Ace

With three more days left in our challenge, I better get going. Ace will now do all five commands. The problem is he only does them … sometimes. And he won’t do them all in a row. He needs a lot more work (probably another month), but at least we are off to a good …

While training my dog, I have learned to set up situations where he is likely to be successful. Ace has been working on “roll over” for the past week or two, with little success. The only time he rolled over on command before today was outside in the grass. So I took Ace out for …

For the past week or so, I have practiced “roll over” with Ace three or four times a day for very short periods. This is the hardest of the five commands for him to pick up on. I don’t think he understands it yet because he usually just stares at me, like, huh? The only …

Ace did not do so well on his commands yesterday. This is our hardest challenge so far, and I do not know if Ace will successfully learn the five commands within 30 days. Well, I don’t know if I will be able to successfully teach him the commands in 30 days. The mutt kept getting …

Ace rolled over on command today for the first time! Good boy! He only did it one time, though. I really made a big deal when he did it right, like he just won an Olympic gold medal (he thought he had). Now he is slowly improving on all five commands. Hopefully in the next …

I started to teach my mutt the commands “crawl” and “go long” this week. Noticed I said started teaching him these things. While teaching my mutt, I have learned it is best to teach in very, very basic steps. By breaking the training into the simplest steps possible, my mutt begins to understand. I am …

It must’ve taken Ace 100 repetitions to understand bang (play dead), but he finally has it down, pretty much. Seriously, how hard is it to just lie on your side? I don’t know how I could’ve made it any easier for the mutt, but he was slow to pick this one up. I taught him …

I make the mistake of giving my mutt a command more than once. For example, I tell him to sit more than once if he doesn’t do it right away. It’s usually something like, “Sit…SIT!” And then he sits. What I am doing is training him to sit on the second (or third) command, which …

Today is July 1 and the start of my new 30-day challenge. I am taking the suggestions of others and plan on teaching my mutt five new tricks in 30 days. He knows all the basics, plus a few fun ones like speak and high-five, and more useful commands such as drop, jump and climb …

Ace did something bad last night. He bit my boyfriend in the face. This made me realize I cannot tolerate any aggressive behavior from my dog. The bite was a small puncture wound on the side of Josh’s nose, an inch or so below his eye. A small puncture wound, yes, but the nip was …