Bennie and the Glove

Now that Bennie is over six months old and is pretty solid with his house training, we've decided to make his space a little larger. This introduces new training spaces because what applies in the kitchen may not - in his mind - apply any where other than the kitchen.We continue to be lucky as he hasn't really figured out he could jump over the barrier. He's our first dog we haven't encouraged to jump up on chairs or the bed. Instead we use "up" and lift him up. All his jumping is getting down.


He finished a puppy class and I've continued to do training with him, the bane of which is "leave it". I'm pretty sure it doesn't help that in a panic - for instance when he has a glass Christmas ornament - I say "drop it" - which he interprets and "chew and swallow as quickly as possible preferably while also grabbing the treats sprinkled around in an attempt to get me to leave it". I'm doing 30 days of training with Zak George while waiting for a class to start and here's what how Zak trains "leave it".

 

Bennie is a couple months older than Argyle and really solid at "leave it" in the kitchen and the stores we go practice in. On walks I'm using "leave it" along with "up" then picking him up to distract him from other dogs which he tends to bark very loudly at. Hopefully it he gets the message that walking is conditional on not barking. New space = maybe new rules though and now there are work gloves.

Bennie looking innocent around the glove	Bennie when he thinks I'm not watching

For quite awhile today Bennie heard a lot of "leave it", clicking and treating. As long as I'm in the same room  he's very aware he isn't supposed to take the glove. If I leave though - circumstances have changed and the glove is now a toy. He does "leave it" instead of trying to eat it or run away so I'm taking that as a win and storing the gloves somewhere else for now.