Puppy training - what you need to know
The Cheshire Canine introduction to puppy training

Hi, Shooter here! You would never believe how much we pups have learned since we last wrote to you.  Not only are we really sociable dogs, used to people, noises, going to new places and meeting other dogs, but we are also progressing with our puppy training.

Puppy Classes

One of the reasons why we have been able to get to be so good is that not only have we spent time at home practicing fun training but we have also attended puppy classes which has given us so much more to think about and really helped us to concentrate with so many distractions around us, like meeting new dogs!  These classes are often called socialisation classes as they give us pups the chance to meet lots of other pups and humans, in fact Strider, Roxy and myself refer to  the club as  our social club!

Meeting new dogs

For us pups the best thing about going to these classes is the fact that we meet new doggie friends. There are so many different types and dog breeds  of different shapes and sizes as well as different colours 

During the classes we are allowed to play off our leads; I really enjoy this part, I like making new friends. It’s funny really when you consider that  we dogs can look so different yet we all use the same body language. Socialising with other puppies is important to enable us to develop into confident adults understanding all aspects of canine communication.

We are also taught how to greet dogs when on the lead with good manners, the main things to remember are that we are only able to go up to another dog when our owner says and we shouldn’t try to play any boisterous games.

Training

The aim of puppy classes as far as training is concerned is to lay the foundations for ultimately creating a socially acceptable dog.  We pups have a short attention span, so all of the things we do are designed not to bore us and to keep it fun and enjoyable as well as rewarding.

The main areas we have been concentrating on in class is learning how to walk on a slack lead, to come back when called, to understand what you want us to do when you say sit, down and stay.

Now I know that Strider and I are aiming to be police dogs and Roxy a display dog with THE CHESHIRE DOG DISPLAY TEAM, but apparently we are the same as all puppies be they pet dogs or working dogs, we all have to start at the beginning and become socially acceptable dogs before we progress into more advanced training.

We are being taught these exercises using positive reinforcement methods.   Training should always be fun and rewarding for us and you, we don’t mean to make mistakes but sometimes we don’t understand what you want, the main thing to remember with us puppies is to be patient and not to expect too much too soon.

I really enjoy training, it gives me something to think about and challenges me to work out what I have to do to earn a tasty reward; some of the things are really easy like returning to Sue when she calls me, although its not so easy to remember to do this if I am playing with one of the other puppies!

We do many other things at the puppy classes, some of these we are getting quite good at as we have been doing them already, like examination exercises, greeting people politely, getting used to different sights and sounds to name but a few,  but its always fun to practice with the distraction of all the other people and puppies.

Police Puppy Dog Training

As I have mentioned Strider and I are going to be police dogs so as well as all the normal puppy training that we do, we also are learning other fun things that we will need to know when we become police dogs.

One of the most important things we will need to be competent at is something called TRACKING. Tracking is following ground scent . Ground scent is caused by contact with the ground resulting in disturbance.

Basically what happens is somebody holds onto my lead whilst another person walks away with my favourite toy and puts it on the ground before walking back towards me, I then have to use my nose to follow where the person walked in order to find my toy. This is great fun, it requires lots of concentration as well as allowing me to use my great sense of smell. Did you know, we dogs can smell over 250 thousand times better than you humans!

I have also been learning how to find a hidden person using wind scent, this is similar to you humans playing hide and seek only I can find somebody far quicker than you can by using my superior sense of smell!
I have also had to learn how to bark when I find the hidden person, this was taught separately and I had to learn that if I barked I got my toy, I picked this up very quickly as I love my ball, so now when I find a hidden person I just bark and I get my ball as a reward, now that’s what I call FUN.

I know I have lots more things to learn but I am really looking forward to it as so far, learning has been really good, full of fun and exciting games Well I’d better dash or I’ll be late for the social club!

See you soon
Shooter