Train your dog to Settle+

I love fielding questions from our clients! We offer 24/7 tech support, but I'll just go ahead and say it. It's much easier to head problems off before they occur, then to fix them after they have been allowed to manifest.

​We used to have a hard time finding clients with enough time to adequately care for their dog, now it seems everyone is working from home and has time, but this creates new challenges. It seems the big one is, how to keep a pup quiet while I'm Zooming. The next one in line is heading off Separation Anxiety, which should be managed before it even has the chance to manifest.

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With a Drent, and most active sporting breeds, a balanced approach is really the way to go: Body & Mind. 

Body:
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Many folks assume taking the pup for a lot of exercise will help them sleep the day away. To a degree it works like that, however, it will also create a dog that requires exercise... How much running makes a marathon runner tired? Trust me, for the first couple of weeks after hunting season is over, the natives are restless.

During the time a pup is young you really can't take them for rigorous or forced exercise. Fortunately for a young dog it doesn't take much to wear one out... it's when you get to the teenage-time that they can go for quite a bit of exercise 'at their own pace' and they will also begin to develop stamina. This is a one dimensional solution that becomes both self-limiting and its own problem. As a side note: a Drent really needs to be at least a year old to start becoming a running partner, even then, shorter runs with varying pace as you work pup up to it. ​

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Mind:
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There is a time where using distractors: toys, chews, brain games, etc. is great. Just as important to getting pup out to stretch his legs, but on its own this too becomes self-limiting. As it puts the burden on you to find ever new and more enticing ways to focus your dog's attention. In fact, by spending too much time in the 'mind zone' you can actually defeat your Drent's natural 'off switch' because your dog will always need to be entertained with something! Ever meet a kid who needs to be entertained constantly to stay quiet and out of the way? I'm pretty sure you have... it was fun wasn't it?

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So I just took your whole plan away you say? Well, if that was your plan, then I suppose so and I wasn't even trying - ouch!

So let's do this instead, because I see them as as related. You need balance, Body & Mind, but let us also take advantage of one of the things that makes living with a Drent pretty awesome - let's do some deliberate work on their natural 'off switch' and we do this by teaching the dog to settle!

Teaching 'settle' also helps with crate training - which you will need to do as part of your regimen. Also now with so many people being 'home based' these days, taking a  proactive approach to avoid separation anxiety has a level of importance many have yet to realize! Yep, that's right your increased availability has a Darkside...

So let us head all of this possible drama off at the pass, this is the way.

​Please take a few minutes to watch these videos:

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You can see they are very similar, basically a subtle variation on the same theme - you can find dozens of similar videos on YouTube, and all the better ones will more or less resemble what I have posted above for you. We did this with Ila, and by 5 months she was an Old Hat at being a pro-pub dog!