I’ve been shit at keeping up with these, but she’s still technically 5 months (though only a week or so away from being 6 months!) so it’s time for another instalment of my series where I list four things Savannah does that I like, and four things I’d like her to learn or improve on! Here is the tag with all instalments in chronological order.
Four things my dog does that I like:
1. Her loose-leash walking is coming along so nicely. Of course she has times when she’s too excited or distracted, but we often walk whole blocks where she’s attentive and stays by my side! Lots of rewards for this still, of course, but sometimes she does so well I almost forget to treat her because she looks so grown-up doing it.
2. We’ve reached four hours between potty breaks! This has made my days so much easier, especially since it’s winter and getting ready for walks is a whole production. She’s also able to sleep in until 8:30 or even 9:00 some days, and then patiently waits until one of us gets ready to take her outside.
3. Her recall is still improving nicely! This weekend, she was in the middle of playing with one of her best friends (literally had her teeth on his butt) and when I called her name, she zoomed right over. So proud!
4. She loves to play fetch - with rope toys, balls, or frisbees. I love the joy in her body movements and expression when she comes bouncing back across a field with a frisbee in her mouth.
Four things I would like my dog to learn / improve on:
1. A big priority at the moment is getting duration on her Bed command. She knows to go to the bed and lie down there until her release cue, but she still expects treats at a pretty high rate. I would really love to build up some duration here so we can start really using this command outside of just training sessions. Right now the reinforcement rate is every 5-15 seconds, which is too often for me to actually do anything. I’d like to build up soon to 30-60 seconds, so we can start having her lie on her bed while we eat or while household tasks are happening. Also need to work on having me walk around, pick stuff up, etc, all without her breaking her stay on the bed.
2. I’d like her to figure out that she can jump off the couch as well as on it, because right now she will jump up and then clearly thinks she’s stuck there, even though she’s jumped off in the past. She’ll just stand on the couch and bark, which is funny but not super helpful.
3. I’d love to find more opportunities to practice being alone in the house. We do a good amount of being alone in a room, but there are so few opportunities for my partner and I to both be out of the house at the moment, and it’s far too cold to just stand around outside to practice. I think she’ll take to it pretty well, but it’s definitely something that we need to work on. She doesn’t seem prone to separation anxiety (e.g. was OK sleeping in her crate in a room by herself right from Day 1, has done great the few times we were both out, does decent at (near) daily time being alone in the living room. But separation anxiety is one of my Big Fears so I’d like to keep working on this to make sure we set her up for success.
4. She’s very interested in every dog we see. Although she’s improving, there’s definitely still work to do in learning to ignore dogs. I think because she often does get to say hi to many dogs, it’s taking more time. Got to set up more opportunities to see a dog without getting to interact! I do see improvements in this area so I think we’ll be fine long term, and I do like that she’s shown no signs of reactivity toward other dogs. But a calm sit with focus on me, or a heel while other dogs pass, is definitely on the wish list, so we gotta keep working on that.
Hopefully I remember to do another instalment soon!
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