Last Friday Bandido turned three months old, or more precisely thirteen weeks. Converted to human years, this is approximately the equivalent of a six year old kid, who is ready to enter first grade. What a major milestone! Our little dog is no longer a baby or a toddler, but an aspiring student, ready to learn the most important things in life... Well, we'll have to see about that. But for now, after having him with us for the last seven weeks, this may be a good time to look back and take a brief assessment on what he has learned so far.
Two of the most important things a young dog should learn I have discussed in my previous posts: One is crate training to provide some undisturbed resting time for him (and for us!). The other one is potty training for obvious reasons. The former has never been a problem, and with the latter we're moving into the right direction, so the combination of the two forms a nice base to build up from.
Whenever nap time is over and I open the door to Bandido's crate, he usually wants to cuddle for a few minutes. This gives me the chance to put on his collar, and also give his paws (meaning toes and nails) some nice handling. This will come in handy when we have to trim them. The clippers are also right there, so he can get used to them, even though we have not applied them yet. As the next step we visit his lawn outside the apartment door. Since we've been doing this regularly, there have hardly been any accidents. (Hopefully we can put our carpet back soon.)
Afterwards Bandi may be hungry, which offers us a great opportunity to do some training. If he seems to be on the brink of starvation, I will give him a small portion in his bowl, though I like to keep him enthusiastic about getting treats. A full stomach doesn't like to study, and this hasn't been any truer ever. Once the training session is finished, and he still has some kibbles left, I also feed them to him of course. Then we may engage in some play time, or go for a walk, up on the roof, or - for the last three days - even outside in the street. Finally, we finish off his waking window with some relaxing cool-down activity, such as something to lick and chew, or a food puzzle.
What do you teach a young puppy who doesn't know anything? Where do you even start? For me there were three very basic and important items, though others may start with something completely different. - So if you know something I haven't thought about, I'm excited to read it in the comments! - First of all, there should be a marker word you can say quickly to let the dog know he's doing something right. For many dogs this could be YES, but since Bandido is a Mexican dog, for him we're using the Spanish SI. Also, a dog should know his name, and finally there should be an attention grabbing sound such as kissing noises. He gets to hear all three of these things, usually in our morning training, just before getting a kibble straight from my hand. What an easy way to earn his food: all he has to do is listen to these three sounds, while receiving treats!
For the next steps he actually has to do something more than just listen, though it typically happens quite instinctively. The first game is touch, meaning I offer him my open hand, fingers pointing downward, and ask him to TOUCH it. At first I made sure my hand smelled like kibbles, so he was naturally drawn to it. Once he learned that touching it gets him a treat, he started having fun with this game. Things got even more interesting when I started to move my hand away from him, turning into a lure. In trickier situations my hand may have a treat in it, but most commonly Bandi even follows an empty hand, knowing that there will be a reward from somewhere else (my other hand, that is).
Getting the dog to sit is also relatively simple: one just needs to hold the treat above his nose, and when he lifts his head his butt goes down. Perfect sit! Laying down is a different matter entirely, at least in our case it took us literally weeks before he understood that placing the treat on the floor immediately in front of him meant that he should lie down to get it. Once he did, though, there was nothing in the way of doing doggie push-ups, meaning alternating between sit and down. The hand signals I used here are my finger pointing upward for a sit, and downward for a down. Once he mastered this, I introduced the commands SIT (in English, as it is much shorter and clearer than the Spanish sientate or sentado) and PLATZ. This cue is the German command for down, which has a much clearer sound than the English or Spanish equivalents. So I guess our dog is already tri-lingual, for being only a first grader...!
Past these very basic subjects there was only one additional thing we have practiced, which is walking on the leash. Although Bandi has no issues with it now, at first it seemed like he would never get used to the leash. The 1-2-3 walk helped here a lot, where I take three steps ahead of him, bringing me to the end of the leash. Then I offer a treat right next to my left ankle, luring him to catch up with me. At the same time I pull the leash forward with my other hand, and take the next three steps.
This is how we walked up and down the hallway of our apartment several times a day, for weeks. Once his pee-lawn moved outside the apartment door, we continued this all throughout the building. It went all right until we got close to the front door, past which he could probably hear and smell the chaos of the great outside, meaning the street. Then he started pulling back towards the safety of our home. Last Friday, however, we took the essential step, and persuaded Bandi to go outside with us. The urge to follow us proved to be stronger than wanting to run back, and before we knew it we had rounded the block.
A big congratulation to our brave little dog, having done so well on this task that - just like school for a six-year-old human - would become part of his everyday life until he becomes an adult... and actually for the rest of his life. Great job, Bandido! You are on the way to amazing things.
