Peanut Butter & Banana Training Treats.

Yesterday I mentioned that I would be sharing a training treat recipe with you today. This recipe is really simple with only 3 ingredients (4 if you wanna count the splash of water) and can easily be used to make regular sized cookies if that’s what you want, but I used it to make tiny bite sized training treats.

Petal loves peanut butter and bananas. Peanut butter has a strong smell to it, a smell that Petal loves and will work for. Bananas are delicious, nutritious and add a sweet taste to the treats.

Here’s what you will need:

  • 2 cups of your choice of flour
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 banana
  • some water
3 photos. First photo is of a single banana in a mixer. Second photo of a jar of Krema peanut butter. Third photo of banana and peanut butter in a mixer.

I used Krema peanut butter because it’s made with just one ingredient: Peanuts.

Mix together banana, peanut butter and flour. Mix it well. Then add a splash of water and mix well again. Do not go crazy with the water or else you’ll end up having to add a whole lot more of the flour and then you’ll be baking all night. I am speaking from experience. Don’t know what I was thinking adding a whole cup of water. Way too much. Just add small splashes, mixing well before adding more, until you get a nice dough. A good way to tell is to touch it. Did the dough stick to your finger? You need some more flour. Did it feel dry and crumbly? You need more water.

3 photos of banana, peanut butter, flour and water being mixed together.

First picture: banana and peanut butter. Second picture: banana, peanut butter and flour. Third picture: banana, peanut butter, flour and water.

On a lightly floured surface begin rolling out your dough to your desired thickness. Then use small cookie cutters to cut little bit sized cookies. I used piping nozzles. They made just the right shape and size I was looking for. Plus I could use the other side to poke a little design into the top of the cookie, just for fun.

Using piping nozzles as cookie cutters to make bite sized training treats for your dog.

Piping nozzles as cookie cutters.

Yes, this did, indeed, take ages. Hours. So I didn’t bother to preheat my oven until I had already cut out a few cookies. Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and load that thing up with cookies. Go ahead and place them close together, they’re not going anywhere. 😉

Photo of a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and small round training cookies for dogs.

Loads of training treats!

Pop your treats into the oven and bake at 250 for 30 minutes. Allow them to cool for several hours, or over night in the oven, before storing them. I stored mine in an air tight cookie jar and they still smelled yummy a week later. However, if you’re concerned, you can store them in an air tight container in the fridge.

Petal loved these treats and they were the perfect training treat size; probably about the size of a US penny. Petal worked very well for them, making it worth all the time I spent cutting out tiny little circles. 😉


Today we’re joining the Tasty Tuesday Blog Hop hosted by Kol’s Notes and Sugar the Golden Retriever.

Positive Pet Training Blog Hop #2

It’s time for the Positive Training blog hop hosted by Dachshund Nola, Cascadian Nomads and Tenacious Little Terrier.

Today I thought I would share what we’re working on and some trick cards I bought, plus my clicker.

Lately we’ve been really focusing on every walk being a training opportunity, as Cascadian Nomads’ wrote about last month. I have a really bad habit of just getting lost in my own world while walking Petal and not noticing she’s getting amped up by something until she starts barking and bouncing. It’s easier to calm her down if I have her attention before she gets over excited, but I have to pay attention in order to do that. So I made it a goal to pay attention during our walks, to reward every good thing she does, to help her through the difficult things and to ask for random tricks along the way, to keep her interested and on her toes.

"You'd better pay attention to me, woman."

“You’d better pay attention to me, woman.”

I’ve already noticed a huge improvement in her behavior when we go for walks. Her biggest problem is that she gets over excited about other dogs, especially if they are both visible and barking. So I’ve been clicking and treating every time we pass any dogs. I set her up for success by clicking and treating her for simply walking past the dogs, even if she’s barking and/or bouncing as we walk. She’s starting to realize that seeing and/or hearing other dogs = treats for her and that eating treats is tough to do when you’re being crazy so we’d better just be as calm as we can because we can eat more treats that way.

