Dog training

“When I first got my foster dog, I knew I was getting a scared dog with limited people experience. I wasnt worried, I am experienced with dog training and behavior and knew I could help him. I had a training routine that worked for all my previous fosters and thought I was prepared. Boy was I wrong. The first 3 months were spent getting him to eat, sleep, potty, and relax. He was scared of food, scared of outside, scared of any tiny little noise that we made. Three months in we had a solid routine down, but still wasnt a dog. He fit into our house pretty well, but was far from being adoptable. The next 4 months were spent getting him comfortable to taking food from us. Every day we practiced tossing treats outside, then inside, then taking treats by hand outside, then inside. Eventually we were able to get him taking treats by hand in every room of our house. In that time he also got more comfortable with us. We were able to walk past him, pet him, and play fetch.”

“I’d already heard a thousand times that dogs want to please us, but I’d never thought about it besides giving them a treat when they sat on command. You can use that same concept for all sorts of behaviors? My mind was blown. It’s one of lessons that that feels like “how in the hell did I not realize this before?” Positive training is powerful stuff, and it’s a little embarrassing how long it took me to fully embrace it. But I was guilty of yelling at my dog when they misbehaved, and unfortunately I did yank their leashes from time to time if they misbehaved. Lesson learned Jen, lesson learned.”