The newest member of our household is a puppy name Frodo Baggins. He’s approximately 11 months old, and is a hobbit-sized version of a German Shepherd Dog.
I’m in training and Frodo is teaching me to teach him, which is a win-win situation.
With all my work with dogs, I somehow managed to get a few things “wrong” when calling a dog to me…I was using their name, but now that I’m learning about the Release cue, I see that by saying the dog’s name and having them self-release to come to me, that completely disables being able to teach the Release cue. So we have to go back to the beginning of our training.
First thing to do in this situation is to have the dog close by, with your treats and clicker (or marker word) handy. Say the dog’s name, and as soon as they move their head in your direction, click and reward. Do this over and over, until you get eye-contact from the dog, but no other body movement. Practice this in more than one place. The idea is that when you call your dog’s name, you want their attention and them to wait for further instructions. Then you can teach the Release cue, which in our case is “okay”, and at that point they get to do what they want for the moment. The hardest part for me and teaching the Release cue is remembering to give it. Tucker learned to self-release, and as I well know, it’s harder to “relearn” something than it is to learn it correctly from the beginning. Ahhh, baby steps.
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