Chip Again

Today I worked with Chip again, the Papillon x Chihuahua mix. He did pretty good. To start with I took him for a walk to release some of his energy. Most of the time he walked good without a lot of pulling. It is always nice when a dog walks good.

He barks quite a bit and also jumps on people. So to help with the barking we used a spray bottle with water and gave him a little spray when he barked a lot. We didn't have to use that too much. We were going to use the bitter apple, but a spray bottle with water was easier. With bitter apple you have to get it in the corner of the mouth. Where with a water spray bottle you can quick give him a spray. You can also put a command with it like "no barks" or "be quiet". Hopefully you won't need the spray bottle and can just use a command after awhile. Chip needs to learn that a lot of barking is not allowed. A little barking here and there is okay. He will learn that he gets attention when he is quiet.


So now about the jumping. Even though he is a small dog he still shouldn't jump on people. To help with this we were pushing him off with our legs or knees and told him the command "off" when he jumped.

Of course I had him sit, but I also worked on the down command. We went from me having to pull out his front legs and holding his back end down to him doing it all by himself! He learned it in one day! I also worked on "comes" but didn't focus on that for the day.

With all that we worked on, we still threw in teaching him to ring a bell to go outside. Of course he didn't get the idea today, that is something that will take time.