Teaching Patience & Self Control
Greeting Humans–
Greetings can be so exciting! When someone (family member or stranger) is greeting your puppy, your puppy should be on leash with it held a little shorter so your puppy can't get more than a foot in front you and they don't have the opportunity to jump on the person coming in or saying hello.
Begin by placing food down on the floor, or handing them to your puppy as a person approaches, to keep them with 4 feet on the floor.
Then follow the steps as outlined below. I made a little picture collage to go with the steps.
1) have treats in your hand
2) close your hand so your puppy can't get the treats but can "work at them" - sort of like a human kong.
3) Right before or as soon as the person starts petting your puppy, hold your hand at your puppy's chest level and let them work on the treats, but not eat them. Yes, your hand may get a little slimy. It's natural and ok that your puppy will stand up for the pets.
4) Count to three then call your puppy back to you and feed them the treat, or if it's going really well and you're positive your puppy isn't going to jump, open your hand to release the treats when the person is done and walking away.
The video below is an excerpt from an online class showing how to teach your puppy greetings.
The difference between Wait and Stay –
Stay means “Do not go anywhere until I come get you”. Stay looks like this:
Cue Stay. Pup stays for predetermined length of time. You walk back up to your puppy and release. (click and treat)
Wait means “Do not move forward until I have released you.”
Cue Wait. Your pup stays for predetermined length of time. You release pup to move forward. i.e. call him to come to you. (click, treat)
The Three D’s of Stay- Duration, Distance, & Distraction - Only when your pup is ready
To Practice Stay : Cue your pup to Sit or Down, whichever he does better. For this write up, I will say sit.
First work on Duration: Sit for 15 seconds, click, treat. If he does well with that, lengthen the time by a few seconds. If he doesn’t, shorten the time. You always want to be successful. A really good solid stay is up to 2 minutes
To work on Distance: Have your pup sit, take one step backwards, then step forward back to your pup, click, treat. If he gets up, just bring him back to his spot. When he does well with that, increase the distance by a step. When he does well with that, go to three steps. Then four, then back to two, or one, then up to five. We don’t always want to go further away because if we do, the exercise can actually become stressful for you pup. That is why you want to start varying your distance. Only increase the distance if you are being successful. A goal is to get to 20 feet away. ALWAYS RETURN TO YOUR DOG BEFORE YOU CLICK/TREAT!
To work on Distraction: In other words, to work on the earlier steps when there are distractions around. Distractions can be having people around, children, being outside, squirrels running past, etc. To begin working on stay with distractions, use low distractions such as being two steps away and swaying your body or lightly tapping your foot first. The better your pup gets, the more you can raise the distraction bar. Both duration and distance will end up looking like they did in the beginning when you add distractions. It can look like he’s having to learning the exercise all over again. And he is because the environment has changed.
Please watch this video Stay!