Humwell and Twinkie learn to walk

Humwell and Twinkie have been learning to be well-behaved little dogs. Most of the time they are great, but if you have ever knocked on our front door and heard their non-stop barking and seen their excited jumping, you know there is much room for improvement.

Consistency, Previously learned behaviors, and the real underlying issue

My second two years of college, Humwell and Twinkie couldn’t live with me, so they stayed with my parents. While I am very grateful for my parents in doing this, the dogs learned some bad habits, and were even encouraged into these habits while they were there. They revert back to these unwanted behaviors every time they are in that environment.

Right now the biggest issue—the one that underlies almost all their bad habits—is stress and excitement. Humwell and Twinkie get so overly excited that it is difficult for them to learn and focus.

When we go on walks, the dogs are learning to be more calm so they can focus on their training tasks at hand, such as making eye contact with me and walking at whatever pace I set. They are also learning that they are allowed to sniff all the smells they want…but they have to make eye contact with me first, sit, lay down, and then they are allowed to do their sniffing.

Training really pays off!

After only a few training sessions, both Humwell and Twinkie made tremendous improvements in walking on a leash without pulling. Nowadays—about 6 weeks after training began—we can go on a walk without pulling! It’s so adorable to see the dogs constantly checking to make sure we are going the same pace. We have our bad days, but most of the time I just keep seeing improvements, and the dogs are getting more and more relaxed.

On our bad days, the smells of the neighborhood really trump even the tastiest of treats. On these occasions they test my skills in patience and persistence :)

Future Goals

Another area I plan to work on with them is to not get overly excited, bark, and go nuts when people come to the door. A lot of improvement was made by conditioning the dogs to not bark or go crazy when I rang the doorbell or knocked. The dogs know not to bark, and that they get treats when quiet. The problem is that my husband and I just honestly haven’t put forth the effort to truly squelch this nasty little habit. I have a great plan for getting them to calm down, it just requires time, effort, and possibly a friend to come over and help us (which is something I can’t really do at the present time). What I would like to try, is getting a friend to come to the door. The dogs will go crazy, but this friend will give the dogs no reward or attention at all—not even looking at them—until they are completely calmed down and even bored. Then they will get treats and attention. I just know that this will work for Humwell and Twinkie. I even feel confident that they would get it almost instantly. It’s just hard right now because I can’t have anyone coming into the house without making me sick.

Ideally I like to train the dogs 3-4 times a day each…but there are many days where even one training session is too overwhelming for me. Although it’s all about consistency….it’s hard for me to train them every single day if I am not feeling well.

Despite these inconsistencies…Humwell and Twinkie are incredibly smart, and are becoming well mannered little ones. They are embarrassing me less and less when we go for walks, and making me super proud when we are working well together.