puppy training - NDT rocks

[rudy]

NO I did NOT get a new puppy. LOL

A friend of mine is recovering from cancer treatments and she's still not very active yet. She and her husband (who travels!) adopted a dog from the pound to keep her company. The pound workers told her that Sheba was an adult lab something mix.

They brought her home and, as it always happens, after about a week Sheba's true Self came out. I went to visit her: She is a PUPPY! There is nothing adult about her and I'm thinking she's a full bred Pitt.

She is a HANDFUL. LOL

I returned home from that visit and I think every square inch of me had a tiny toothmark bruise from Sheba jumping and grabbing/nipping at me. She tore my clothes, grabbed hands, hair, etc etc.

My friend had heard about my work with Lou and asked me to come exercise and train Sheba. I thought it would be a fun test for NDT so I agreed.

My first hour NDT playtime with Sheba was PAINFUL. She was going to play tug with me whether I wanted to or not. Lucky for her, I wanted to. Maybe 1/4 of the time she tugged her toy - otherwise it was my hands/pants, etc.

Toward the end of the hour after she had burned off some frenetic puppy energy and some stress playing Tug, we did a little bit of box work. I'd wait for her to settle on the box then zing her with food. I tried that on the ground w/ her tug toy and food - I'd let her jump at me and miss, jump and miss, over and over until she learned about efficiency and the second she settled I'd give her the food/toy. I don't want her to push into me (at least not yet) because Sheba could knock down my friend if she jumped/pushed into her.

Yesterday was our 4th session. My friend told me that Sheba hadn't bitten/nipped her at all the last few days. Sheba only jumped at/nipped me as I was getting ready to leave - 99% improvement in just about a week.

It has been fun to use NDT on an otherwise emotionally healthy dog - it works soooo quickly!!!!

My friend can hardly believe that playing Tug and letting the dog win is the solution to the biting. No yelling, correcting, no muzzle grabbing, just play.
It is a wonderful thing.

[Sang]

Yeah! Awesome Rudy! Love to hear stories like this. You're right, working with dogs that don't have any emotional baggage is so much fun. They get everything so quickly. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[yecartmannew]

Thats really good to hear, and I am glad Sheba is coming on so quickly.

What struck me about the post though was the wrong information that was given by the pound. It makes me mad because it probably means a whole heap of dogs get returned because they are not what the new owner was looking for. Sheba is lucky that you were able to work with her, otherwise she may have become too much to handle for your friend. Surely it makes sense for rescues to be as acurate as possible about the dogs they have so the right owner can be found for each dog.

[BrownieNJoyce]

It's sure too bad that they were so inaccurate about the dog's age. Our dog was in a shelter for 3 mos. before we got him. He was 6 y.o. and that was a known but they also said he was good around other dogs and cats. I think that probably WAS their experience but it wasn't true for our dog once he was outside of that setting. Since working with him using NDT he is now okay around other dogs although doesn't care to interact after the initial checking each other out. And he still wants to chase cats although that is manageable also, thanks to NDT. So I think that it may be difficult for a shelter to assess everything about a given animal since it is such a stressful environment and time period for the sheltered animals. Too bad about their mistake about age, though. And Sooooo great that "rudy" (or rudy's person) is working with Sheba! Good goin'!