The hottest two weeks: indoor training games

The hottest two weeks of a Houston year usually land in the middle of August, when the pavement is still warm at midnight and the dawn walk starts in the mid eighties. For those two weeks the outdoor calendar all but closes, and a dog with no plan spends them bouncing off the walls. The dogs in the training home spend them working, indoors, and they are tired by dinner. Here is what we do.

The five sessions

• Hallway recall. Two people at opposite ends of the longest hallway, calling the dog back and forth, one word each, a treat on every arrival. Ten reps and the dog is panting on the tile.
• Place with duration. The dog on its bed while you cook dinner, then while you eat it, then through a television episode. Build by five minutes a night. It is the most useful skill in the house and it costs nothing.
• The doorbell drill. Somebody rings the bell, the dog goes to place, the door opens, the dog holds. Five rings after dinner, every night, and the September deliveries take care of themselves.
• Find it. Kibble hidden around one room, the dog sent to search with its nose. Twenty minutes of sniffing does more for a dog's brain than an hour of walking.
• The crate on cue. Say the word, the dog walks in, the door closes, a treat comes through the bars. Ten reps a day, because the crate is the hurricane carrier and September is three weeks away.

What each one is really teaching

None of these are games to the dog. Hallway recall is recall. Place through dinner is impulse control and duration. The doorbell drill is the door manners that fall apart in the holidays. Find it is nose work, which settles a dog faster than anything else we know. The crate on cue is evacuation practice. Our trainers run all five in the training home every August afternoon, between the dawn session and the dusk one, and the dogs that go home at the end of the month have better indoor manners than the ones that trained in April.

The fifteen minutes outdoors

There is still a walk. At first light, fifteen minutes, structured, on grass where possible, and then inside to place with the air on. Check the pavement with the back of your hand, and if you cannot hold it there for seven seconds the walk is the yard. Water before and after. And the same walk again after nine at night, when the sidewalk has finally cooled, which in the middle of August is not a given.

The people problem

The dog is fine indoors. It is the family that gets cabin fever, and a bored family lets the rules slide. Pick one session from the list for each evening of the week and put it on the calendar. Fifteen minutes each. A dog that gets a job every evening for two weeks comes out of August calmer than it went in, and by the first cool front it has habits the long walk never taught.

If you want a trainer's eye on it

A private lesson at our home in Cypress is $160, air conditioned, and an hour of it in August is usually spent on exactly these five sessions, with our trainer watching the mechanics and fixing the timing. For a dog that needs the whole routine built, Gold takes two weeks and costs $2,500; a dog that arrives now is home with place, the crate and the door before the season turns.

Written by

Best Dog University Team

Board and train trainers in Cypress, Houston. 16+ years, 900+ dogs. About our team