Training Banx
10 Pecanwood dr. N9Y4G3 Kingsville, ON, Canada

Banx has been learning a few basic obedience cues, with my daughter, who he see’s as the leader of the house. I know this because when she came over and was behind a closed door where Banx lost sight of her, he began to go to the door and whimpered. This tells me two things, that he sees her as the important person in his life and a leader. 2- she is the one that has to do the training. I have taught her to get Banx to acquire the behaviour first, click and treat the de...sired behaviour the moment he does it. So, how do you do this? You can lure him into the position so if she wants him to sit, bring a treat to his nose and bring up just over his head, in like an L shape. His natural thing to do will be to sit. It’s very important to click the moment his butt touches the ground, which marks the behaviour and then you treat with a favourite treat. Same with lay down, get the behaviour first by bringing a treat to his nose and brining the treat to the floor and toward his paws but not too far that he gets up to get it. The moment his elbows touch the ground, click to mark the behaviour and treat. She should work on one cue at a time and add the command as soon as you feel he may react and offer the desired behaviour. So if she feels that Banx could offer a sit, in say after being lured into sit 10-15 times, she will say sit, wait a long second and see if he will offer a sit. If he does sit, click and follow with three treats, given one at a time and lots of praise. Now when he is offering a sit 90% of the time, it’s important to wean him off of treats and give praise more often and a treat for the better sits. When Banx understands the cue every time even the click of the clicker is not necessary. Make it fun and rewarding and your puppy or dog will be the obedient companion we all desire. See more

My daughter has been conditioning the clicker for a couple days now, 2-3 times a day. She told me that when she first clicks the clicker that sometimes he responds right away and sometimes he doesn’t. There are a few things we can do for this. 1. Make sure we time the training so we can assure he is hungry, so before his feedings. 2. We can change the treat to be more appealing to him, say pieces of cheese or hotdogs. Remember the size of the treat for large doge is the size of a pea.

Yesterday I showed my daughter how to start clicker training Banx. The clicker is a device that makes a clicking sound, can be anything that makes that sound. The clicker is used to mark a behaviour that is favourable but to get to that point you have to make the clicker mean something. Grab about 30 treats, a treat should be about the size of a pea for medium to large dogs and smaller for small and toys. You can break larger treats up to make them smaller. The treat sh...ould be high value to your dog for best results. With the puppy in front of you, click and give him a treat. Do that with all the treats you have, putting them in different positions so your puppy has to reset himself. Your puppy will start to look you in the eye if you wait to click a second or two, when he does, click and treat, important to click precisely when your puppy looks at you. When you have exhausted the treats stop. Later on in the day, have the same amount of treats ready. Click your clicker, only if your puppy is calm and behaving, the puppies ears should perk up and they will come when they hear it, repeat as before. Now the click of the clicker means something to your puppy, it means, when they hear the click, their about to get a treat. Do this routine for a few days. It is ideal to hold off on the click until your puppy looks at you and click precisely when he is looking at you. You can add the command focus or any word you choose and when your puppy looks you in the eye, click and reward. See more

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in awhile. The beginning of this year has proven difficult because of injury to myself and a tragedy that has hit our family recently. I am on bed rest and Banx has had to stay with my daughter and granddaughter, which is good on a socialization stand point. He’s very good with my granddaughter, who is 3, but training, especially house training has proven to be difficult for my daughter lol. Training obedience cues will have to wait a little bit because I will be on bed rest for around 6 months but this will show that any dog at any age can be trained.