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When Mina was enrolled in puppy kindergarten, we were trained on how to train Mina. Basically, how to use keywords and sometimes hand gestures to signal your dog to behave a certain way. For example, we trained Mina to do "carwash". When we say "Mina, carwash!", she’ll respond by doing a figure-8 around your legs. And of course, we’ve also trained her to do the classics: "sit", and "down". MIna doesn’t know how to roll yet — too much energy to stay down that long.
It’s one thing to train your dog to respond to words that you intentionally pick for a given action. But it’s somewhat amusing that she’ll also pick up on keywords that we use subconsciously to respond to certain events. I noticed that Mina knows when she’s being taken for a walk. One of us will open up the closet door and take her harness out. As soon as this happens, she’ll get instantly energetic, run over to you, sit at your feet and position herself to be harnessed up. Then once harnessed, she’ll sit in front of the door waiting for you to put your shoes on. That’s very intuitive of her. It’s gotten to a point where, as soon as one opens the closet door, she’ll pop her head up from wherever she is lounging to see if the harness comes visible. If not, she’ll just plop back down to her rested state. But recently, i’ve noticed that she’ll somehow know i’m ready to take her for a walk even before i get to the closet door and before she sees her harness come out. Why? How does she KNOW?? I realize i’ve gotten into a habit of saying "Let’s go!" before we head out. Now, if i say, "Mina, Let’s GO!" She’ll run over to the closet door and sit there to get her harness put on. I suppose that now that she’s gotten into the habit of responding to "Let’s go" as meaning "Time for a walk", I should be consistent in my use of the words.
Last night Mina was ringing the doorbell to indicate to me that she was ready for Potty Time. I was in the middle of cooking (always in the middle of cooking) so i waited a couple of minutes to finish up. Mina sat patiently waiting for me to finish. Then, once i was ready, I subconsciously said, "Ok Mina, let’s go". Oops. Instead of running to th balcony where her potty breaks happen, she ran instead to the closet expecting to be harnessed up. As i saw her running the wrong way, i had to change my choice of words- "Ok Mina, Potty Time!" which sent her running back to the balcony door.
What a smart dog!
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