We have a 7 month old beagle/coonhound mix and going to beginner classes for training.
The trainer said we should exercise her alot before going to class. We don’t want to tire her out too much…but will try more next week….see if it helps.
Are there any other suggestions besides tire the dog out?
Thanks
Exercise seems to be the best idea. If your class uses food, you might want to put her on a tiny fast. I don’t know how you normally feed your dog, but have her be slightly hungry.
i.e., if you free feed her, pick up her food a few hours before.
homework!!
I was reading on dog training classes and something that the trainer wrote in his book just made crystal clear sense. In a dog training class, this is a level 2-3 situation in training level. First, you are in a new environment, new smells, new area, new dogs, new everything. Second, there are usually a lot of other people and dogs. Other people and dogs tend to make noise. Alllll of these things are known as distractions to your dog and to your training. Normally, when training your dog, you want to begin training in a calm and quiet environment, with NO distractions. You need to be able to have your dog sit, lie down and stay (work on extending time). You should also be working on – preferably in your backyard or right on your own street front, walking and heeling (not going to far from the house, because that is a distraction). AFTER you master these things in a quiet environment, you introduce time and distance and distraction, but only one at a time. For example, if you want your dog to sit when you tell him to even though you are 10 feet away from him – that is distance, which means that you are in a no distraction area and you are not asking him to sit for an extended period of time. If you want him to lengthen his sit (or stay or down) you don’t do distance or distraction. As training improves, you start increasing, one thing at a time.
For this very reason, if your dog will not sit, stay, or down when you are in your own home, you are not ready for obedience classes – there are just too many distractions. So if you are running into problems at class, such that the trainer is telling you to exercise your dog beforehand, you may have not done enough “homework” to be ready for a class.
She wants you to exercise your dogs because tired dogs are easier to train – they don’t have a bunch of excess energy, so the energy they do have is focused and ready to listen.
The book that I read was called the Dog Whisperer (but it was NOT Cesar’s book). He made a lot of good points about training, levels of training, how to introduce distance, distraction and time.
Teach her to sit, and try to teach her to stay.
Sit before you give a treat.
Sit before you put the food dish down.
Sit before you let her out the door.
Sit before you let her back in.
Sit before you pet her.
If you don’t have a basic book on how to train your dog, then get one.
I have a Corgis that is in training right now too. See my avatar? It is recommended you exercise the dog. They have high energy at this age. This is the only way to burn it off. Mine is running through the house right now at 100 MPH burning energy on a rainy day!