Meet Remi, she's a one and a half year old Doberman from Los Angeles, California! This sweet and playful pup is here with us for our One Week Board and Train Program, where we will work on teaching her basic obedience and manners. She doesn't have much understanding of basic commands yet, and has a short attention span which causes her to be easily distracted. She loves people and other dogs, but tends to get easily overexcited around them, which can lead to poor behaviors such as pulling on the leash, barking, and jumping. When seeking attention, Remi can also be a bit mischievous and likes to test boundaries, which sometimes leads to behaviors like shoe stealing, chewing on furniture, and play biting. Over the next seven days, we will be working on improving her obedience, discipline, and manners to set her on the right track to becoming a well-behaved pup. Stay tuned for her transformation!
Pupdate 9/11/2024
Today Remi and I spent the day bonding and getting to know each other after she was dropped off with me. She seemed very happy to spend time with me and explore around the park together. While she did seek attention from me regularly and check in with me frequently, she was prone to losing this focus on me the moment distractions were around us, such as if another dog was running around or a person was walking by. She would sometimes bark and try to pull towards distractions she found particularly exciting. She was often play bowing and bouncing around, so this behavior seemed to purely be from a desire to play! When we got home, she was quick to settle in and make herself at home, which is great to see!
While at the park, I tested her current knowledge of commands to see if she's had any prior training, and what areas may need some extra focus on going forward. I asked her basic commands such as Come, Heel, Sit, Down, and Place, but she was typically much more focused on her surroundings rather than anything I was asking of her. The one command she seemed to have some understanding of was Come, as she was often pretty quick to respond and come running over when recalled which was good to see! It wasn't full proof however, as there were many times when she would ignore the cue and her name if she was distracted by something else. She would also sometimes run up to me and start jumping on me, or run right past me instead of stopping once she got to me. When asked to Heel, she didn't seem to recognize the command at all and was usually more interested in investigating around or trying to lead me wherever she pleased rather than staying beside me or following my lead. She was unable to perform Sit, Down, or Place on command, and didn't seem to understand what was being asked of her.
Once we had spent some time testing her knowledge, we jumped into our first training session! We focused on introducing her to the e-collar, as well as Come to Sit and Heel. The e-collar will be an important tool in her training program, as it will allow for effective communication with minimal to no leash pressure needed. By pairing the e-collar stimulation with leash pressure, we can teach her that these two forms of pressure mean the same thing, allowing them to eventually be used interchangeably. I have included a tutorial for the e-collar in today's pupdate, so be sure to check that out! The goal for Come to Sit is for Remi to come when called, approach her handler's right side, circle around the back, and finish with a Sit facing forward on the left side. She is then asked to hold this Sit until released with "Break", or given a new command. This ensures she not only comes when called, but also that she remains stationary until told otherwise, which will be a common theme among all of her commands, as they each come with an implied stay. The Come to Sit maneuver when completed in its entirety also sets her up to be in the perfect position to begin walking in a Heel! The goal for the Heel command is for Remi to walk nicely alongside her handler on their left side, without pulling ahead, veering off, or falling behind. Her job during Heel is to focus on her handler and follow their lead at all times, which will take some practice to get the hang of. Remi seemed to pick up on these commands quite quickly, especially with her Heel. Her biggest struggle with Heel was keeping her nose off the ground, as she often impulsively lowered her head down to sniff, though when this was consistently interrupted it did begin to lessen. Her Come to Sit was good overall, though she seemed to struggle a bit with Sit, and almost always needed some physical guidance on her rear to help her into the position. We will continue working on these commands every day to help her become more reliable and consistent with them!
Pupdate 9/12/2024
Today Remi and I began our training session at home, where we focused on three commands, Off, Place, and Down. Once she made some progress with these commands at home, we took the training outdoors to work on these commands around some more distractions. We also continued working on each command she has learned thus far. Instead of feeding her from her bowl today, we used her kibble as rewards during training, which helped significantly to improve her focus and eagerness to learn. While food is a great tool to help her learn in these early stages of training, we do want to wean her away from food during training as the goal is for her to be reliable with command even without food involved. This will be achieved by gradually replacing any food lures with hand signals only, and using food less commonly as a reward to be replaced with praise and affection instead, as this is also a very motivating reward for her!
