Say hello to Frasier!
This little nugget is a Golden Retriever with BIG dreams. His pet mom, Meghann, is a guidance counselor at a local elementary school, and is raising Frasier to be a therapy dog for her students. He will primarily work in group and individual counselling settings, but will also be helping teach students about how to safely interact with dogs and, of course, spread smiles as he walks through the halls with Meghann.
Before Frasier is ready to start his job as a therapy dog, he has a lot of growing and learning to do! Frasier was born in July, so he is still very much a puppy. We are beginning his training like you do any puppy – with potty training, leash manners, and other basic cues. He started his training with me at 9 weeks old, and is well on his way to being a well-rounded dog!
Frasier and Meghann are signed up for my Fantastic Fidos program, with plans to train Frasier all the way through his first year of life until he earns his therapy dog certification, and I thought I would bring you guys along for the journey! I will also be including instructions for at least one of the skills Frasier is learning so you can train along at home. These skills are useful for dogs of all ages, regardless of your goals for your dog.
Let’s get started!
Foundations Lesson
All private students start with a Foundations Lesson, where we go over their dog’s history, talk about how dogs learn and how we’ll be training their dog, then we get started on a few simple exercises. Meghann and Frasier learned all about marker training, enrichment toys, his exercise needs, and more!
I also left Meghann with my Clicker Home Management hand out – a great way of setting and reinforcing rules and boundaries in your home.
From there, we played the Name Game to teach Frasier positive and happy associations with his name, trained a positive interrupter so that we can interrupt him and redirect him when he is causing puppy trouble, started on teaching him not to jump on visitors, and set the foundations for self-control around food!
Positive Interrupter
1) Toss a treat about 3 feet away and tell the dog to “get it.”
2) As soon as the dog swallows the treat call “Puppy, puppy, puppy,” in a happy, upbeat voice.
3) Click as soon as there is any recognition – ear flick the slightest of head turns.
4)Praise every step of the way back “ Good boy, good boy, good boy!”.
5)Give him a treat as soon as he gets to you.