Rather than give you an update on my humans’ training, I thought I’d let one of my students, Mom, share with you what she and Dad have been doing to practice their lessons. Please note that the views expressed here by Mom do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Asa and myself. So without further ado, here is my Mom.

Thank you. As you know Chuck Billy and Asa have worked really hard training us this past year. Not to brag, but I think Dad and I have come a long way. But as Chuck Billy is always quick to point out, we’re only human and can easily fall back into our old troublesome habits. Therefore, winter is a good time to refresh the skills that Chuck Billy, Asa and our trainer taught us. This way when spring finally arrives we’ll all be ready for whatever we encounter on our adventures.

Sure Dad and I are confident at giving the “Sit” and “Down” commands when the dogs are right in front of us. However, going over the same old commands in the usual way can get boring. Or worse yet we become drill sergeants making them do “puppy pushups” going up and down so often! To avoid that in our house we like to play a version of the children’s game, Simon Says, using our commands. This not only is a good refresher, but by presenting these words in new ways, we are making Asa and Chuck Billy focus on us and prove they know them just as well as we do. After all, Asa has been known to put his own twist on things, and Chuck Billy is stickler for routine. So the goal here is to present these commands in new and different ways, all while making it fun for everyone!

Here’s how we play. First we make sure the dogs are focused on us. This is especially important with Asa, who tends to get distracted. Then we try giving the commands in new ways. For example, we’ll turn our back to the dogs and say “Sit!” With this one it, of course, helps having two people, or at least your phone in selfie mode, so you don’t have to turn to see if they listened. For Asa it took a few tries, but he eventually figured it out, while Chuck Billy snapped into place wondering how we have eyes in the back of our head.

Dogs are very perceptive to body language, and as we learned in our classes they pick up on even the slightest moves we may do while saying a command that we don’t even notice. This leads to them making assumptions from time to time before we even say what we want them to do. To break that habit, try giving the “Down” command while standing on one foot. Or perhaps while tapping yourself on the head? Ok, I admit the confused look on Chuck Billy and Asa’s faces made us laugh, but they did listen.

The dogs are obviously familiar with the types of surfaces we have in our home. However, when out and about, we sometimes encounter unfamiliar surfaces. To get them comfortable with that while playing this game we will ask them to do a “Down” on a towel, or sometimes take the top off of a storage container and put it on the floor to “Sit” on, and we’ve even thrown a slightly deflated air mattress into the mix. Just to get the dogs accustomed to the idea that the floor or ground can feel different, but the command is still the same.

I admit Dad and I are creatures of habit, and we tend to say our commands with a certain tone to it. To make sure Chuck Billy and Asa are listening to the word and not just reacting to the tone, we play Simon Says using silly voices, intriguing accents, and will occasionally throw in random words said in the tone we often use for commands. It was me who got surprised here when I discovered Dad can do a great Sean Connery impersonation, while I tend to do a throwback to Saturday morning cartoon characters.

Reinforcing “Down/Stay” is also important. So we’ll put them in a “Down/Stay” and leave the room. Will your dog stay as told, or will he get curious and wander away? Give it a try and find out! We’re still working on our recall, so will wait a few minutes. Yes, we do wait minutes not seconds usually at least 5 minutes. Then we finish this with a “Heel,” and wait as the dogs run to find us. Technically in this situation this is our version of Hide and Seek and not Simon Says. But hey, we’re having fun, right?

Overall be creative, have fun, keep the game short, and be sure to praise and reward your pups for a job well done training you! And speaking of praise, thank you Chuck Billy for letting me share our Simon Says training game so others can play along too!