· By Minou Tpain
Author: Denise Partlow
Instagram: @modernk9 Carolinas
As we discussed yesterday the most important thing to understand with this type of practice is that you must always remain positive. Even if your dog is doing something that you are not proud of, you cannot show that through your tone.
You want your dog to think that every time you call him, amazing things happen-even if your dog is being a total jerk.
So here is my favorite activity I use with my clients often to help build that positive association:
-Puppy Ping Pong:
You need at least two people. Both of you will have treats. One calls the dog, marks & rewards when the dog heads over to them. Then the second person calls and does the same. And you will keep going back-and-forth hence the name puppy ping-pong.
Eventually your dog will start to anticipate that the next person is going to call him so at that moment we need to change it up. Now the person he is furthest from should call him instead. You want to make sure that he’s following through with your verbal cue and not just following a pattern.
To advance this, you can do any of the following:
-you and the other participant can have a bigger distance in between you
-change your location throughout the game
-hide (make it easy at first)
-add more people into the mix
