More Scottie Training Tips

  I was asked this week what kind of agility training I did with the Scotties when they were young puppies. First, we worked on Susan Garrett's Crate Games. I wish I made a commission on that DVD. I recommend it to everyone, whether or not you ever want to compete in anything with your dog.

  I worked short sessions with the Scotties on relationship building exercises like Hand Touches, Recalls, and shaping tricks, and lots of body awareness exercises like perch work, walking backwards, and riding a skateboard. Of course, I taught them the basic obedience cues of sit and down. I use a clicker for most of the early training of all these skills.

  Finally, because Scotties have such a bad reputation for being snarky with other dogs, I worked a lot on preventing that issue. With Wager, I succeeded partially, because now he thinks other dogs are WAAAAY more fun than playing with me. I am now working on building Wager's desire to work with me! With Jackson, I feel I achieved the goal- he thinks other dogs are fine, but playing with me is much more important. I really can't tell if it's a difference in training, or primarily a difference in their temperaments. I suspect it's just the way they are.

  I train all my dogs in short sessions, about 1 or 2 minutes. I use a stopwatch, because training is so fun it's easy to get carried away. I work on one thing in that time. I keep a detailed training journal of each session, so we can continue to move forward and so I can keep track of what each dog knows, what each cue is, etc.

   This post is titles Scottie Training Tips, but as you can see, all of this can apply to any breed of dog.

Wager, who knows watching the mama pays really well