We met Joy in the beginning of the year and boy, does she live up to her name! Joy is a very sweet girl and had some obedience skills already before we started! The reason why her mom brought us into her and Joy’s lives is that Joy’s friendliness can be a bit much – jumping when greeting people, excessive licking, and since a common visitor to the home is a small grandson, Joy sometimes has a habit of knocking him over due to the excitement, and also will snatch things out of his hand.
When we began working with Joy, we wanted to create a setting where her mom can provide consistency. Joy is wonderfully behaved when it’s just her and mom – but there are occasional times Joy would forget she has to listen ALL the time. And we know that if Joy can be unreliable when there’s no distractions, then we can’t rely on her when we introduce distractions to the scene. One example of a behavior she will do even if she’s just with her mom – Joy will react and bark incessantly if she sees a dog…ON TELEVISION. It might sound silly but part of her first lesson was watching the Disney movie, Cruella!
“She knows the soundtrack to this movie…once the music plays, she will immediately run in, perk up, and start watching, getting ready to bark as soon as the dogs show up!” claims Joy’s mom.
While it sounds like an exaggeration, Joy’s mom was 100% accurate…you’d think Joy and her mom have watched this movie a hundred times! She responded to the music and even some of the dialogue preceding scenes with dogs. Joy’s response was to then growl, bark, and do small lunges toward the elevated television! And when she was in that mode, it was very difficult to get her attention, let alone stop the barking, unless we turned off the TV or put something else on (ideally with no dogs!).
“All right,” we said to Joy’s mom, “this is a good start to work on obedience with some distractions!”
We are happy to report that Joy will now let her mom watch Cruella (and other films, shows and commercials with dogs) in peace, and she is responding better to helpful commands like “On Your Bed” (Place Training), “Leave It” (for licking, snatching, or picking up items that don’t belong to her), and “Off” for jumping. We’re up to three sessions currently (with more coming!) and Joy’s getting better and better with her greeting manners, keeping all four paws on the ground! She’s still excited and friendly, which is something we still want her to be, but we want her to demonstrate her sweet personality without possibly hurting the grandkids and to show respect for overall boundaries with visitors (and movie nights!).
If you have a sweet boy or girl that needs help with greeting manners or general boundaries, reach out to our Atlanta dog trainer for help!