Now here is how these dawg’s minds works” said Jordon, “basically he wants to do anything you want him to. So you got to be able to communicate. We do it like this.”
Jordon was standing behind Buddy and called Buddy’s name. After a few long seconds Buddy turned to look at Jordon and Jordon immediately gave Buddy a bacon bit. Mr. Jordon had brought lots of bacon bits. Eventually Buddy looked away at Johnny. Jordon called Buddy’s name again and gave another bacon bit the instant that Buddy turned to look at him. It didn’t take long for Buddy to learn to look at Jordon immediately every time Jordon called his name.
“Now he knows his name, he knows I want him to look at me when I call his name, and that he will get rewarded for doing what I want him to do. And in addition he likes to spend time with me, so he likes training. At his age a dawg can take about ten minutes of training in a session, but a little bit everyday adds up fast” said Jordon.
“Wow, that’s really neat! How do you teach him to sit? He won’t sit when I tell him to” said Johnny.
“You get in front of him” said Jordon, “tell him to sit, then wait for him to do it. The second his butt hits the ground, he gets a treat. No sit, no treat. Eventually he will sit even though he does not know what ‘sit’ means. But he will learn fast. Sompen else you can do is hold the treat about six inches higher than his head and slowly move it over his head to his back. His head will follow back and sometimes he will sit without realizing it watching the treat. Try it, I expect Buddy to be sitting by tomorrow.”
Buddy, like Johnny, was a fast learner.
Copyright Tom Hicks
Tomorrow: “…it was time for some clean up!”