Petal gets especially crazy when a pickup truck with barking dogs in the back drives past us. It got to the point where she would bark and lunge towards any pickup truck, regardless of whether or not there was a dog inside. This is a habit that scares me nearly to death. It’s dangerous and it had to be taken care of right away. I had been clicking and treating before, but only if there was a dog, that was not enough. I also realized that a good part of the reason she reacts so strongly is because it scares the heck out of me and she picks up on that. It scares me for two reasons, 1) it’s incredibly startling when a barking truck comes zooming up behind you as you walk down a normally quiet street and 2) I get so nervous that these barking and bouncing dogs are going to hop out of the truck bed and be killed right in front of me (why can’t people at least kennel their dogs when riding in a truck bed?). I realized I had to change my own reaction in order to change Petal’s. I also needed to click and treat for every pickup truck, not just the ones with barking dogs in the back.

Changing my reaction was the hardest part. My startled jump is involuntary. I started bracing ourselves for barking whenever I heard a car coming. I braced Petal by clicking and treating and talking calmly to her. I braced myself by chanting, in my head (don’t want a passerby to think I’m a lunatic), “bark! bark! bark!” which sounds silly but when/if the real barking came, I was not startled by it. In fact, I started to find it amusing that my mental chanting was sometimes followed by the real deal and instead of jumping I would laugh. This was great because laughter is a sound that has fascinated Petal since she was a puppy. She LOVES laughter. That paired with clicking and treating until Petal has settled down has done wonders. She rarely lunges anymore and she quits barking fairly quickly. Occasionally she doesn’t bark at all and then we really celebrate with loads of treats and praise. It also helps to walk her in town along busy Main Street where cars are constantly driving by us, the constant noise and movement takes away the surprise of a dog suddenly barking.

"I'm a good doggy."

“I’m a good doggy.”

Speaking of clickers, I learned the hard way that getting a good clicker does make a difference. Not all are created equal as I once thought. Personally, I have found that I like the “button” type ones (as pictured below) the best. When I first started clicker training I used the clickers from Petsmart (this one here (this is not an affiliated link, just sharing so we’re all on the same page)). These clickers worked great so long as you…
a) use only your thumb to click it
b) knew how to click it without pinching your thumb (I’m a dumb-butt who pinched my thumb constantly)
c) you did not try to click it with a slobbery thumb, which caused sliding and more thumb pinching and smashing and whining.
But it worked and I wasn’t about to replace a working clicker. So I dealt with it. Until one day, about a year ago, I was placing a food order on Chewy.com and was just 2ish dollars away from free shipping. I could either spend 2 more dollars on another item or $4.95 on shipping. Um, duh. I bought myself a new clicker.

newclicker

I’ve gotta say, I felt really silly for not shoveling out another dollar or two for this clicker over the Petsmart one much sooner. It is a thousand times better. It’s easier to click which means I can mark Petal’s good behavior much faster which is very important with training. I can click it with any one of my fingers, not just my thumb, even when they’re slimy or slobbery and it doesn’t pinch!

Last year, towards the end of February, I was looking for something low key to do with Lassie and Petal. I had had surgery a few months prior and was still recovering, but I was getting very bored and I was missing doing more than snuggling with my dogs (don’t worry, my family not only took great care of me, they took great care of Lassie and Petal too and exercised them for me daily). I was able to take them on short walks, but I wanted more to do. So I took to the Internet to find some fun tricks to teach them. That’s when I found this book on Amazon:

trickworkbook

I was really intrigued by the trick cards. They sounded like a fun way to keep tricks we were learning organized and to remind me we’re working them. I sometimes forget about tricks before we’ve mastered them, oops. Plus these would be easy to tote around. I could easily take the trick card I was working on to a separate room in the house or outside or into town so we could work on it in high distraction areas. I could easily toss one trick card aside and work on a different one instead. You can also keep track of how many times you’ve practiced the trick on the back of the card.

