Episode #161 Teaching Your Puppy to Settle and Relax

Ever wondered how to get your energetic pup to switch gears from playtime to peace? Look no further, as we unravel the secrets to teaching your dog the vital skill of settling down. In this episode, we dive into the transformative impact a structured routine can have on your dog's ability to understand when it's time to romp and when it's time to rest. I'll share the ins and outs of using positive reinforcement to celebrate your dog's tranquil moments, emphasizing the delicate art of rewarding calmness with treats, praise, or affection without breaking their serene state. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Puppy Training Podcast, episode 161, teaching your puppy how to settle and relax. This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning, as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the Puppy Training Podcast, and I'm your host, amy Jensen. Hi you guys, I hope you're having a good week. We're back from the holidays. At the start of a new year. I'm always anxious to get back into routines and schedules I don't know. It doesn't think of for my brain to just know what's happening. The holidays are also fun. It's fun to be chaotic and relax and chill right, which is what we're talking about today on the podcast. How do we help our dogs settle and relax? Sometimes it's easier said than done. Today, in fact, I have an extra dog at my house. I'm boarding a dog for a friend While they are on vacation. Some are sunny and warm. It's okay. It's pretty warm here in Utah too, and, yeah, we're just working on settling and calm, so you might hear them in the background coming and going. I've got three of them and they're working on some good chews right now and they're being good with them, so we'll let them keep chewing and then hopefully they're quiet in the background but they're settling and relaxing, and today I want to teach you guys how to get your dogs to do that, even if you have one dog or two dogs or, like me, you have three dogs at your house. Today, before we dive in, make sure you check out our classes and courses that are upcoming. So everything you guys that we do here at Baxter and Bella is currently available to our members online. So once you sign up and you become a member, you have access to everything that we provide. Now, occasionally we do teach things live, meaning via Zoom, of course. So our basic puppy training, which is our puppy kindergarten course, our games and activities course, we're starting a new AKC home manners course all of those things are coming up in the month of January and you can sign up on our website and register to come to those via Zoom. So you'll be in your living room with your dog at a puppy class. Basically, right, you're taking puppy class from home, but we're teaching it live. Now everything we teach live is already recorded. It's posted on our website so you can go and view those courses on demand, but it's kind of fun to do a live class as well, so check that out if you are interested, all right.

Speaker 1: 2:25

So for the topic of the day, we are talking about, again, relaxing and getting our puppies to settle. So I know that when you bring a new puppy into your home, it is an exciting experience, right? But with it I also want you to recognize the responsibility that we have of teaching our puppies essential life skills when it comes to living in a human household, simply because they are not human, all right. So they need to learn things like staying calm, practicing patience, exercising impulse control, and today I want to talk about how you can use some effective techniques, or what those techniques look like, so that you can achieve these goals of helping your dog settle and relax in a human household. So we do this through creating routines, using positive reinforcement. We like to play lots of games, play a super powerful you guys, and then some relaxation training. So let's talk first about establishing a routine.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Dogs like to know what to expect, right? I just mentioned that the end of the holidays, my brain also likes to know what to expect. We do that as humans. We like to have you know, and some of my kids are this way more so than others, but some of them really just do so much better if they know what to expect, right, my daughter wants to know when the next vacation is. She wants to know when soccer is. She wants to know, you know, anything that she just can wrap her brain around and plan on. She starts to relax and settle because she knows what to expect.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Now our dogs are very similar. Are they giving them a routine and a? A daily schedule just helps them understand what to expect. They thrive on predictability and a consistent schedule helps them understand when it's time to be active and when it's time to relax. So designating specific periods of play, feeding and rest gives your puppy the ability to associate certain activities with designated times. And then they relax. So when it's playtime, practice playing and then settle for one to two minutes. That might mean asking your dog for a downstate or a go-to-bed behavior, right? Or, if your puppy doesn't know those things yet, the verbal cues we can lure them into these behaviors to help them, teach them, show them what to do Now repeat the play for two to three minutes so go back to whatever you were doing a game or tug fetch some kind of physical exercise and then go back to settling for one to two minutes, which again is just helping them come back to that zone one that we talk about in our course. So help your puppy learn to manage their own behavior by taking breaks often and rewarding them for relaxing and then return to play, and we're just going to go back and forth between the two so they learn to self-manage going back and forth between the two.

