Goals!

My puppy class set goals last night. I love goal setting. Its always good to have a plan. How do you know where you are going if you don't have a map?? Now we have a map.
One of the challenges of dog training, puppy training, is everyone knows what they don't want. "I don't want him to jump on me when I come home." "I don't want her to charge out the door when I open it." I always say "what do you want her to do instead of charging out the door?"
It is very hard for puppies to understand "DO NOTHING!!" If you give them a replacement behavior to do, the re training goes much faster. Puppies usually do what works. They jump on people, and people either pet and praise "aren't you cute!" or they go "Stop it, get down, quit!" while shoving away. Either way puppy gets attention, and negative attention is still attention.

Our goals for this class are pretty normal ones - this will be a good class to follow along with and see how we are solving most of these behaviors.
We have two very shy puppies. They need socialization and they also need to be able to focus when nervous. Given other behaviors to do. I messed up last night and didn't notice one of the puppy moms comforting her baby during class when puppy hid under the chair. I will remedy that Immediatly in the next class. Cooing to puppy 'its okay, its all right, don't be scared' translates to puppy 'good baby, that's just how I want you to act'. Which is NOT what people think they are saying.

So - some of the goals for this class. Come when called. Ouch - that puppy mouthing isn't so cute anymore and is starting to hurt! Stay please. Pay attention to me despite all the much more interesting things in the world. Lets walk Nicely on the leash. Make him stop peeing in my house!!!!!

One lady asked 'can you make him like riding in the car?' I said yeah, but not in this class.
But! Will see what I can do for her.
This is going to be a GREAT class.