This week has been pretty hectic one for me.
What with ‘picking-up’, family, and business commitments, Rachael’s training has had to take a back seat.
So we have done what I always do when I am short of time.
And that is to consolidate what we learned the previous week.
Little by little
Every time I can snatch a spare minute, I get Rachael to sit and stay whilst I distract her a little by stepping around her, bending down, moving suddenly, moving quickly. And so on.[wp_ad_camp_1]Bit by bit she is learning that once the sit command has been given, she must sit still no matter what surprises I spring on her.
All good foundations for the future.
I am also reducing the frequency of the rewards
Indoor dog
This ability to have frequent short training bursts, is one of the huge benefits of having a gundog puppy in the house rather than the kennel.
It means that you can squeeze little bits of training in amongst other things, rather than relying on dedicated training sessions.
And it is surprising what you can achieve in five minutes here or there.
House-training and recalls
Now that Rachael is pretty reliable with her house training (no accidents for over a month) I can let her into more areas of the house.
So we have also been practicing ‘room to room’ recalls. Which she does with great ‘gusto’.
Growth
I had thought that Rachael was going to remain a rather small dog, but she seems to have had a bit of a growth spurt in the last week or two.
Her mannerisms and behaviour are still very puppyish yet though it will be some months yet before she is mature, Rachael is now beginning to look like a real grown up Labrador.
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