The Honorable Grand Peanut has come a long way in his overall behavior. He spends a lot of time around familiar dogs, familiar people, and new dogs and people because he comes to work with me at the kennel. We also groom at the kennel so there are new dogs and people coming and going twice a day. He eats his meals, and plays with the house dogs, and often, if the owners of the boarding dogs request it, he’ll play with those dogs as well. The one area where he still needs work is his attention barking.

He rarely barks at me for attention, but he does bark at other dogs when they won’t play with him. He also barks at other dogs when they have a toy or something that he wants. My system for this training is to let him know that that behavior is not wanted by saying “nope”, then waiting. If he continues to bark, I’ll put him away for a short time-out. If his crate is nearby, he’ll go into that. If not, he’ll go into an safe-area that isn’t a play area. When I say a short time-out, I usually limit it to no more than a minute or two. Just enough time for him to “get” that the behavior created the time-out.

He’s a large dog, but I still have to remember that he’s still a puppy: he just turned 15 months. While his attention span is now longer than that of a lima bean, he’s still in adolescence. My motto is practice, practice, practice, and consistency is key.

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