Hi!

I'm Jo, I run the training and behaviour service at The Mutz Hut Dog Creche in Newcastle, and also run training classes in Sunderland as Paws 2 Play. 

A year ago, I rescued a gorgeous little pug cross from the Little Dog Rescue. His name is Pigbee, he's about 9, and he's adorable.

The problem is, I'm puppy broody. I would love to add another dog to the family for lots of reasons. 

Firstly, Pig doesn't want to do the things I want to do. He'd hate agility and flyball, he'd think I was crazy if I attempted Heelwork to Music with him, he doesn't want to learn a repetoire of tricks. He just wants to eat, sleep, cuddle and snort. 

Secondly, one thing Pig does amazingly well, is help out with socialising dogs. He's good with puppies, he'll ignore shy puppies and give them a chance to approach him when they're ready. He'll tell puppies off when they're boisterous and OTT, he'll split up play if it's too excitable. He's great with grown up dogs who have issues. He'll ignore them barking at him, and will allow them to make friends with him when they're ready. 

His main failing is, he's too little! I can't subject him to an over enthusiastic adolescent lurcher. He trusts me to keep him safe, and to not put him into situations where he might get hurt. Aside from the fact that, as his human, it's my job to keep him safe, he wouldn't be able to do his job if he didn't feel confident that he was going to be ok. 

So, I'm going to set myself a goal. I'm going to myself a list of behaviours that I want to train Pigbee before I think about adding another canine family member. 

This has the added bonus of taking the time and keeping me busy while I wait for the other circumstances to be right. 

I will update this blog every Friday (I hope) to keep you informed of the week's progress, and the goal for the week ahead. 

The following is the some of the behaviours I want to teach. 

1. Reliable recall
2. Back up
3. Waiting for a release to go through a door
4. Happily giving up toys
5. 100% Loose lead walking
6. Confidence with the hoover
7. Go to bed
8. Stay in bed (This will be particularly useful in classes)
9. Tuggy and drop
10. Chase recall
11. Emergency stop
12. Settle

This is not an exhaustive list, and no doubt I will come back to it and add things on. These are just the things that will make life much easier when integrating a new dog into our household.

My first thing to train is going to be 'back up'. That's because it'll be useful for both loose lead walking, and for control around doorways. 

The reason I'm going to do that before recall (which is arguably more important) is because when I do recall I want 100% of his food to come from the training programme. While I'm doing that, I can still be reinforcing the control around doorways and loose lead walking training, as the rewards from that will be life rewards rather than edible ones. 

So, that's the plan. Next week I'll let you know how 'back up' and recall foundations went!