Remi is often easily distracted, as she tends to focus on her surroundings even when asked to perform commands. Moments like this are a great opportunity to implement the Off command. The goal for the Off command is for Remi to stop whatever she is doing, and focus on her handler. This is a very versatile command, similar to "no" or "leave it", and can be used in various situations, such as to interrupt fixation on distractions, barking, jumping, eating or sniffing things she's not supposed to, or any other behaviors that are undesirable or inappropriate at that time. The verbal Off command when paired with leash pressure and the e-collar allows us to interrupt the behavior and help her to refocus so that she is in a better mindset to listen for upcoming instructions. Once the Off command is given, it's beneficial to immediately follow it with another command such as Sit, Come, Heel, etc. Once she stops whatever behavior she was doing, asking her to set her focus on a task will help keep her attention away from what initially distracted her or caused the undesirable behavior. Remi has shown good progress in understanding the Off command so far, and with each repetition, she seemed to be quicker to respond and refocus when prompted. However, more work will need to be done in various situations before she is fully reliable with the command, especially when working without food involved.
The goal for the Place command is for Remi to jump or climb onto a designated object, such as a bench, a bed, or another object with defined borders, and hold a stationary command while remaining on the Place object until released or given a new command. We introduced this command at home using a familiar object, a dog cot. She is comfortable climbing onto and relaxing on the cot in her own time, so this was a good object to use and help set her up for success. We used some leash pressure to guide her onto the cot while giving the verbal Place cue, which she quickly picked up on. Once she seemed to understand the behavior, we began pairing leash pressure with e-collar stimulation as additional reinforcement and communication when needed. After a few repetitions, she quickly picked up on what was being asked of her and was able to Place with minimal to no leash pressure. We then took the Place cot outside, where we continued our practice. She did well with this, so we moved on to practice with other types of objects such as stairs, low walls, rocks, and other platforms. She showed great confidence with this, and was eager to practice with any object we worked with! We will continue practicing this command with different objects in a variety of environments to improve Remi's skills with this command!
The other command introduced to Remi today is the Down command. The goal for the Down command is for Remi to lay down completely when asked, and remain in that position until released or given a new command. To begin working on this command, we used leash pressure, physical guidance, and food lures to guide Remi into the Down position while the verbal command was given. After some practice, she quickly seemed to catch on to the concept, so we began adding in the e-collar stimulation as reinforcement and gradually using fewer food lures. We kept the duration for this command pretty short at first with lots of breaks and praise, as this helps make the training fun and rewarding. As we continue to practice this we will continue increasing the duration gradually so she can learn to remain in this position for extended periods of time. We will also continue adding in more distractions so she can be reliable with the command in any situation or environment. She ended up doing a great job with this command both at home and while around the neighborhood, and seemed comfortable in this position overall, as often on breaks she would choose to lie down and relax on her own accord.
Pupdate 9/13/2024
Today Remi and I visited a park, where we practiced all of her commands around distractions. The park was pretty busy during the Friday evening, with lots of people, children, and other dogs. There were also lots of squirrels and birds around, which added to the distracting environment. Overall Remi was very excited to be here, especially when we first arrived. She had some trouble focusing due to all the interesting surroundings, however as time went on she did begin to gradually settle and adjust to the new environment. We always want to remain consistent with the expectations of her obedience, and reward every ounce of focus we do get, which helps to encourage the behavior we want to see from her! We also spent some time working to create an "off switch" for her play mode, and improve her skills regarding being able to switch from playful activities to working mode, as she tends to be pretty silly for a while after playing and sometimes struggles to switch gears to focus on obedience again. We love her goofy and playful nature and don't seek to eliminate it, though there is certainly a time and place for it so this practice helps to teach her when it is appropriate to let loose and when it's time to settle down and pay attention.
Remi did well with her Heel overall, and while mistakes were made pretty frequently, especially at first, each one was an opportunity for her to learn and improve. When something interesting was happening around us, she would tend to want to look at and face her body towards it, causing her to fall out of position often when in distracting areas. By continuing to walk and not allow her to stop and stare, we can encourage her to follow our lead and ignore distractions around us. Making frequent directional turns and sudden stops also helps to encourage focus and engagement with her handler, as well as establish the idea that she is not the one dictating the direction or pace while in a Heel. She did well with not trying to pull on the leash though, and was quick to respond when leash pressure and e-collar stimulation were used. Her Come to Sit had some similar issues as Heel, as she often wanted to spin around to face towards distractions instead of positioning herself facing the same direction as her handler. She would tend to need some leash guidance to help her through the maneuver, though seems to be understanding the command in general as when fewer distractions were present she was able to perform it with very minimal guidance. Her basic recall is doing great though, and regardless of distractions around she always understood to come right over to me.
