Roxy: Hyper Red Doberman Puppy
Roxy came for a foundation board and train program when she was four months old. Her owners were struggling with managing her high energy. She jumped on all the guests, ran around the house, chewed on furniture, and was difficult to walk on leash. Fortunately, Roxy’s owners brought her in at a young age so that we could get her learning the right things, right away.
Evaluating Roxy’s Drives
One of the first things that we do with a new training student is to evaluate their drives. We need to find things that the dog finds motivating so that we have ways to reward her for good behavior. Like most doberman puppies, Roxy had very high food and toy drive. We used her high food drive to teach her a variety of obedience skills. The toy drive allowed us to teach her a game of retrieve. Retrieve is a great game for any puppy, because it burns both mental and physical energy and helps with bonding.
New Life Skills
Roxy learned all of her basic obedience commands while with us. The commands that we taught her in her week of board and training include: sit, down, heel, come, place, kennel, and out. It is important to do age appropriate training with a puppy. Short, frequent sessions were the perfect fit for Roxy. We did not ask her for as much duration in her places, sits, and downs as we would with an adult dog. Her reinforcement rate was also kept very high so that she finds obedience training fun and worthwhile.
Socialization Time!
Another crucial aspect of training any puppy is proper socialization. Many people think that socialization means letting your puppy meet all kinds of people and other dogs, but that is not the case. Socialization trips with Roxy involved going to places with lots of distractions and having her work for some food. She gets to take in all of the sights and sounds while starting to understand that she should stay focused around distractions. Roxy was already a very confident puppy, so we just built upon her natural personality.
Roxy’s Next Steps
As Roxy gets more mature, her owners can ask her for more and more effort. She will be able to handle more distractions, longer duration behaviors, and further distance away on stays. Starting all of this training at a young age means that Roxy will only get better and better. She also will not need to have bad habits corrected, because she learned how to do things right from the beginning.