Speaker 1: 4:55

Next, let's remember positive reinforcement. This serves as a powerful tool in shaping our dog's behavior. Whenever my puppy exhibits calmness or they settle down willingly without being asked, even if they just plop down on the floor, I like to reward them with a treat, food rewards, a praise, a little bit of praise or some affection. It doesn't have to be big. In fact I don't want to interrupt the calm. So what I might do is if it helps them drop maybe half a little piece of cheerio right in between their front paws, or if that gets them too excited because it's food and my dog's really food motivated, then maybe I just say good boy, right. Or maybe I just rub their belly a little bit or stroke their ears, something that will help them stay in that calm position, but I know that they like, so this creates a positive association with calm behavior, encouraging them to repeat it.

Speaker 1: 5:44

Consistency in rewarding desirable actions is essential for reinforcing the behaviors that we want to cultivate in our dogs. So here's an example for you In the kitchen. Teach your dog what gets rewarded, instead of them running through the area putting paws on counters to see what's up there or trying to beg food off of your toddler. Try setting a dog bed in the corner of the dining area and reward your puppy for laying on it. Good, intermittently meaning every so often and randomly, with different rewards to keep interest in this activity. Over time, lengthen the time required for the next reward to fall. Now you've taught your dog to go lay on a mat in the kitchen and that earns them rewards. You've taught them a good behavior you like and also effectively avoided problem behaviors like counter surfing, begging or running like crazy in the kitchen area.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Teaching your puppy to stay on a mat does require some patience. Dogs have very little, naturally, so we must teach them that waiting equals rewards. Training your puppy to wait for things requires a patient approach. Start with simple exercises like making your puppy wait before you set down their food bowl or before going outside, before you open the door, have them wait and then release them to go outside. Using little, simple cues like wait or stay throughout the day, it really helps your puppy understand the concept of I wait and something good happens Again. That doesn't come naturally to them, that must be taught. So be consistent with that, be repetitive with that. Use it throughout the day so that they understand I wait and good things happen. So gradually increase the duration that you're asking your puppy to wait or stay and this helps them become more accustomed to the concept of overall patience. Consistent repetition and using that positive reinforcement that we talked about will help your dogs understand the value of waiting and that there is value in it. That's so foreign to them.

Speaker 1: 7:32

I like to teach patients to my dogs through games, so I try to incorporate games into our daily routine. This can be fun and effective and it teaches them patience at the same time. So try to make everything a game if possible. I like to do simple activities like wait or stay games because that develops impulse control in my dog. If any of you have demand barkers, meaning the dog barks at you for attention or barks at you to give them food faster or barks at you because they want something we call that demand barking. Teaching them to wait or stay helps them be patient and control their impulses, and that barking will go away. So again, start with short durations and we just gradually increase the time that our puppy is willing to wait, so rewarding them at two seconds and then five seconds and then 10 seconds, and then 20 seconds and then 40 seconds, and then go back and throw in a couple easy ones like five seconds or 10 seconds to surprise them, and you'll see that your puppy gets better and better and better at waiting. So games not only provide mental stimulation for your dogs, which is super important, just as important as physical exercise but it also creates a positive bond between you and your dog. So if you need ideas for patience games, check out our website. In our members area. We have a games and activities page chuck full of games that teach patience and impulse control.

