FitDog Friday #47: Mastering Box Shaping Techniques

You discover many things when you train late at night. Like the fact that when Mr. N sits or steps on bubble wrap, it doesn’t pop. Why was he sitting on bubble wrap at midnight?  Next month’s Positive Pet Training Blog Hop theme (co-hosted with Cascadian Nomads and Dachshund Nola) is Positive Training Fun with a Box! 101 things to do with a box is a clicker and shaping game where you treat the dog for any interactions with the box and shape it into a useful (or not so useful) trick.  Mr. N’s default box behavior is to get in and sit in it.  Your dog may prefer to paw, pick up or sniff the box. Whatever it is, short of outright destruction, it’s good! It’s the beginning step into shaping a behavior.  And then you can expand into all sorts of other props and behaviors. Like sitting on top of the Boo Bucket that Mr. N won from Jones Natural Chews. Warning: this is not recommended for dogs just learning to shape. The bucket still has all the treats in it and dogs may decide to just tear the lid off and graze on all the treats instead of working. I admit to giving Mr. N a “paw up” with that particular pose. He’ll jump on top of the box on cue but it’s a little unwieldy without practice to jump up on the bucket as well.  

I hope you’ll consider joining us for the training hop on Oct 6th (first Monday of the month). Mental exercise is just as important for dogs as physical exercise!