09/08/2025
Meet Archie, the adorable Poochon! 🐶
His family described him as a loving dog with a bit of an attitude! 😂 What they meant was he had a tendency to guard his belongings, chase after family members when they left the room, and even nip at their legs. This behavior led to some minor injuries, not to mention his incessant barking. 😠
So, they reached out for help, and we got to work on changing things up! 🐾 First on the agenda was addressing the chasing. We introduced a "place" command, rewarding Archie for staying in his designated spot whenever someone left the room. This taught him that staying put was much more rewarding than chasing after people. 🛋️✅
Next, we tackled the resource guarding. We implemented a "swap" command, where we replaced the item he was guarding with something of greater value. Over time, Archie learned that giving up what he had could lead to something even better! 🦴➡️🎾
Finally, we addressed the barking. 🤫 A big part of this issue stemmed from a lack of mental stimulation, which meant he wasn’t settling down or getting enough sleep. To fix this, we incorporated enrichment activities into his daily routine. We also taught him a "quiet" command for those times when he did bark. By the end of our sessions, Archie’s chasing behavior had nearly disappeared, he was much more relaxed, and he was responding well to his new skill of stopping barking on command. 😴🧘♀️
Archie is well on his way to being the happy, well-behaved pup his family always wanted! 🥰🐕🦺
