Hi! I’m Melanie McLeroy with Taurus Training for Expert Village, and today we’re going to talk about training dogs. This standard poodle is going to be a challenge to teach how to stay because she’s been leaping about like a circus dog, especially with all the squirrels and birds around her today. So she’s going to need more food reinforcement than you might see in some of the other videos. Keep in mind that different methods work on different dogs, so if something isn’t working for you and your dog, check out something else on Expert Village. So Aida, Aida… need to get her attention and she’s squirrel hunting, I need to use some food to get her attention, sit, ump… sit, good. Since Aida does have a challenge keeping her bottom on the ground, she’s what we call a popcorn dog, I’m going to work with the sit rather than the down, sit. Now, this is a very good demonstration of how to work with a dog that’s extremely distracted. See how I’m moving my body around between her and the yard with the squirrels. I’m trying to keep her focus on me by controlling her attention, good. When she pays attention to me, and especially when she checks in, good, I’m going to give her a treat. Now, this method does make dogs a little more dependent on treats than other methods to teach them the stay, but just be patient and be gradual. Notice that there’s longer and longer periods in between the time I’m giving her the treat. Good, and moving my body around can help her pay attention to me. Now I’m going to do a body block, get her back to the same place she was when I first gave her the command, and then give the command when she is paying enough attention to set her up to succeed. …Aida,… yippee, all right, ha… ha… I won, sit, good. It’s not easy to compete with the squirrel. Aida, good, good, I have her attention, she’s in a sit, we’re ending this session on a success. We’re going to go on to teach the standard poodle how to come.
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