Mia is a seven month old Border Collie mix. She was adopted as an eight week old puppy by her family from a local shelter. Mia is already a very sweet dog, but has the tendency to jump on people and doesn’t always come when her owners call her. Mia’s owner is a manager in a pet store. Many of the customers that come into the pet store look forward to seeing her when they come in. Mia occasionally has jumped on the staff and customers so her owners decided it was time to start training her before someone accidentally got hurt.
Mia is an excellent dog to work with. She is very bright and seems to enjoy learning. We are teaching her all the basic obedience commands, and at the same time we are working on her jumping issues. Mia is beginning to understand that when she jumps on people she won’t receive any reinforcement, but when she sits politely she will be praised and patted which she values much more than food rewards. This week I brought Freedom (one of my Service Dogs in training) for a distraction. They proved to be very useful distractions for one another, as Freedom himself needs some improvement in certain aspects as well. Mia is now well on her way. She is advancing quickly into the good citizen her owners want her to be!
