Meet Whiskey, a 4 Month-Old Rhodesian Ridgeback from Roseville California who attended our 10 Day Puppy Camp.

Whiskey’s family purchased him from a breeder in Idaho. The breeder had a working farm in Idaho and according to the family, came to them with sound environmental exposure and socialization. The family decided to purchase Whiskey after loosing their Ridgeback of many years due to old age.

The owner’s wanted to be able to take him multiple places and have him able to obey even with distractions. They also wanted to establish a good obedience foundation with him. He is a very independent hound, though very sweet and loving with his family.

While at camp we worked with Whiskey on basic luring skills in order to develop basic obedience positions. We utilized marker training to provide clarity in training and reinforce desirable behaviors. Given that Whiskey was a little older, we added leash pressure on a slip lead for correction once commands were established. We taught Whiskey to give in to leash pressure and to offer obedience when leash pressure was applied for pressure to release, followed by marker. Commands taught were: name recognition, sit, down, place, come and no. We also worked with Whiskey on loose leash walking with both a formal “heel” (lured) and “lets’ go” (informal).

Whiskey’s owners also asked us to work with him to stop jumping on guests. We worked on this behavior by ignoring the jump, and luring into a sit prior to offering attention. Once he understood that a sit was required for attention during greetings, we added leash pressure (foot standing on leash) and no marker for jumping, coupled with the reward for sitting.

Whiskey was very independent and it was initially a struggle to get him engaged in the training process. We limited his interactions to training scenarios and fed all meals by hand in order to encourage him to interact with his handler. and begin to work for food. It took about 5 days for Whiskey to start consistently luring for food with minimal enthusiasm. Due to the delay in Whiskey’s engagement with the training process, we kept him for five extra days of training at no additional cost to the family.

When Whiskey started puppy camp he was very easily distractible and had very little interest to engage in training and accept treat rewards consistently. He was most interested in exploring his environment, smelling smells, and attempting to meet and play with other dogs. By the end, we enjoyed engaging in the training process for about 15-20 minute periods of time. He was able to follow basic commands reliably and understood leash pressure on a slip lead as a correction.