The book recommends you mark a box for every 5 repetitions of the trick with the intention that after 100 repetitions your dog will have learned/mastered the trick.

trickcardsbook

The trick cards come in four levels of difficulty and are color coded for each level of difficulty. Orange is level 1 and teaches you about timing. Green is level 2 and technique. Dark blue is level 3 and motivation. Light blue is level 4 and building. The tricks vary from “sit” to “cover your eyes” to “get your leash” to “tidy up your toys”. The book is color coded as well and gives greater detail into each trick and has some troubleshooting tips and more. It is, as it says, a workbook and is meant to be written in and worked through. I have not done that. I haven’t watched the DVD it came with either. I bought this book for the cards, honestly. I have read through the book though and it’s a really fun and helpful book. I learned a few things and gained more confidence in what I already knew. I plan on actually using it for it’s intended purpose (a workbook) for my next dog and starting from the beginning.

The book is a great way to track your progress with your tricks and has lots of fun ideas for bonding with your dog. With this book Petal has learned (or is working on) the following tricks:

Paws Up
Take a Bow (“bow”)
Say Your Prayers (“prayers”)
Wave Goodbye (“wave”)
Spin
Beg
Get Your Leash

Tricks included in the book that Petal already knew:

Sit
Shake
Crawl
Turn Off the Light (“Get the Light!“)

Petal knows many other tricks and commands as well, these are just the tricks that she knows from the book. We are also expanding on the “Get Your Leash” trick and she is learning to get my shoes and my coat. Admittedly, she expanded on this trick all on her own I’m just trying to get her to do it on command and only on command, haha.

Be sure to check back tomorrow, I’ll be sharing a recipe for homemade training treats! :)

Note: this is not an “official” review of either the clicker or the book. I wasn’t asked to write about either item and I haven’t been compensated in any way. I bought both items myself, a year ago, and have found them both useful so thought I would share; who knows, someone else might find them useful too. 😉

Thanks to the hosts Dachshund NolaCascadian Nomads and Tenacious Little Terrier!

Positive Training Blog Hop: “Get the Light!”

Our friends Dachshund Nola, Cascadian Nomads, and Tenacious Little Terrier came up with the brilliant idea to host a blog hop once a month to talk about Positive Training. You can learn more about the hop at any 3 of the hosts’ blogs.

I’ve been using Positive Training since I was 13 and Lassie was just a 2 month old ball of fluffy, chubby love. I used Positive Training techniques, without even realizing it, with both Lassie and Ella. When I added Petal to the family I started using it even more and decided to learn how to use a clicker as well. Best dollar I ever spent. Petal LOVES the clicker and food and learning. She’s the perfect student, if I do say so myself. Though I will say that she often gets over eager and tries to perform tricks before I ask for them, which doesn’t work because how can she do what I haven’t asked her to do yet? She can’t, so she ends up doing everything that I might ask, which leads to her looking rather silly and feeling confused. I simply ignore this until she calms down and gives me her full attention, then we get to work.

Today I thought I would share a trick I taught Petal when she was a puppy. It was a trick I taught her just for fun. Just to see if I could do it. I knew Petal could do it, easy, but I wasn’t so sure I could figure out how to train it. The trick was “Get the Light” aka turn off the light. To accomplish this she would have to jump up to the light switch and paw it just right to turn the light off. She already knew “touch” so we built on that.
I held my hand against the wall and asked her to “touch” it. I clicked and treated her when she did so. We did this a couple of times before I started removing my hand right before she could touch it, making her touch the wall instead. Click and treat. I was going to slowly have her make her way up the wall, making her touch a little higher and a little higher until we got to the light switch, but she got bored and I got bored, so we jumped ahead.
Literally.
I started encouraging her to jump up onto the wall, clicking and treating every time she jumped up, whether she touched the wall or not. Once she got that down, I only clicked and treated when her paw made contact with the wall, extra praise and treats if she touched the frame around the light switch, which had a treat taped to it. Yes, I taped a dog treat to the light switch to her encourage her to gravitate towards the switch. That probably wasn’t necessary but it was amusing and it did bring her attention to the switch, making her aware of it. Once she mastered touching the wall and sniffing the light switch, I only clicked and treated when her paw touched the frame around the light switch. If she happened to pull the switch down as she touched the frame she got LOADS of praise and treats. Eventually I started clicking and treating only when she turned the light off.

