Flying Poodles

Teaching Elly to bark…

I’ve decided I really need to focus on all aspects of my training skills. Since my goal is to take Dancer to NADAC Championships when she’s five (and win, of course), I need to be the best trainer I can be. (Yes, I know that’s a cliche.) Toward this end, I’m working on getting to my regular training times and having a goal when I get there. Debbie is helping by giving me homework each week.

But I also decided there really isn’t any excuse for having badly training dogs around the house if I’m not going to work on those problems. Elly’s reactive barking at everything that walks by makes Jay crazed. He forgets everything I’ve told him about being positive with the dogs and just yells at them and slams his office door, which doesn’t help. Greta-who-has-the-barn-time-slot-ahead-of-mine suggested that I try clicking at two barks and then rewarding (since I’d like the dogs to continue letting me know there’s something going on). The goal is that they will learn to self-interrupt after a while (and come running for a treat).

It’s a month into the project, and I have achieved this:

• the girls bark until I click and then come running
• the girls bark until I say “good barking” in a happy voice and then come running
• the girls bark when the doorbell rings and keep barking and keep barking until they have successfully assaulted whomever was at the door (this step obviously needs more work)

I’ve been working more with the clicker, too, and I realized that Elly was really paying attention to that click. She’s always been really food motivated but timing really matters too… if you’re late or the reward isn’t good enough, she goes in search of something better.

I started clicking the barks. After a few days of that, I now have a “BARK!” command and a “ssshhhh” command/hand signal (still have to have both of those). I haven’t taken it out of the house yet, but I’m hoping to show it off to Debbie tomorrow.