NEWCOMERS TWO

Newcomers Two is a follow-on course from Newcomers One, aimed at continuing the education of older or rehomed dogs. It is the equivalent of Puppy Progress for mature dogs that allows you to build on the skills you have already developed and apply them to more serious, real life situations.

In this course, we will help you to develop your handling skills and reinforce exercises that build trust and confidence between you and your dog. We will apply the fundamental behaviours (sit, down, leave it, recalls etc.) to real life scenarios such as road walking, off lead distance control and impulse control so that your dog can learn to make the correct choices when it matters with minimal prompting on your part.

During this course, we will focus on a more advanced application of behaviour. You will learn to:

• Recall your dog away from others, using long line leads to build a mutual sense of trust and ensure a positive outcome before braving off lead walks.
• Maintain control over your dog in a stay or wait command as we build in a variety of visual and audible distractions.
• Ensure your dog remains a well-mannered member of the family that will sit to be greeted by strangers, without jumping or barking.
• Learn methods that allow your dog to remain calm in an on-lead meet and greet with other dogs to stop them lunging or dragging you to say Hi to a stranger.
• Continue to enhance loose lead control, adding in directional control.
• Extend your wait command for long periods of time and including controlled recall and stop signals.
• Continue LOOSE LEAD work with added distractions that you may find on your walks, therefore combining an effective LEAVE IT command to your daily walks.
• Introduce off lead walking in a safe environment to build your confidence in your dog’s abilities.

As always, we are more than happy to offer you a series of home visits, where one of our trainers comes to your home or local area to help you overcome these issues on a more personal level. Please remember that all behaviour is correctable, no matter what the age of your dog, and that we are here to support you every step of the way, whether you prefer group sessions or would feel more comfortable addressing these challenges on a private, 1:1 basis.

Please feel free to contact us for more details about the course, home visits and for any behavioural concerns. We are always here to help!