Remi's stationary commands are each coming along nicely. She excelled with Place specifically today, and was able to jump onto a variety of objects with lots of confidence! She would sometimes need a quick introduction to new objects by asking for the command with light leash pressure to show her where to go, though after that point she was able to Place with ease without any extra help! Remi is getting much better with her Sit command, and was able to perform it reliably without needing physical guidance to help her into position. Her Down command was a bit less reliable, as when increased distractions were around she would sometimes need some physical guidance. She seems to understand the command overall, as when she was focused enough she happily performed Down when asked without any extra help. We began adding some extra duration to her stationary commands today, and on average she was able to hold her positions for around thirty seconds, which is a good start! She will need some more work before she can consistently reach our goal time of one minute and thirty seconds however, especially when distractions are around.
Pupdate 9/14/2024
Today Remi and I visited a local shopping strip, where we practiced all of her commands around distractions. This location had a variety of distractions present, including loud noises from the busy street nearby, groups of people, other dogs, and smells of food from restaurants along the strip. Overall Remi seemed a bit unsure of what to think of these surroundings, and seemed a bit overwhelmed when we first arrived. She would tend to be easily distracted, however the Off command was effective in helping her to quickly refocus her attention back onto training which was great to see! The longer we spent here she began to have an easier time staying in a more relaxed state of mind, and seemed to become more desensitized to the busy environment, which allowed her to pay more attention to her commands. We were also able to achieve success with her commands today without any use of food rewards or motivators, and exclusively rewarded with praise, affection, sniff breaks, and playtime instead. She seems to be highly motivated by these rewards, and has built a drive to work for these rewards alone instead of food or treats. While she of course still loves food and will happily work for it as well, it's great to see her have the same drive to work without any food involved, as it shows she is not dependent on it while training.
Remi did well with her Heel today, and seems to have a solid understanding of the command at this point. She was able to follow my lead and match my pace as we walked along the sidewalks and through crosswalks without issue. She would sometimes fall slightly out of position if something caught her attention, such as a smell on the sidewalk, though she was quick to refocus and adjust her positioning once a reminder was given. She did much better today about not spinning around to face distractions that were passing by around us, and she understood to always face the direction in which we were moving in rather than trying to turn and look behind her. Remi did good with her Come to Sit also, and her recall was always reliable and consistent. She is improving with her maneuver and positioning for this command as well, and with just a small amount of guidance from the leash she was able to find the correct position to Sit beside me to complete the command.
Remi was able to perform Sit, Down, and Place anywhere asked of her today without any issues. She seems to understand the verbal cues and hand signals for each command, and was consistently able to perform the specific command asked of her with minimal to no leash pressure to guide her. We continued to focus on building duration for Remi's stationary commands, as this seems to be an area that she tends to struggle a bit with when around distractions. With mild distractions present she was able to hold her positions for around two minutes consistently, however when in busier areas she tended to lose patience and struggled to find the focus to remain in her positions as she wanted to get up and investigate everything she found interesting. This often occurred whenever a person walked by too close or gave her attention such as baby-talking to her as they passed by, when dogs walked past, or when a particularly loud sound occurred nearby, such as a noisy bus or emergency vehicle with sirens on. Whenever she breaks a position before asked to, she is immediately returned to the exact position and location she was originally at, and reminded to hold it. Doing this reinforces the concept of the implied stay, and teaches her that breaking commands will not be successful or rewarding. Whenever she is able to successfully hold it until released, she is rewarded heavily to celebrate her achievement and encourage this desired behavior. On average today she was able to hold her positions around distractions for about thirty seconds, which is similar to yesterday's average however with slightly increased overall distractions today, so this is still good progress in the right direction! We will continue focusing on this area of her training to help her reach the goals set for her.
Pupdate 9/15/2024
Today Remi and I visited an outdoor mall, where we continued practicing all of her commands around distractions. This location was busy, with many people, other dogs, children, and other distractions like food, birds, and music. Remi was definitely excited to be here, but was also a bit overstimulated by her surroundings. At times she would be in a playful, goofy mood, and other times she would be quite serious and fixated on closely watching distractions around us. Overall she ended up doing a decently good job with her training considering the busy environment, and she got tons of compliments and attention from all the nice people who stopped to admire her as we trained. While Greeting Manners aren't something we will be focusing on covering during her one week program, we still of course ensured she remained polite during greetings, and she seemed to enjoy every ounce of attention she received!
