Simple Strokes for Simple Folks

Ironically clipping Woozle's toenails isn't so bad, but then I have worked with him on that. To date I have not had a dog that would calmly accept nail-care, so I was a bit paranoid about that from the get-go. But normally he is a bucking mouthy bronco for any sort of collaring/leashing/brushing. I decided that I was going to have to teach him to sit still while I put on/took off his collar.

Imagine that! It seems such a simple idea now, but then again I am used to dogs who automatically know how to sit still. Woozle just isn't that sort of dog, at least not yet. Simply having the idea was a breakthrough for me, personally. I have been thinking that I should probably acclimate him to a pinch collar sometime. I'm not going to use it yet and hopefully not much ever, but he should still get used to it for the sake of it being a weird feeling collar if nothing else. Putting these things on is a near impossibility with a flailing dog, ergo the need for a calm and patient sit.

So I broke out the treats asked him to Sit and then Steady (he has no clue what that means yet). I approached him with a simple slip collar. He backed away. One of the first things we free-shaped together was backing up. Sometimes I regret that because now it's his default behavior whenever he isn't quite sure what is going on. But I just said "nope" and backed away from him. He caught on pretty quickly that backing up wasn't going to get the treat. At every sign of backing, flailing, or mouthing I would just take my hands off of him. He picked up the sitting still thing very quickly. Then I got the pinch and did the same thing, starting with a few too many links and working down to approximately the right size.

In less than 12 hours I now have a dog that sits quite well for collaring. You mean it was that easy all along? What on earth was I freaking out about all of this time?