Petting Skills

Last week you started working on petting skills. You want your puppy to understand that human hands reaching toward them should signal them to be calm and confident to receive petting, and that they don’t have to meet us with open mouths. Warm up where we left off last week:

Step 1: Start your puppy in the down position and touch and feed at the same time. Let them eat
the treat as they receive petting on their back or shoulder area. Have toys ready in case
your puppy bites so you can redirect them to a toy. If your puppy gets up, wait and see if they’re willing to come back- you want there to be consent and to let this be a really positive experience.

Step 2: Pet puppy and THEN reinforce

And now let’s add in step 3: Longer duration on the petting, and fluctuate the duration so your puppy doesn’t start counting.