‘Go Hurry Up!
By Fircroft Dog Training School, Fircroft Toilet Training Tip.
Reprinted with permsission. For more see Mary’s blog at http://www.fircroft.ie/Blog/Default.133.html
Training your dog to relieve itself on command is such a useful exercise and so simple to teach. How often do we find ourselves having to take our dog on a trip – in the car, on the train, on the ferry, to visit friends etc. Just knowing your dog is comfortable and unlikely to embarrass you makes for happy stress free travelling.
I use the term ‘Hurry up’ it is a natural enough thing to say to my dogs and doesnt draw too much attention to us. You may choose whatever word or phrase that you are comfortable with and then stick to it!
So to start – You must teach yourself to be observant. Watch your dog carefully and when he or she is in midstream or midaction, quietly, pair your word to the action. Your dog learns to understand your commands through word association. Your dog must be fully committed to the action before you use your word. If you start to talk to your dog before it is fully committed you may well distract it and it will stop and you have missed an teaching opportunity. Repeat your word quietly throughout the remainder of the action and when the dog is finished praise him gently and pat him and let him know what a good dog he is. Then its repetition, repetition, repetition.
Next stage – again observe your dog closely and now when you see he is about to perform quietly use your word, repeat it frequently throughout the action with lots of quiet praise and petting when he is finished. I believe in talking quietly to my dogs so they listen to me – ‘over the top’ commands or praise simply distract the dog from learning what it is I am trying to teach. Doesn’t that make sense? Again lots of repetition to consolidate the association in your dogs mind of your word with the action.
Next stage – wait until you know your dog really needs to relieve himseslf. Then take him to an appropriate place and tell him your word (your equivalent of my Hurry Up! – something discreet) his response will tell you whether he fully understands or whether you need to go back a stage for a couple of days. When he is responding each time remember to pet him and praise him for a job well done. The clean up and off you go, happy training, Mary