Speaker 1: 8:49

All right, let's talk about relaxation training, so teaching our puppy. We've already talked a little bit about this. Essentially, having our puppy do a stay or go to their mat or go to place is somewhat of a relaxation training process, but a little bit more about it would be teaching them that it's important overall as part of the daily routine. So we like to incorporate these short little relaxation sessions into our daily schedules and I like to focus on calm behavior such as laying down or staying quiet, and then again we're just gradually extending the durations of these sessions and we reward our dogs for maintaining a relaxed state. So, like I mentioned before, sometimes when we're doing relaxation training, our dogs are on alert, like I asked them for a down and they're in a down and they're staring at me intently. Okay, they're not super relaxed, but they are staying and they are waiting. We want to take that to the next step of instead of them feeling like they're on cue.

Speaker 1: 9:38

I want to start to notice this relaxation training of my dog just naturally chooses to lay down and relax and I like that and I want that to happen more so. Fostering the idea of we play and then we settle, and then we play and then we settle, and the training of the stay and the go to place All of these things combine into helping our dog be able to naturally relax more so on their own throughout the day, and you're giving them time because of the routine and the structure that you've created, they start to relax into it, meaning, oh, I know that right now I'm going to settle because it's subtle time, and then we're going to go play, and then it's maybe great time for a while, right, and then we're going to go play and then we're going to. You know, amy's going to go back to work and I can just settle on this mat next to her and take a nap. So that starts to happen. As we're creating these daily practices of getting our dogs to wait and to stay and then alternating between play and settle, and play and settle, they become better at managing their relaxation abilities during the day. It becomes part of a natural part of them, really. So you can introduce your dog to a specific cue, such as settle, to signal to your puppy that it's time to relax. Try using a very calm tone of voice and encourage them to lie down in a designated spot and then reward them initially for laying down in that spot, but then try just going about what you're supposed to be doing and see if they'll just relax into it. Doing this when they've just exercised, right, They've already gotten a drink, they've already gone to the bathroom and it's around nap time. It's a great time to start to practice some of this, where they're settling, not even necessarily in their crate or pen anymore. They're out here where you are and they're learning to relax next to you, so that settle cue can be important to signal to them it's time to chill Now.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Also, environment makes a big difference, so ensure that your puppy's environment supports a calm demeanor right. Minimize distractions such as loud noises or excessive activity. Try to keep things a little more quiet still. There's not kids running through the room. If we can at all possible, try to create a quiet environment. That will help your puppy want to also quiet down.

Speaker 1: 11:48

Now again, consistency is paramount. You guys, be patient and persistent in your efforts as we start to train, settle and wait behaviors. Understand that every dog is unique and the learning process takes time right. It's really easy for me to explain this to you in 15 minutes, but recognize this is going to take some time, right, for your puppy to understand and to really get the gist of this new routine that's happening. So be sure that your entire family is on board and they know the rules for your dog. The more everyone follows the same rules, the quicker your puppy will catch on. So be sure to help your puppy see the benefits of following the rules using the positive reinforcement techniques that we talked about.

Speaker 1: 12:23

A little bit of a side note on that reward, reward, reward that first year of training. You guys Make sure you're not bribing your dog but rather paying them. This means you ask for behavior, the dog gives you behavior, then you pay them for it. If you get in the habit of showing them the payment to bribe them to do something, so you're showing them the payment before they're actually doing the behavior, they will become dependent on seeing what the reward is first and you'll even start to see them start to decide is it worth it or not. So be sure that you lose the lure as quickly as you can when teaching new behavior and get to that mode of the.

Speaker 1: 12:58

I ask for behavior, the dog does the behavior, then I pay the behavior. Okay, we can help you with this inside our members area if you need assistance. But you guys remember, training your new puppy to settle and wait for things is an investment, right? It's a building a relationship between the two of you and it's leading to a well behaved canine companion, which is what we want when we have a dog living in our homes, so through a combination of routine positive reinforcement, using specific cues like wait, stay or settle, and patience, you can guide your dog toward a calm and composed demeanor. It is possible. Remember that building these habits takes time. So approach this process with consistency, understanding and a commitment to nurturing a positive bond with your dog. You guys, I wish you the best in 2024. Happy new year, happy training. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other puppy training question, visit my site, baxter and Bellacom, to contact me.