I have a video of the end result. It was recorded a day or two after Petal learned the trick (after a day or two of training).

As the description reminded me, she was only 8 months old!
Also, please ignore my incredibly annoying voice.

It’s been a few months since she learned any new tricks, but her most recently learned tricks are High Five!, Spin, and Bow. We’ve started working on Beg/Sit Pretty just today. High Five! is her favorite trick. She practically taught it to herself a few months ago (in September maybe?) and I can tell it’s her favorite because she’ll consistently do it for free (no treat) and she’ll even do it for my family members, not just me. 😉

highfivepetal1

highfivepetal2

Thanks again to the lovely hosts of this blog hop, Dachshund Nola, Cascadian Nomads, and Tenacious Little Terrier! It was fun! Can’t wait for next month!

positivetrainingbloghop

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Collie bottoms + A bit of bragging

A couple of Collie butts.

Photobucket
And one just so happens to be stalking the other. 😉

As for bragging, I feel I should do some bragging about Petal. I figure since I’m always willing to share her mischief, I should share her shining moments too.

First of all, you should know that Petal loves little kids. She’ll sing her best song for them, jump, pounce, bounce and pull out all of her greatest Collie moves, but to her dismay they always run away.
(Gee, I wonder why).
This week two of my cousins have been staying with us. Both of them girls, one of them 13 and one of them 8. And, you guessed it, she’s much more interested in the 8 year old, who happens to dislike having her space invaded by a long, moist snout. Petal’s not sure why. Lassie is a little more understanding, but he can’t always resist giving her a good poke with his nose. Ella, however, has always appreciated having her own space and thus she completely understands.
But Petal must have this girl’s attention. And admiration. All the time. So she barks, licks, jumps and dances.
The jumping is the biggest concern, of course. Petal is a big dog and easily knocks kids over with her excitement. So she’s been living life on a harness and leash this week.

The first day and a half I had to have constant hold on the leash, but now I can let go of her leash and let her wander free at certain times of the day (when she’s tired and mellow, when the kids are in the other room, when the kids are just kicking back watching TV, etc).
But I have to say, I’m shocked at how quickly she’s adapted to having two extra people in the house. It’s almost as if they’ve been here for months, rather than a week.
The jumping has been brought down to a minimum throughout this week and now it’s practically nonexistent. She’s still on the harness and leash, just incase, plus it seems to remind her to be on her best behavior.

Then yesterday (Wednesday) we went to the park and Petal tagged along with us for some training.
And she was excellent.
A little barking here and there, but less than expected. She walked nicely with me and had a great time sniffing around without getting overly excited and hyped up (due to me taking her for a nice long walk before hand, I’m sure). Me and two of my sisters played with her, calling her back and forth between us and she did so well with staying focused on us and going to whomever called her.
But, before that, the most impressive thing she did at the park was letting two little (and nervous) girls walk past her without barking, straining on her leash, or *dramatic pause*
breaking her sit.
That I didn’t even put her in.
She was calmly sitting there, in front of me, my Mom, and sisters when these two little girls came to walk by. There really wasn’t much room to pass by, they easily could’ve reached out and touched Petal and Petal easily could’ve reached out to touch them, but neither of them did. Petal turned her head and watched them walk by without a peep or any more movement than it took to turn and look at them.
She’s never done anything like this before. Children have always been a great target for Petal’s jumping and licking and barking, but Wednesday she just let them pass by without even straining or breaking her sit to sniff them. I was so proud! And Petal was, of course, rewarded with yummy treats and lots of praise and petting. 😉

She really is growing up so fast. I don’t realize that often enough and sometimes I wonder if I’ve done something wrong by her, but then a moment like the one at the park comes along and I realize I’ve done pretty well with her. She’s a good dog. Especially for her age. Lassie, at Petal’s age, was much more difficult in certain ways. He was much more trouble and took longer to mature.
(But isn’t that how it goes with boys? They don’t mature as fast, or as well, as us girls ;P)
(Sorry to any and all guys who might read this)
(But it’s true)