missing puppy from last week, a tiny poodle mix, was there with his family of 5!

Chip is a big strong dog with minimal training, who was a tad jealous of all the attention, HIS kids were paying to Ebony.  Ebony is used to the amazingly patient Fergus who is a big dog and lets her grab onto his ears and tail to play. It took some negotiation for all three dogs to learn to play together appropriately, but the trainer Jennifer was firm and patient in establishing boundaries with the dogs and their owners.

We got the new dogs and their families up to speed in using the clicker and the command “Watch me”.  Ebony and I demonstrated “Watch me” to the others and I was impressed that she obeyed so readily even with all the distractions. Jennifer also used Ebony to model training the puppies how to walk on a loose leash and she pretty much had it down by the time the demonstration was done. When practice time came to walk on a loose leash around the store, she had it down well enoough that I could pass her leash to one of the kids  so only one child at a time was working with Chip, the wild one. It has helped me in my training to also work with the kids and Chip. It has reenforced many concepts, probably the most important one being in training the HUMANS to be consistent with their dogs.  Now that the kids are in class, they have a better understanding of how to deal with Ebony when they come over to help exercise her. Tiring, but a win-win situation in the long run.

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It has been quiet on the blog front because I was in the hospital.  Having to enter the hospital and worrying about who would take care of Ebony was NOT fun. I actually negotiated with my doctor to wait on my hospital admission until I had her care covered. It brought up a lot of questions about service dogs and hospitals. Obviously there was no question of Ebony accompanying me this time, I haven’t even brought her to my doctors appointments yet. In the future, I could really see the benefit of having her there.  It brings up a lot of logistical questions like potty breaks, exercise food etc.  Since I am hospitalized at least once a year, it is something that I will need to investigate. It is good to be home and it was nice that both dogs gave me a warm welcome home.  I am looking forward to resuming her training tomorrow as I notice that she has already lost some of her interest in the coming when called.

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Today was Ebony’s first official day of school. She started a puppy class at the Aurora PetSmart with Jennifer as the trainer. I chose PetSmart because it was affordable, close by and Jennifer was enthusiastic to work with Ebony. I wanted to get an early start with some expert advice.

The class only had only other puppy enrolled in it and they did not make it to the first day of class. Ebony basically got an hour of personalized consultation and training. It was ideal that Jennifer had her big 3 year old Doberman with her that day. Jennifer was able to show me how to train Ebony with another larger dog around who really wanted in on that yummy treat action too! Since it was just us, we had the luxury of really focusing on some of our special needs within the context of their curriculum. My speech is sometimes impacted by my MS and we discussed using a clicker, hand motions and easier to manage words and phrases.

Their first class curriculum focuses on:

• nutrition
• house training
• socialization
• using a clicker
• getting the puppy’s attention
• word choice

With our needs, we spent a lot of time on attention, words and the clicker in general. It takes just a tiny bit of coordination, nothing for the able bodied but I had to concentrate on it. Jennifer was patient and considerate in working with me on timing the clicker and using it unobtrusively. I am pretty excited about this whole clicker thing!

As I have mentioned before, I am sometimes worried about how connected Ebony is to Fergus instead of me. I must say it was extremely rewarding to teach her “watch me”. Even with the “bribe” of the clicker/treat combo, it felt satisfying to see her whip her head around and focus on me even with Jennifer providing her with distractions. The other big highlight was “all done”. I have struggled in the past with communicating with Fergus when he could stop sitting or waiting for his treat or whatever. Training Ebony now that the task is done and that she is now “at ease” just makes sense. That was the part that she doesn’t understand yet but it will come.

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I feel a bit better today and Ebony slept in until 9am, woot!

She recognizes her name now and is getting pretty good at the come command. She is getting the hang of her leash now. Not at the level of heeling but she no longer digs in her back feet. She prances now on her leash. We did have an oops on the kitchen floor but that was my fault. I just couldn’t get going fast enough to get her out the back door.

Hopefully, I will feel better tomorrow and we can focus more on her training. Today was more of a play day for her as she and Fergus were working out their wrestling routine.

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I don’t feel well today and Ebony woke me up very early. After I took her outside to eliminate and that I fed her, I tried to get her back in her crate. I was exhausted and I had to get back to sleep. For the first time, she really whimpered and whined. I couldn’t sleep. I moved her to the large wire crate in the back yard and put Fergus outside with her. Usually he is enough to calm her down. She continued to whine, whimper and yowl.

Even in my basement bedroom, her cries kept me awake. I was desperate and beginning to doubt my ability to train her. Finally, I brought Fergus and Ebony into my bedroom and hoped she wouldn’t go nuts in my closet. Five hours later, I woke up to find them curled up around each other and pressed up against the edge of my bed. Fergus gets very clingy when I don’t feel well and will lay down as close as he can to me as long as I am lying down. Ebony just settled down and followed his lead. Nothing was chewed and there were no messes, thank goodness!

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Day three and we have been doing great so far on the house training. No elimination indoors. She whimpers while crated, when she wakes up and needs to go. To be totally honest, most of the “success” so far has been based on my predicting that she needs to go versus her asking to go out.

I trained Fergus by putting him outside every time after he drank, ate or woke up and he only peed inside the house once in 11 years. I am trying to remember when he was able to tell me when he needed to go outside. I do remember that we had bells for him to ring when he was a puppy and I will get her some bells soon. The book Goldendoodle (Designer Dog) by Kathryn Lee also talks about using bells to signal when to go out.

I have done some other reading on the web to brush up on my house training skills. BEFORE You Get Your Puppy is a free e-book by Dr. Ian Dunbar. The 73 page book is available here. I agree that it is important to learn about what you are getting yourself into before beginning a new puppy adventure. Some of the book is repetitive and it hits hard on the point that the training is the person’s responsibility. Some puppy “problem” behavior is actually natural canine behavior that can be redirected. The aspect that I have been focusing on is anticipating her need to eliminate and getting her outside. Every time she wakes up or drinks water, out the back door she goes. She gets a treat, praise and play when she has eliminated. With Fergus, I also let him out as soon as he ate but we are trying something a bit different with her food. Per the BEFORE You Get Your Puppy book, I am stuffing her Kong with her food and then wedging some bone shape treats in the opening so she has to work a bit and chew on her toy to get to her food.

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