Rufus the beagle making his own fun during training!

Описание: Rufus (now 11 months) has been doing well with his training, but he’s a young playful boy who’d rather run around and chew things instead of doing anything I’m asking him to do. My aims are to keep training tasks fun so that he’ll want to do what I want…but there are always going to be moments where he can see the fun elsewhere. If we’re out on a walk (he’s on lead all the time) I control what he has access to, and inside the house there are limits of what he’s going to get up to (because I’ve had to block access to the most at risk areas/ objects). Here in the hall, when it’s just us, he’s off lead and free to make his own decisions. So, he does. First, he runs off with the camcorder, and then the cones. But it’s all important training, so my job suddenly becomes ‘how to get a beagle to come back when he’s enjoying doing what he’s doing’. I was using chicken (his top value treats), and as I had the time to do so, I simply waited for the right moment to reward him and then cause him to concentrate on the task again. If time was shorter, I might have used toys to try and encourage him to change the item he was running around with. This shows why I can’t let him off lead yet – had I tried to call him to me when he was mid run, he would not have come back. Think about all the lovely smells, exciting dogs, and running prey that can be found in parks and fields and I have no hope of getting him back! But this is a start. The more I can reward him for coming back to me, the more likely it is for the recall cue to work. For now, enjoy watching a happy beagle run round the training hall, having a great time!
If you have any questions about this training, feel free to ask.

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