I can’t say how important early training is with a dog. I’ve done some with Ruby…I probably should have done more but the good news, I can teach her new things any time.
I can’t help but smile each time she comes with me to the mailbox. When I look back, this is what I see…Ruby sitting right there.
Ruby stops right where she is sitting and waits for me. When she was little I would take her with to the mailbox and make her stop and stay right there. I would take a few steps if she got up I would go back and work on sit and stay again. Sometimes it would take four times for me to reinforce it. I worked really hard on it for about a week. At the time, she was only five months old. I started this training because I wanted her to stay away from the road. After that one week of training, I didn’t have to go back and reinforce sit and stay. One sit and stay command and she just stayed.
Now I don’t tell her to sit. I don’t tell her to stay. She does it all on her own. She walks to that spot and waits for me.
I sure hope that she’ll be able to figure this out once we move to town.
She is so cute! We used to make a big deal about coming in and sitting on the rug. It was winter and we wanted to wipe their paws. We live in Texas now and their paws don’t get too wet, but they still come in and sit on the rug!
sounds like a little re training maybe? she is a cutie pie.