Training a Puppy Using Shaping Games

In this Omaha puppy training session we worked with a Bulldog puppy named Wally who needed help with basic puppy behavior.

After I arrived I sat down to chat with Wally’s guardians to learn about their main puppy behavior concerns. One of their concerns was figuring out ways to motivate Wally to learn new behaviors. I taught them how to use a free shaping game that allows Wally to use his independence and problem solving skills to try to figure out what his guardians want from him. This helps Wally have fun during training and make him look up to his guardians for direction. To see how we did this you can watch the video below.

As you can see in the video Wally did very well with this game! An important thing to remember is to keep rewarding Wally when he is close to achieving the overall goal to make a positive association between trying new behaviors and getting a reward, which in this case was him putting his paw on the can. If you don’t reward him when he is close to getting it right he will become frustrated with the game and start to fail. By rewarding his behavior he will keep offering new behaviors until he figures out what you want.

By the end of the session Wally was looking for new ways to make his guardians happy and looking up to them for direction. As a Bulldog trainer and to keep up with this good behavior the guardians will want to continue to use our Petting with a Purpose method and remember to reward for good behavior. We wrapped up this puppy behavior session with Wally’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.