Routines

You know you are doing something right when your dog insists that you drop what you were doing (eating my supper in my case) to pay attention to him. Then when I asked him if he wanted to go play, he went running down to my room where his training bag hung on a bedpost, and sat there barking in a demanding way at me to hurry up and TRAIN HIM.

A training session at home always goes like this:

# Heel on leash (three sits, two about turns, left turn, right turn, fast, slow)
# Sit stay while I set up the Figure 8 station (two laundry baskets)
# Figure 8 (three times, three sits in the middle)
# Stand Stay
# Down stay while I put laundry baskets away and clear the floor
# Heel off leash - same pattern as the on leash heel
# Recall (come)
# 'Finish' practice - both types (swing and by me)
# Dumbbell retrieves and holds

And that's it. The whole session usually is about 15-20 minutes long. I finish with the dumbbell practice, because that is Jack's favorite part. He is a born retriever.

Training itself does not necessarily come naturally, even for golden retrievers. I've owned them all my life and know that they are the types of dogs who can be 'over achievers' of the obedience ring, but they can also be those dogs that never make it into the show ring because there are ten-million things they'd rather be doing than working.

The most important part of training your dog is finding a way to make him enjoy that time with you. If you think about the joy a retriever has in a dog park when you are throwing tennis balls for him, that is the same kind of joy you want to see when you are putting him through the training routine above.

The way to do it:

#1) Keep an upbeat manner when you are training

Dogs are sensitive to the sound of your voice. If you get too crabby while training, that ruins the fun for them.

#2) Move fast from one exercise to the next, don't overdo any of them.

Sometimes it can be very tempting to keep working on something until the dog gets it perfect, but you do not want to burn out your dogs. They have short attention spans and get tired out after a while.

#3) Always put something really FUN at the end of the routine for the dog to look forward to.

Most people choose that time to pull out the squeaky toys or tennis balls. I do that sometimes, or I might take that time to go through all of Jacket's easy tricks (sit pretty, wave, limp, paw/other paw, bow).

Other than that - choose your training time wisely. I usually go by the dog himself. If he is demanding attention or wants me to play with him, I might drop what I'm doing and train him. I wouldn't train him when he is tired or off doing his own thing (like begging for food, or playing with the other dogs).

The only other thing is I keep him guessing. Sometimes I only do one of the training exercises listed above and tell him to go find one of his toys to retrieve ('find it' trick). This shortens the training time and puts more of the focus on play.