Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Puppy training

I have several sources of assistance for training Pixie. One is a personal trainer, who graciously donated her time and training program to help us with our Pixie. (Thank you Annie!!)
The second is a really cool free training guide located here You must have a PDF reader.
I was using the Pet Expertise guide first, and love the checklists! The checklists are written so I can sit with my kids and tell them the goal, and they get it.
She has learned her name, to Sit, and we're working on Come. She is very smart, and if she thinks she should get a treat for performing the task, she will not do as asked until she gets the treat. Once we get a few treats, she does as asked.
There was some sort of abuse... when we are feeding her treats, she shys away, making it difficult to offer more than verbal praise with the treat.
Most "accidents" are actually our fault... she has separation anxiety and barks when I leave the room. We tend to ignore the barking, and some of it is a let me out bark.
I tried the Cesar Milan way, and really liked that he thinks we all need balance in our lives, including our spirituality... but he wants to correct people, not pets. I have Jesus to correct me, so I stopped reading Cesar's book and used that time to read more Bible.
Pixie is also having to be taught to play with others, being abandoned. And we are trying to socialize her with other dogs, as she has a bit of aggression.
Post more updates later.

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