Handsome Bandit is a 2 year old black lab who is extremely eager to learn new things. At the same time as he is learning how to walk on a leash without pulling I am starting to teach him some fun skills as well as really solid basic obedience. So Bandit is learning to touch things with his nose on cue and eventually pull things on cue as well. The family would like him to rind a bell when he wants’needs to go out and thought it would be fun to teach him to pull the blankets off of the kids’ beds in the morning, that would be a fun way to wake the kids up in time to go to school in the morning.
So I started by having him touch a target at the end of a stick. He enjoyed the game so much that he did not want to stop. After the lesson, as I was packing up my things he walked up to the target stick that was not in my bag yet and he carefully touched the target and then looked up at me questioningly!
It is that kind of interaction that I love to see develop while educating a dog. Bandit had been depressed when I started working with him and now he is coming out of his shell in a sweet, gentle and funny way.
