Training Bella with love not violence

Bella watching me through the fence

  It has always been my plan that once I found a puppy, that would grow into a large dog, that I would begin training that puppy right away. Knowing that training a puppy would not be an easy task and would require patience and lots of love. Then we found Bella and that very theory was proven many times over.

  Not long after Bella joined our family I was shopping and saw a bag of 'dog training treats'. I recalled the many times I had watched on television as trainer gave their dog a treat after every obeyed command. Thinking I'd give that a try I purchased a bag. It was one of the smartest moves yet as Bella loves them and would do anything she knows how to obtain these treats.

 The usual commands came pretty easy for her. Sit and shake, even a high five was learned easily. Stay is an entirely different matter for this sweet, attention deficit, pup. But she's learning. Once she realized that when she's on a leash her movement is limited she quit fighting quite so hard, even as she still doesn't like it. Getting her to walk beside me is still an ongoing process, as is sit and wait when I try to take photographs. That one I am determined that she learn and master as that is one of the reasons I wanted a large dog, one that would go with me on hikes and be a deterrent to anyone with less than nice intent. Weather permitting (which it hasn't much here lately) we will head out down the trails into the woods behind the house. I will walk so far and then stop, walk so far and stop. At times waiting only a moment, at times standing for much longer periods of time. She gets rewarded every time she does well. One of the problems with walking in the woods are all of the interesting (for a dog) smells of the critters who have passed that way before us. There has been a couple of times when I wasn't paying the amount of attention that I should have been and was nearly yanked off of my feet when she stopped and wanted to go a different way. She enjoys when we go to the pond and will go down for a drink. I'm sure that as her courage grows she will end up doing some swimming-- but not yet. I'm also working on breaking her from pulling. I want her by my side, now dragging up behind or dragging me from in front, but walking right beside me, quietly and attentive to our surroundings. To manage this is a challenge as when she pulls and I remain at the pace I was traveling she sounds as if she is choking. Her determination to get to where she wants to be is her own undoing. I will stop, pull back on the leash with a sharp command of 'no- don't pull'. She will stop and return to my side only to quickly forget and start pulling again, which gets her the same results. We have done this time and again, over and over walking up the road. I have a halter collar for her but only want it on her when we are working as she has already eaten one. Fiber in a diet is good for humans, I'm not sure how beneficial it is for animals.

  Being a dog, she loves to dig. My yard is in no way yard of the week material, but I do have flowers and shrubbery planted to attract butterfly, bees and hummingbirds. Bella is challenging me to keep them in the ground with her digging. I managed to get the fence around the flowers up most of the way, I need to purchase a few more posts and then hopefully she will be kept out of the garden. Or learn to replant what she digs up. 

  I noticed yesterday that she has begun to chase the vehicles that go up and down the dirt road. I'm thinking that I will need to use the same tactic to break that habit as the one we have used to break her jumping up on people, water. My son has a sport water bottle and I have a spray bottle. Both have proven effective. When ever Bella does something wrong, a face full of water stops her cold. She had a bad habit of biting--those puppy teeth are sharp. One day while James was off work he sat out on the porch with Bella. Every time she jumped up or went to bite him he splashed her with the water. By the time I got home from work, she was a different puppy. All he had to do was show her the bottle and she would quickly get herself under control. That still works on anything that she does that needs correcting. While she has never tried to harm the cats, the cats do not care for her. She is active puppy and they are more sedate adults, with an attitude. Now if the cat's warnings don't work, she feels the water and finds a place to stretch out. If she jumps on anyone, gets into something she shouldn't, attempts to bite or bite at my feet she feels the water and immediately comes under control.

  There is no hitting. There is no denying food or attention. There is no yelling in anger.

  I will admit to being on the outside of the fence clearing a part of the yard to plant flowers and to look up and see her digging up my flower bed. I yelled out her name to get her attention. Once she was looking at me a sharp, NO. had her leaving my flowerbed and finding a spot to stretch out and watch me work. It took several times as like a toddler she kept going back to the forbidden. she knows when she has done wrong, the look of shame on her face every time she was called down attests to that. The fence I put up I hope will help with keeping her away from the flowers. She has all of the rest of the yard after all. 

  I'm not trying to create a show dog. I don't plan on having her jump through hoops or ride trikes or dance around the room with me. I am only working to train Bella to be able to go with me hiking and be in enough control of herself that my worry would be about taking photographs and not getting lost. I want Bella to be family, not lawn ornament, not status symbol, not something that one has just because. Dogs and cats have always been a part of this family as family...the love that they show is incredible and I wouldn't miss it or mess with it for the world.

 Training Bella is an adventure that I am fully enjoying, no matter the frustrations...