What I should've done instead.

Might as well right?
Do my confessions now.

I know, I am not supposed to yell at him.
I need to show him that I'm the best thing ever and loves him a lot just so I am more reinforcing than anything.
But, sometimes I just can't help it.
When he bites me, it really really hurts.
He is getting really big, you know, my Rumblyrum.
He thinks he is using the same light strength to bite me, but no! Rumbly dear, you are growing, so are your jaw strength.
I try, really really hard not to get angry, I swear.
When he is gentle I love him to death, actually even when he is not, I still love him to death :(
Why do you think I am bleeding everywhere.

I also know, I am supposed to not give him punishments.
But really, putting him in the room, alone, is just a way of me to calm him down!!
I'm serious, I usually let him out really quick....other than the times when I forget about him....then he sometimes is in the room for a good 30 minutes.
I do not lock him in the closet anymore in a confined space, to restrict him, as a punishment. When I used to, it is at most for like 30 mins at most.
Now after learning from Emily, I felt really bad.
I do not time out him anymore, just calming him down in a room on his own, with toys.
Sometimes, all the people in the surroundings excites him too much and he becomes extra mouthy.
I remove him only so he can calm down, only he might think it's a punishment........

I know, I'm not supposed to focus on one training.
I should train him a variety of things, everyday.
I wanted to, but I didn't have a chew stick!!
I wanted to use a chew stick to train him to drop, and I didn't go to the pet store...yet... because I was... busy... you know.
Anyway, I could have trained him other things you say?
Well, I wanted to focus on the most basic, and most important.
Like being calm and come as call.
I feel like tricks can all come later but some stuff are essentials, you know.
Plus, I moved on and trained him to drop, so it's all forgiven?

Lastly, I know, I need to control his interactions with other dogs and other humans who might not know how to handle a puppy and what he is getting trained for.
Or else, I either let all my training go into the sea of forgiven or I'm giving him bad socializing experiences. So I set him up for failures and now no one will ever like him, not dogs nor human.
This I will work on. No excuses.
I've got an extreme case, trust me. Extreme ways are needed, like extreme amount of love.
This new way of training is really bizarre to a lot of people. No giving him the stare or even punishment in general. So it is a little bit harder.
It's just that I feel bad a lot of times not letting other punishing him because he is hurting them.
I also forget some people just really don't know how to handle dogs, doesn't matter if they own one or not. Some people put their dogs in strollers for god's sake.
I won't be able to explain the concept to everyone so all I can do is keep an eye on my pup.
I'm just glad I have Bimbob here to help me, it's his dog after all.

xoxo
Sherrawks

Holding back from trying to bully, how nice of you.

Rumbly's Training Diary No. 2

I might have gotten a little bit lazier than I was the first day I brought Rumbly home from haircut.

The sessions lessened but I really have a really good excuse... I mean reasons.

Rumblepoo has been doing exceptional on Recall training and his positive whistling interrupter...at home.

Outside the house, where there is distraction, my pup don't give 100 sheets of who I am.

If we are outside, our pup's OS when he sees another human is most probably,

"MY NEW FAV HUMANS!!! BRING ME HOME WITH YOU!!!"

And whatever I say, it's like it flew over his head and never hit him.

Yup, new mum instantly.

So for the past couple of days, we have been trying to proof his training, most importantly Recall and the interrupter. As Emily said, proofing is shooooo important. I mean you really want it to work perfectly every single time, especially on very important commands.

First couple of days, really didn't work. Rumblepoo being Rumblepoo. 

Then, we go back some steps to enhance his experience with being recalled and interrupter. So his muscle memory forever associates us calling him as his favourite food and/or he needs to look at us.

It has been working brilliant!! At least with all our friends. He sometimes will do the I-need-to-go-but-hey quick bite, when we interrupt him, especially with new people, but he is getting there. 

I'm seeing results at least. 

I judge this by how I'm feeling right now, like less angry, so I could be wrong.

It could just be Bimbob is here to help out today and there is enough distractions for him today to bug me less. 

Or it is the end of the day and he is calmly sleeping by my bed, acting cute and all. 

One or the other.

Might not be really him showing results, but you know, one can dreams.

He dream on Bimbob's bed all the time.

Like I said for the past few days, we have been focusing on proofing everything, which Emily did NOT recommend.

Let's be honest, I... didn't listen to everything she said alllllll the time.

While we can talk about what I didn't do and should do some other time, let's focus on the good things now, shall we?

Don't worry, I have excuses... I mean good reasons, for everything.

Today we started new stuff, yay!

We tried the drop it thing, with his new chew stick(?) thing. 

We are suppose to stuff that into the Kong for him to enjoy, which we eventually did.

We tried to train drop it with the stick first.

I have to say, he doesn't really understand it just yet, we are getting there though.

