Or should the question be... How can I manage the environment and the people in it so to prevent my dog from rehearsing jumping up, and be in a better mind set to learn what to do otherwise...? As a part of training your dog, unfortunately you will need to learn how to tell people to not get too close to your dog, wind them up or touch your dog while you are trying to teach them appropriate and alternative behaviours. Being calm is so important - we all know how your puppy can go from 0 to 100 in seconds, and by allowing people to approach and get your dog wound up - the only person who is having fun is the other person! They get to say hello to your dog and go on their jolly way, while then you have to deal with a dog who has sky rocketed in arousal and can't 'come back down'. Sometimes, 'saying no, don't touch my dog' is just going to be way more beneficial to you in the long run. THEN we get to teach your dog a sit to greet. In small increments, over time.

Hello! Video call q&a will now be only once a month on the first Wednesday of each month. The next call will take place Wednesday 4th March at 8pm - i'll be posting plenty of reminders! These live calls are there for you to join and ask any puppy related question and get tips and advice with anything that you might be going through with your puppy.

'Capturing behaviour' This means to reward naturally occuring behaviours as and when they happen! Your dog offers a sit to greet you? Your puppy decides to sit down and chill in their place without prompting? Or is your young pup walking without pulling? These are some of the situations where, if you have some treats or kibble stashed in your pocket already, you will have the chance to 'capture' the behaviours that you like seeing and reward them on the spot. As a result, your dog will start to repeat these good behaviours, and even become a bit more attentive to you. Try it out - take 10 pieces of kibble or treats that they like, keep them on you or close by through the day and reward 10 behaviours that you like! We already do this with toilet training - and it's perfectly possible with other behaviours too!

Hope you have had a great weekend with your puppy! This week, i'm changing our wednesday live calls so that they take place just once a month from now on, just so we can try to get more people joining per call! This week's training challenge will be all about a release cue. I will be posting more about this later today and showing you how to start training a release cue, where you can use it and how to build from the start! Does your dog have a release cue?

What is a release cue? A release cue is a word that you use to indicate to your dog that it's the end of a specific behaviour/position. It makes it clear to the dog that their focus is no longer required, and they are now free to move, go play or stop paying close attention. Some popular release cues: - OK - Free - Break You can use any word as your release cue, as long as you ONLY use it in that specific context. Take a look at this video which shows some of the situations where a release cue can be used. In this example, Prince is demonstrating a release cue: - Being let off the lead - he only goes to play once the lead is fully off and i'm feeling confident that it's safe for him to be free. - Getting out of the car - When we are ready to cross the road - Going through a gate (which can als be through a doorway) A release cue is basically ending a stay in all of these situations - so I would have taught this by initially asking for a stay before the 'ok'. As you can see, this can become an invaluable skill from a safety perspective. Jump into 'training challenges' in the classroom section to learn how to teach your dog a release cue from scratch.