Training skills for manners and de escalation. Those who own multiple dogs, regardless of their age or sibling status, need to be mindful of the importance of teaching, practicing, and maintaining learned behaviors for the life of their dogs. Not only does this make dogs more pleasant companions, but if our siblings ever become intolerant of each other these skills will enable us to mange them on a rotational schedule more easily, and if one of the siblings needs to be re-homed these skills will make that transition easier and a lifelong home more likely. We will not go in depth in how to teach basic behaviors here, but have included many different aids and resources for teaching these skills in the resource section and will include a link to our FB Group Practical Dog Life where detailed training guides have been compiled already. Please join this group on Facebook and at the top of the group find the Guides tab, click that and scroll down to detailed training tutorials. You will also find a nice variety of puppy raising, management, enrichment, and other valuable guides. Think of this as a free puppy raising book and class combined. One guide housed in the The Good Shepherd is our Settle Down protocol. Please join this group to access that protocol.

Core skills for all puppies (There are handouts and written instructions in the Resource Section)✅ Attention & The Name Game: Attention & The Name Game Facebook Guide✅ Targeting: Targeting Facebook Guide✅ Sit and Down: Sit and Down Facebook Guide✅ Settle Down: Settle Down Facebook Guide (GSDN)✅ Settle Down On A Mat: A further expansion of the settle down is settle down on a mat, you can find details for this in the comments section of the Capturing Down protocol above. There are a few other helpful games that have many uses including the simple but important step of teaching us and our puppies how reinforcement will be delivered. ✅ Treat Chase and Return✅ Come to Treat Scatter Some final notes on Settle Down and Settle On a Mat

The importance of teaching puppies to settle cannot be underestimated, and for siblings this is even more important. There are two types of settle work we will be doing with our puppies. The Settle Down: Settle Down is a simple reinforcement of the puppy’s choice to lay down and relax. This is a very simple, but powerful, training tool because reinforcement of calm behavior in puppies actually teaches their brain to prefer calm behavior, and results in a calmer adult dog. The Settle On A Bed: This is an extension of settle down and reinforces puppies for laying down on a bed, usually a specific bed, when asked to. The primary difference between the Settle Down and the Settle on a Bed (or mat) is that the former reinforces the puppy’s own choice to lay down and relax, and the later reinforces the puppy for laying down on a bed, on cue.Both are useful and vital for living with multiple adult dogs. We can prevent many of the most serious problems associated with multi dog households, especially dog to dog aggression, by promoting calm behavior between the dogs from the earliest age. The Settle Down allows us to increase calm behavior and calm choices in a very easy and targeted way. By reinforcing our puppies for being calm when together we will teach them that their sibling is not as interesting as you are, and further, that being calm around their sibling pays (in food). Naturally this won’t prevent the puppies from playing, and that’s ok, we don’t want to prevent all play anyway.Once the settle down is going well, we will add settle on a bed, as a further tool for teaching our siblings how to be together without high octane roughhousing play that spirals out of control. We will use “Settle On A Mat” as one of our tools to help us calm our puppies down if they become too excited, and also to teach them how to enjoy calm activities together. While these two skills may seem to be the same, there is a huge and fundamental difference to them. The Settle Down teaches our puppies to make their own choice to be calm and this in turn creates a dog who prefers to be calm. The Settle On A Mat teaches our puppies to settle when WE choose, this can help puppies calm down in that moment, but because we are making the choices it won’t create the systemic change to our puppy’s long term behavior as the Settle Down will. This is why both are worthwhile to teach and reinforce. How will you use these two skills? The first, Settle Down, is a skill of your observation. Your job is to observe the puppies and, very simply, reinforce them for laying down calmly. Be sure you do NOT reinforce settling down if it follows attention seeking behavior so that you don’t accidentally teach the puppies to bark or fuss at you for treats. Wait for moments when the puppies are ignoring you and laying down, then reinforce that. The Settle On A Mat is a great training skill for helping puppies to calm down when they have grown too excited and we want to teach them to calm down instead of confining in that particular moment.

Taking Turns: One skill all dogs who live in multiple dog households must enjoy is taking turns. It’s not natural for puppies to understand taking turns, when they are heir first conscious behaviors are rooting and pushing their hungry siblings aside to find a teat, then they push each other aside to feed in the puppy pan, so for many puppies shoving a sibling aside is not only a natural survival instinct, it’s a learned behavior. Our job is to teach our puppies that “good things come to those who wait” by first teaching them a polite behavior for sharing, then teaching them that being second is better than being first, then teaching them that patience is rewarded. Once you have taught through the sit lesson below you can start your “Taking Turns” lessons. While many of the training lessons have the puppies being taught alone, for Taking Turns we will work with the puppies together. 1. With both puppies in front of you, say Puppy 1’s name and feed this puppy a low value treat (kibble or cheerios are fine).2. Immediately following Puppy 1’s turn give Puppy 2 a turn saying Puppy 2’s name.Repeat, going back and forth between the puppies until the puppies start to wait for their treat instead of lunging at your hand. Be sure your treat delivery is rapid and directly at the target puppy. Hold the food securely so the other puppy cannot steal it. And look directly at the puppy you are going to feed. Once this is going well you will move to using 2 different types of treats. High value for the second puppy and low value for the first puppy. Say ”Poppy” and feed Poppy a low value treat.Say “Pepper” and feed Pepper a high value treat.Repeat for 10 treats and take a break (should take no more than 5 minutes).

This is a fun and easy game to play with our puppies whenever we want to hand feed them treats together. Once they are doing fairly well with this we can move to the stage of teaching the puppies a new skill together (see below) and only revisit this if you feel the puppies need a refresher. Remember, puppies have immature brains, they do NOT have adult level impulse control so we should expect mistakes. When a puppy lunges for food out of turn, simply withdraw the food, wait for the puppies to reset themselves, and then feed the puppy you “owe” and start again. Don’t feel like you need to “correct” the puppy who made a mistake, or always make them go second, that’s not helpful, just pause the game and let the puppies calm themselves before restarting.

Training Siblings:

1. Teach Puppy 1 then puppy 2 (doesn’t even have to be the same day)2. Once both puppies have had the introductory lesson bring them together and teach the lesson to them together. 3. Practice with the puppies apart, and then together, as you introduce the next lessons and locations. 4. Always give each puppy an opportunity to learn and practice with your undivided attention. 5. Work hard to curate patient behavior between the puppies whenever food, toys, or attention are available.

Treat Chase and Return: 1. Cue “Chase It” and toss kibble and a foot away such that your puppy sees you rolling it. 2. Once the puppy has eaten the treat call the puppy to you (using your Name Game) in a happy tone.3. Feed the puppy a BETTER treat (can be small) from your hand.4. Repeat about 5 times (10 treats total).5. End practice by saying “all done” and showing your puppy empty hands.

Treat Scatter: 1. Cue “find it’ and toss some kibble on the floor. broadcast widely enough that if using for puppies they have space & the dog(s) can sniff around to find the kibble. 2. Practice using part of each puppy’s daily meal ration (to avoid excessive weight gain).3. Practice together and apart.4. Practice in a wide variety of locations, all around the house, the yard, and even on walks. 5. End practice by saying “all done” and showing empty hands.STOP if you observe guarding or tension between puppies.Practice 1 x day and use as needed as part of our regular training and also techniques to allow us to diffuse and redirect puppies when needed.

Skills: For Manners, Management, and Calming Down

You must be logged in to access this course