Settle Down and Shush
Excerpt taken from Dr. Ian Dunbar’s ‘Good Little Dog Book’
Right from the outset, make frequent little quiet moments part of your dog’s daily routine. Remember, a puppy is not like an irritating child’s toy. You can’t simply remove the batteries from a rumbustious adolescent dog. Instead you must learn how to ‘turn the dog off’.
When playing with your puppy have it settle down and shush every couple of minutes. To begin with, have the pup lie still for just two seconds before letting it play again. Use a release command, such as ‘Free Dog’, ‘At Ease’, ‘Go Play’. After a minute, interrupt the play session again with a three second quiet-moment. Then try for four seconds. Then five, eight, ten and so on. By alternating ‘Settle Down’ with ‘Free Dog’ it becomes progressively easier to get your puppy to settle down quickly.
Once your pup gets the picture, the exercise may be profitably practiced on walks. When walking round the block, periodically have your puppy settle down for just a few seconds before resuming the walk. An entertaining way to train is to instruct the pup to settle down every forty feet or so, while you read an article from the newspaper, or a page from a good book.
With the above exercises, your puppy will learn to settle down quickly following a single command, no matter how excited or distracted it may be. Moreover, your dog settles down willingly and happily because it knows being told to lie down is not the end of the world, nor necessarily the end of the walk. Rather, your dog has learned ‘Settle Down’ is just a relaxing time-out for gentle praise and petting before its exciting life as ‘Activity Dog’ resumes once more.
Throughout the course of the day, have your pup settle down for longer periods at home. For example when watching the television, have it lie down on leash, or in its bed, but during the commercial breaks, release the puppy for short play-training sessions.
It is difficult to have too many rules with a young pup. Teach your puppy to be calm and controlled when requested and there will be years of fun and excitement ahead. Let the puppy play indiscriminately and it will be uncontrollable as an adult.
