ZoePhee's Training Goals for 2015 Positive Pet Training Blog Hop

Hey everyone! I hope your day is going well!

I've actually never sat down and written out training goals for my dogs. I always have stuff in my head that I want to accomplish but I've done most of their training just randomly sort of on the fly. I will just decide what we are going to work on, think about it for a few minutes and then get to work. Or I will take opportunities to train when we are out and about in real life situations without really giving it much thought. Or I will see someone do a trick and decide that I want to teach that and then I do. Or something will happen and I will go, I need to work on that and then I do. We work on training every single day, even though I don't really have a structured plan for it. I mostly go, "I want to work on this today" and then we do. If that makes sense.

This blog hop give me the perfect opportunity to change that. So for this year the training goals are as follows:

Zoe
Zoe is pretty well behaved, she knows over 50 different cues. She is good with other dogs and people. I would like to work with her on proofing some of her more advanced behaviors/tricks this year. I would also like to teach her some new tricks but I'm not sure which ones yet. She is getting pretty bored with her regular ones.

I would also like to work on getting more attention from her around prey animals and when she's in hunting mode at the big park where the moles are. So we will be doing more premack and recalls out there.

I would really like to work on her noise phobia and general anxiety issues and reducing stress when she's not allowed to hunt. I'm planning on doing some impulse control work with her as well.

Phoenix
Phoenix knows about 30 different cues. I would like to teach her more tricks this year and proof the behaviors she already knows. 

I would really like to get her more comfortable with other dogs this year and work on her being less socially awkward. I also want to do some impulse control work with her around other dogs and as always more counter conditioning with the dog breeds she doesn't like. I would love it if she made some new dog friends this year.

I've also been thinking about starting a relaxation protocol with her. She gets really "hyped" up over some very random things. Like my husband taking a shower. She will bark at him and follow him around grumbling (not aggressively) as he gets ready to shower. I think this is more of a game then anything else because we did some counter conditioning work around the bath tub and now she thinks she gets treats whenever the water comes on. The behavior definitely annoys my husband so I want to work on it and get her to be more chill about stuff. She just gets really hyped up and emotional about the most random stuff and I want to work on calming her down. I think a relaxation protocol might be really helpful.

She's also pretty fearful of strangers approaching her. I've done some previous counter conditioning exercises for this. I've sat outside the grocery store on many occasions and fed her every time people pass by and/or approach us. I would like to work on this more. I'm under no allusion that she will ever fully trust random people but I would like to get her more comfortable around them. She is good with our friends and family that she sees on a regular basis but not strangers that come up to us. She is generally not reactive to people, she only tries to get away from them. There has never been any growling or lunging, though she has barked at a few people when they were exhibiting threatening body language or she got startled but this has only happened a couple of times in over two years. She will generally give the strangers "whale eye", look scared and will hit the end of the leash to avoid them touching her. If the person doesn't attempt to pet her and isn't overly forward with her she will go up to them and sniff them and is generally okay.

 Phoenix was not hiding under my legs, she was cued to do "cop cop" when these people came over to say hi. 

I was very surprised that she didn't break from her trick to get away.

So those are my training goals for 2015 and that's what we are going to be doing! I'm excited to get this year's stuff going! 

Do you have any training goals for your dogs this year? 

Today I'm joining Cascadian Nomads, Rubicon Days and Tenacious Little Terrier for the Positive Pet Training Blog Hop! This months theme is "Training Goals for 2015" but they welcome any positive reinforcement posts.