Training

When I got Loki, I was so enthusiastic about training him. We started training him almost on day one. Training him basic commands. Training him on basic manners. And potty training. I read a ton of resources. I bought books. I borrowed books from the library. I took him to puppy socialization sessions. And we enrolled in a puppy obedience class.

Our second dog? Hm... not so much. It's so interesting how much my enthusiasm has faded. I was so gung-ho about training our first dog. Second one? Eh... I hardly care.

It's true that the whole point of getting an adult was because I had no time to train a puppy. And because she is non-aggressive, I also feel less urgency to train her. But after a couple weeks, we still have done almost no training with her.

Even though she's completely non-aggressive, she has no manners. She jumps on people. She whines for attention. She's pushy. She will ram her muzzle under your hands, demanding that you pet her. Etc.

So, I still had to do some training with her. To begin with, since we re-named her, I had to teach her her name. And she also didn't seem to know basic commands like sit and down.

And what about the command 'come'? Around the house, she's so attached that she always responds to the command come. But the other day she darted out our front door, and well, 'come' doesn't work out so well for a shiba running off leash outdoors. Even though she is so attached to us indoors, outdoors she's still a shiba, curious about exploring the world around her. She made it down the street with all of our neighbors trying to catch her. I ran down the street and scooped her in my arms. She looked so happy to be running around free.

Anyways, back to the training. I learned quickly that Jujube's motivators are very different from Loki. Loki is extremely food motivated. He works for any and all food. In contrast, Jujube loves attention. In fact, this makes it easy to train her, because I can do it without treats. I always ignore her when she demands attention -- and boy is she pushy when she wants attention. If she doesn't get free attention, then she has to work for it. And this is how she learned sit. She sits, and then she gets pet. Sit, then pet. As an aside, it's not true that she's completely not food motivated. Apparently, she loves cheese. Liver treats she could live without. But cheese is golden.