When we first arrived Remi really struggled to focus, and she appeared quite overwhelmed. We ended up taking a step back from the busiest areas of the mall, and spent some time working in a quieter area that was further away from the bulk of the distractions where we could give her some time to adjust to the environment. We focused on warming her up to training by practicing easy commands she knows well, and using the Off command to encourage her to keep her attention on me rather than fixating on distractions. After some time, she did seem to begin calming down a lot, so we slowly made our way back towards the busier areas. While she was able to focus better than when we first arrived, certain distractions were still a big challenge for her. One notable struggle was other dogs, as many of the dogs we encountered here were not all that well behaved, and were often barking, pulling, and behaving erratically, which seemed to excite Remi. She doesn't seem to have the best understanding of dog social cues, as Remi took nearly everything as an invitation to play, even dogs that were displaying warning signs such as growling or lunging. The first several dogs we encountered were such examples, and Remi took great interest in this and would often play bow, try to approach, and then bark at them when she wasn't able to get to them. Remi was also prone to reacting to dogs who were calm and ignoring her, though she seemed to have an easier time disengaging and refocusing her attention away from the calmer dogs rather than the ones who were barking and riling her up. The busy mall environment seemed to be a major factor behind her behavior towards dogs today, as during our walks around the neighborhood she took little to no interest in dogs we encountered while in this calm environment.
Remi did a solid job with her Heel overall, and was able to stick beside me with minimal physical guidance needed as we walked around the mall. While she was still very aware of her surroundings, she was usually paying enough attention to me and engaging with me frequently which allowed her to remain in the Heel position. Her Come to Sit is coming along well, and she was able to be recall and maneuver herself around to the proper position with minimal guidance needed, even around lots of distractions. Remi's stationary commands were a main focus during her training today, and we continued working to improve her duration. She was able to Sit, Place, and Down pretty consistently, with the only command she occasionally struggled with being Down. When in very busy areas she was sometimes a bit stubborn about performing Down, and would need some guidance to help her into position. She also seemed more hesitant to perform Down while on Place objects rather than on the ground. Her ability to remain in stationary positions varied drastically depending on the level of distractions around us. With mild distractions she could hold her positions for around two or more minutes pretty consistently, though with heavily increased distractions, her durations ranged from about ten to thirty seconds.
Pupdate 9/16/2024
Today Remi and I visited a park, where we practiced all of her commands around distractions. We met up with some other OffLeash SoCal trainers and their pups here, which provided a great opportunity to work in close proximity to people and other dogs in a controlled environment. The park also had some other distractions like grassy fields, squirrels, and birds. Overall Remi was very excited to be here, and was in a playful mood for majority of the visit, only seeming to settle down once we had been training for a long period and she began feeling tired out. While she was very excited and playful overall, she didn't bark at any dogs today and was able to maintain a decent level of composure when around them. It likely also helped that most of the dogs were focused on their own work and were well behaved, which allowed her to stay focused rather than getting too riled up. Towards the end of our visit, she and the other pups were given a break and allowed to play for a bit, and she had a blast zooming around in the grass with them! We continued working on the "off switch" for her play mode, and she did well with understanding to stop play and follow commands when they were given, though she'd sometimes be just a bit goofy and bouncy for a few moments before she would settle down fully again.
Remi did well with her Heel overall, and was generally always by my side as we walked around the park. She would sometimes veer off slightly to try to sniff something or get a better look at something interesting, though with a reminder she understood to refocus and reposition herself. Her Come to Sit was good as well, and she always came right to me when called and was able to position herself without too much trouble. Her stationary positions were all able to be performed with no issues, and once again we spent a good portion of today's session focusing on improving her durations. In the beginning of the session when she was very excitable, she was only able to hold her positions around distractions for around thirty seconds. However as her energy levels settled and we got more practice in, this average jumped up to almost a minute and a half consistently, which was great to see! With mild distractions around she was able to maintain her positions for well over two minutes.
Remi also had the opportunity to practice her commands with some other trainers, which is a great way to put her skills to the test with handlers apart from myself and improve her handler transferability, which will be a good skill for her to have when going back home to her family. Remi warmed up to each trainer quickly and instantly loved everyone she met, though she sometimes seemed more interested in playing with them and trying to goof off rather than following instructions. She was also prone to testing and pushing boundaries by performing her commands a bit sloppy or less reliably than she normally would with me. This is a common behavior, and thankfully was simple to correct. We ensured each handler consistently upheld the standards for obedience that have been set for her during our training thus far, and she quickly understood that even though it was someone apart from me giving instructions, she still needed to listen and follow through the same way she would with me.
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