Life skills - teaching a dog to be handled

[Maralynn]

I've always been able to handle my dogs however needed, and do pretty much anything with them but decided that I actively wanted to work on teaching him to calmly/comfortably accept handling. So ever since I brought Kolt home, I've been handling him a lot. Picking him up, putting him on my shoulders, having him "chill" on his back in my lap. Looking at his ears, handling his feet, opening his mouth. I'll talk to him while I do it "I'm going to pick you up", "let me see your feet" and so on. All with the idea of both getting him comfortable with being handled and giving him an understanding of the words so he knows what's going on.

 

He's good with it and relaxes when I tell him *what* I'm doing.

 

Tonight he did the inevitable electric fence bump.

 

Sigh. Poor pup didn't know what bit him and he ran yelping.

 

I called him over and talked calmly to him. He followed me with his eyes wide, tail tucked and obviously distressed. I leaned over and said "do you want me to pick you up?" He practically jumped into my arms. I took him inside, got him to chill in my lap for a couple minutes then went on about the evening in an upbeat manner. His tail came back up, his eyes were relaxed and he happily followed me around the house and did a couple simple tricks when asked.

 

While I feel awful that he bumped the fence, I absolutely love the fact that he views handling as such a good thing, he understands it and it helps him relax and calm down.

 

[G. Festerling]

<3

[rushdoggie]

Awesome!

[ShoresDog]

Good thoughts, Mara.