Caring with clear leadership
Growing UpWilbur has now grown to almost full-size, so we needed to ensure that we controlled the situation.
We noticed subtle little demands when Wilbur would bring his favourite toy and pester to be played with. Generally, it was after he had his dinner that he thought he needed to have another game. We needed to control his playtime and not him.
So we went back to the basics, reminding him to ‘Sit, ‘Drop’ and ‘Play’ when we wanted him to. It was amazing how quickly he came back into line and all his good behaviours started coming back to the fore.
We also reminded him about his ‘Leave It’. Whenever we play a game of tug now we interrupted it with a ‘Leave It’ he sits then does a drop and he is rewarded with another play session of either Catch or Tug.
If we don’t want to play at all, we simply put the toy he is playing with back on his bed and we have a ‘Settle’ command. He then gets into his bed, settles down and plays with his toy by himself.
Wilbur also likes jumping and catching the ball. I’m very mindful that his body is still growing and so I don’t want him jumping and twisting and straining his body while it is still growing. I have to be careful to keep the ball low so is not encouraged to jump too high.