Training Loving the Crate

I've recently been training Kara to love her crate after watching a fabulous DVD called Crate Games by Susan Garrett. She is mostly known for her expertise in agility and her positive training methods. Her Crate Games are fantastic and a very effective way to teach your dog to love her crate.

The basic idea is to make the crate the most rewarding place ever. Susan shows you how to make it so reinforcing that often it's hard to get them out of it! I experienced that with Kara. She caught on to the game very quickly and learned that staying in was better than coming out!

Here's a short video of her going in from a short distance on a quick cue. We'd done a lot of the foundation work and I thought I'd try and see what would happen if I sent her in and called her out from a distance.

The skills learned in these games are very useful in a lot of situations. First of all they become comfortable in their crate when you go places like shows and the skills can be transferred to things like waiting at doors.

If you'd like to get the DVD for yourself, I highly recommend it. It's available at Clean Run.

I’m Back!

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted to this blog! Life does have a way of getting complicated, but I’ve promised myself to post more this year. And I have reason to!

I have a new amazing puppy, Random Wind Kara Vica at Toflaki. Kara was born on February 6, 2008 and came to live with me and Mr. Flaki in April. She has her own webpage at: http://www.luiniunlimited.com/KaraVica.html

and some videos up on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/toflaki.

She has been a joy to train – all clicker of course. We go out to A Click Above in Leesburg, VA for classes. In my opinion, it’s the best in the area so well worth the close to 2 hours it takes us to get there in rush hour!

So far she’s done 2 Puppy Kindergarten classes and the Basic class. Her accolades include first place in Musical Sits, second place in Musical Downs and a perfect score in her Basic class graduation test! She’s off to a great start.

In addition to all that, she took and passed the new AKC S.T.A.R. Puppy test. If you don’t know about it, you should take a look at the program at: http://www.akc.org/starpuppy/. It is a very cool addition to the AKC Canine Good Citizen program. The picture is her with her S.T.A.R. Puppy medal.

So check back often as I’ll be posting more about Kara, our adventures and her training tips and techniques.

Until next time remember, if you click, you pay!