Friendly Tornadoes
Amelia recently finished a course that was called “Greeting Skills: From Friendly Tornadoes to Warm Hellos” (by Nancy Tucker CPDT-KA). The class aimed at teaching owners of excitable dogs how to greet people and other dogs. The required foundation skills were the exercises that we teach in our Beginning with Basics and The Next Step classes. For example: go to mat with distractions, sit with 4 feet on the floor, stays, and red light/green light check ins. It was recommended that you practice go to mat and 4 feet on the floor at the door which is where the excitement and jumping routinely happens.
One new exercise that was introduced was called “Blind Feeding”. The term means rewarding your dog without looking at them. I encourage my students to try this, especially in The Next Step class. Most dogs think that they only have to listen if the owner is looking at them. When using blind feeding it adds another level of difficulty to your training as we are rewarding the dog for continuing the behaviour we asked them to do, even when we are not looking at them.
Blind Feeding could also be used on walks. In reference to our last few newsletters, as you are walking you want to reward your dog for being in the right spot so you can use this new skill to keep your eyes on your surroundings while still paying your dog.
This helps with greeting skills because often once you look away from the dog to talk to the person, your dog will jump up to get attention. Blind Feeding will help to teach them that even though our eyes are not on them, they are still being rewarded with food or attention for keeping all 4 paws on the ground.
|