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| Chuki in Banos! |
It's been a while since we've posted any updates on Chuki. I think the last time was when we majorly overhauled our training techniques. Well I'm very happy to report that he's doing SO SO SO well. We started with NILIF towards the middle to the end of January and that has been the single biggest help. If he doesn't have toys laying around, he doesn't wine to be played with. Don't get me wrong, we still play with him! But now, it's on our schedule, when we want and for how long we want.
His walks are 100 times better. He still doesn't like to walk in the rain and will go a little crazy when he's had enough. But really, who likes to walk in the rain? Also, he's doing a million times better running with me. The trick is to only go for a short run because he gets really hot (if it's sunny) or really wet (if it's raining) and he doesn't like either one. So I usually only take him when I'm going to do a quick 5k and he does great!
The thing I'm most happy about is the jumping. He's slowly but surely learning that jumping is NEVER allowed on people. I think this is a pretty common problem with boxers. Here's what we've done to train him... Whenever we're coming home (whether it's just one or both of us) we open the door and stay outside of it and tell him to sit, lie down and stay. It's pretty cute because he does this crazy wiggle but he's still lying down. Then we come in the door, put down our stuff and go pet him for like 1 second. He can't get up until we've pet him first. If he does, we go back outside and start the whole thing over again. We tell him sit, lie down, stay. Then we come in put our stuff down and pet him. The key is to not pet him for a long time and give him lots of praise. It's just for him to associate our touch with when he can get up and greet us.
When there are guests coming over the method is slightly different. We put his leash on. The doorbell rings. Our guests wait for a minute outside the door while we tell Chuki to sit, lie down and stay. We tell the guests to not pay attention to him. When we tell him he can get up one of us holds the leash. As soon as he jumps on one of the guests we put him into the bedroom and close the door. He stays in the bedroom for a couple of minutes and then we let him out. And the process continues for as long as there are guests over. Every time he jumps he goes into the bedroom.
Now this may sound a bit exhausting for the guests and for you as the host(ess). It was in the beginning. Either Ryan or I had to be with Chuki for at least the first hour of people being there and Chuki spent most of the night in the bedroom because he would jump so frequently. But we had people over this past Friday and he only was in the bedroom 3 times in the very beginning. Then he calmed down and just wanted to sniff and check out our guests. Eventually he fell asleep on the couch while we were all eating dinner. MAJOR PROGRESS!
Plus he's learning new tricks, which is keeping his mind stimulated. He can kind of roll over now! And we're working on touch still. Actually we're working more on no touch.
His pretty awesome routine looks something like this:
6am breakfast
sleep
10am walk
sleep
12pm lunch
sleep
3pm walk
sleep
6pm dinner
sleep
Now maybe this is what most dogs do all of their lives... But Chuki has NEVER had a routine like this. It's more like 6am breakfast, play/whine/bark until you play with him, 10am walk, play/whine/bark until you play with him, etc. So this is a big and welcome adjustment for us!
Last but not least, the crate training is going. It's not going well and it's not going poorly... it's just going. He eats in the crate. He gets in the crate on his own to see if there's any food left over. When we put him in the crate he sits patiently and even lies down. He doesn't really whine in there or try to escape. But he's certainly not going in the crate to take a nap on his own accord. So we're happy with the progress. It's not important to us that he loves it, but just that he's comfortable in there and that he's able to stay in there for at least 6 hours.
That's about all we're learning right now, well at least when it comes to Chuki. Can't wait for everyone to meet him someday!
MULUB,
Taylor
