Rex The Shiba Inu Puppy Week 2 and 3 Board and Train

Rex the Shiba Inu is continuing to make great progress in his 4 week puppy obedience board and train. We are even progressing into some off-leash work! Rex is building a fantastic set of basic behaviors as well as a learning system that will serve him well throughout his life.

Rex has a solid sit, and standing stay on a touch pad both on verbal queue. He has made great progress on down on verbal queue and is about 40% with no lure. 95% with a lure on down. Rex is also working on a stand on verbal queue which is currently 35% on verbal and 95% of the time on lure. We are using an implied stay in all behaviors meaning he is to remain in behavior until released with no "stay" command. Duration in each behavior is steadily increasing. Rex is also working on recall. He is currently at about 25% confidence on this skill and improving each session.

He has so much drive we actually have to make sure we are not over doing it with him and remember he is just a pup. As with older dogs I find no benefit to working a pup until it is too tired either physically or mentally and the behavior we are building degenerates.

We must be careful at this stage not to allow the dog to rehearse behaviors during obedience that we do not want it to to self-reinforce. Watching closely for signs of overwork and check-out behaviors and ending a session before we run into these problems.

We tend to work Rex one intense session outside during the day and one inside in the afternoon or evening with a crate based rest session following each session of work. then low intensity work throughout the day as we go about the day. Plus play sessions and several walks. Rex is a very active boy! Rex is also working on house manners and potty training while with us as well and our confidence in him in these areas grows daily.