Chunk (my big male that had TPLO surgery) is essentially a blank canvas for me. Yes he knows his basics and a few tricks like roll over and speak, but other than that everything is up for grabs. Because of this I decided to stick to something simple at first. Chunk gets to learn a target command. Now for me the target command means touch your nose to an object
Over the years I have come to realize that I teach target completely different than other people and I've been called crazy and weird for teaching it my way, but training isn't a one size fits all. I've found a method that works for me and my dogs so if it doesn't work for you then by all means change it! I always start out with a method of training that I know has worked in the past with other dogs if I see it's not working after several attempts then I know it's time to try a different method.
For targeting I always start with a hand target before moving to an object. This is just because how I teach target. I start out with the treat in my closed fist. This gets the dog interested in what's in your hand and more likely to touch your hand. As soon as the dog touches their nose to your first mark the action (either with a clicker or verbally). Then give them the treat in your hand. Repeat at least 5 times before adding a verbal cue.
Once Chunk consistently touched my fist I removed the treat from that had and continued with the target training in the same manner. After he gave me several great targets I decided to end out training session, because he was starting to lose interest.
Our training sessions tend to be shorter than I like just because he gets bored faster than Pirate and Sadie; however, we are able to get several sessions in during the day.
On our next session I picked up where we left off; however, it did take Chunk several seconds to remember what was expected. This is pretty typical when dogs are learning a new command. I always tell my clients to give their dogs a chance to figure out what is being asked of them.
After Chunk connected the dots between the "target" command and the action I was wanting, I stepped it up a notch. I started to move my fist around to different spots (close to him since he couldn't get up much) so he had to move to touch my fist. We continued this for a few minutes before he got bored.
On our next session I ended up switching to two fingers as my target instead of a fist, just because it seemed Chunk targeted the two fingers better. It was a lot of trial and error to see what worked best before we landed on our final target.
Soon after he picked up on switching the had command, I was able to get him to target objects! He's become great at targeting. He loves the "target stick" we chose. Yes it's unusual, but it's what we had laying around the house, so that's what he gets.
Now That he's mastered target it's time to move on to harder commands :)
