Friday evening my daughter said, “daddy, I want to teach the puppy something new.  Something not easy.”  Now, when I’m on billable time that usually makes me cringe because I know how much work that phrase “Teach the puppy something hard” can cost a client.  Well what to do here came to me in a flash.

In days past, my old dog Gwennie would close the front door after she and all the other dogs came in the house.  Well, Gwennie is 13 now and “retired” as far as work is concerned, and we haven’t had that door closing luxury in a while.  So, the phrase “something not easy” rang with clear signal.

My daughter and I started working with Super on Friday evening.  Here is the video of Super when he was starting out.

Things went well, my daughter worked hard on Friday and Saturday for about 30 minutes each day on this and by this evening Super was doing very well closing the practice door.  Not bad for a little more than an hour of work for a six year old.

The next step this week is transferring Super’s knowledge of closing the practice door to the real door.  It’ll take another session, but as you can see from the video, he’s doing pretty well and I don’t think we are far away from getting him to close the door after himself when he comes in.  Now, if I could just get my three year old daughter to do that….

Steve Haynes

Austin Dog Trainer

Fidelio Dog Works