I will need to emphasize, you will absolutely NEED a less desirable chew stick and a highly desirable treat for this.

I tried it with a lower value treat that he will nibble and be satisfy for other cheaper tricks, he sniffed the treat and give me a look, the 

"you must not be serious. I drop that for this?"

look , for like 5 seconds until I gave him his cheese.

Not kidding you at all.

Him sitting far away, so he can see me on the bed. Just the most adorable puppy ever. I'm biased yes.

I had wonder how do you really find out what they like and not, seriously you can just tell. 

I thought I might get it wrong too but apparently, dogs' emotions are really not that hard to guess.

Even the female dogs...

They actually get bored with things they don't really care for that much and just seem hesitant to eat the treat.

But for example, Rumbly's favourite, he never hesitates. No matter how much I've fed him.

Thanks Bimbob for being around these training days.

It really makes everything sooo much easier.

xoxo

Sher

Rumbly's Training Diary 1

This is just so I remember every single detail about Rumbly's training.
Seriously though, this training has been nothing but a learning experience as well as test for patience, for me, for the most of it.

This devil thing, I don't know a better word to describe my baby, and I love him to death. But he is a devil. Don't try to convince me otherwise, it's not... no... like you don't understand.

Anyway,
First things first, patience is like the rule of all rules.
I don't really want my dog to have to go to school. I want to try my best before I tell myself that I should let the professionals do this. So here I am, struggling to get him to, for instance, poop, not on everywhere else but the pee pad. And look! As we speak, he just poop on the carpet!
For the longest time(like whole day yesterday) all I did was think to myself,

"my Rumbly is a dummy"

 or

"okay this is never ever going to work",

I kept going anyway.
Mostly because he has the most adorable, first ever haircut from Barking Babies yesterday and all things could be forgiven. I'm going to guess the puppy god saw my hard work and did some magic on Rumble and magically things are starting to get together.

"Go to your bed" took like a good 500 tries to get him to response but hey! It's seeing results!
Oh and when I say "go to your bed" I really mean "go to your BED". It's bad but sometimes it could be "go in your bed", that's my mistake on a confusing cue to that might have contribute to this taking a little longer.

"Leave it" its doing really well!! Usually if he approaches the treat and I don't get to stop him in time, the treat is bye-bye, sayonara. After a series of different "leave it" training with different distractions, I was able to stop him in time from getting a dropped treat. Trust me, I screamed "whoohoo" inside more than you could imagine. Only if it isn't midnight here.

Recall is doing decent, he is responding wayy better than he used to be. We were at the pet store and there were other of his human best friends, in case you were wondering who isn't his human best friend? I don't know, he likes everyone but me. So his "friends" are playing with him and he gets really rough really easily, so I try to call him before he runs cray and guess what, no response. Today he "found" Tomoka's feet and didn't even care if I ever existed. But later today, he was doing a little better after I upgraded his treat. I know, shallow dog.

Same thing with the positive interrupter. Yesterday, the positive interrupter training was unbearable to mention. Pretty much like nothing happened. Today, after more series of hard, intense training, he is responding to us a lot better. Yes, we upgraded the treat for this.

Things to pay attention to are like, the treat you use in different things.
I realized it matters A LOT, he response so differently! Simply use his favourite treat for the hardest task. Right now, that is pooping for us. sigh.
Look out cause he might really love something, but if he is full, he will lose interest. So make sure you keep track of how long you have been training him for with certain treats.
Obviously, the treats he likes less will last shorter in training than his favourite treat, Rumble gets bored really easily so this was really easy to pick up.
What that was really hard, and still is, is to keep training healthy. I don't wanna over feed him or simply letting him have too much salty food and etc. But with him, I do have to do it for a decent amount of time. So I only use his most crazy favourite treat like pepperoni or cheese if I absolutely have to. I don't have to use so much with his favourite treats (usually the unhealthiest for him) for certain tricks but you know, I always need to watch out. I get carried away and forgot that half bag of wild rabbit treat is gone.

All these are tips and tricks I picked up from the best dog training youtuber - kikopup.

I did doubt her ways, only because her dogs all seems to be pretty smart. Like she has to know how to pick the smartest looking dog, she is a dog trainer. Biased Sher was all like,

"yea, you can't do this Sher."

I gave it a go and I'm hooked. I watch the whole series of puppy training videos in one sitting. Might or might not have held in pee for way too long than I should.

She speaks dog, I swear.

This is one of her like 900000 views video that I should have watched way earlier and I should repeatedly watch 800 more times until I master everything in it.
My Rumble nibs just everything, as long as it is a thing, he will bites it.

Anyway, it is like 4 am in the morning. Good night Rumble, we shall meet again, like tomorrow.

xoxo,
Sherrawks