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Rafa | Golden Retriever | Beverly Hills, CA | In Training

Tanner Strong

Meet Rafa! He's a six month old Golden Retriever from Beverly Hills, California. He's here for our Two-Week Board and Train program. Rafa is very friendly, but he has issues pulling on the leash, jumping, play biting and following basic commands. Stay tuned for Rafa's fourteen day transformation!

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Pupdate: Sunday, April 3rd 2022






After I picked up Rafa today, we went to Red Hill Park to begin training! I'm starting out by teaching him the Heel command. I want Rafa to be able to walk nicely at my left side with his ears at my knee. For the first few minutes Rafa was jumping and biting the leash while we walked. When he does this, or when he moves out of the proper position, I give a gentle tug on his leash to get him where he needs to be. When he is in the correct position, I give Rafa lots of verbal praise and even scratch his head. He is responding very well to this technique, and before long he was walking politely! He's still veering off every few yards, but he's already doing well by walking without trying to jump on me! I also started teaching Rafa how to Sit properly, and he's starting to get that one as well! Overall a great first day for Rafa!


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Pupdate: Monday, April 4th 2022



Rafa and I went to a local park to train today! I think we bonded a lot last night, because today Rafa started off strong!

I kept working on Rafa's Heel, which seems to be improving well. I also started showing Rafa the Come To Sit Command. For this command I want Rafa to hold a Sit, then Come to my right side, walk around my legs and Sit at my left with his ears at my knee. As you can see in the above video, Rafa is doing well with this so far!

Unfortunately, Rafa did still have some loose stool this evening. He's been great about holding it until he's outside, so luckily no indoor accidents! He's already eaten today, but if he has loose stool again tomorrow I'll feed him rice to help.


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Pupdate: Tuesday, April 5th 2022






Rafa went to Wilderness Park today for training! He's getting pretty good with the commands he knows, and today I introduced a new command: Place! For this command, I want Rafa to hop onto a raised object, such as a bench. In the first picture above, you can see Rafa sitting nicely in place! He's doing a great job.

I replaced one cup of Rafa's kibble with rice and added a spoonful of pumpkin for his dinner. I'm hoping this will help settle his stomach!



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Pupdate: Wednesday, April 6th 2022



Rafa and I went to Montebello mall today for training! He is learning a new command! The Down command simply has Rafa lay down when I ask. As you can see in the above video, he is getting it pretty well, although I don't want him to roll onto his side when he lays down! Other than that, great job Rafa!

I fed Rafa more rice this morning and this evening. As of the time of writing, he hasn't passed any stool, so I'm still waiting to see if his diarrhea is gone!


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Pupdate: Thursday, April 7th 2022






Rafa went to Shoreline Village today for training! All his commands are coming along very well. He passed a semi-solid stool today, which is good new for his tummy! I'm still going to feed him rice for a couple more meals, but he's definitely getting better!


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Pupdate: Friday, April 8th 2022



Rafa and I went to a local park this morning to train! I attached Rafa's leash to his flat collar rather than the prong collar. He is starting to respond better to the e collar! As you can see in the above video, Rafa is getting good with all his commands. My only complaint from the video is when Rafa hops up into Place, I asked him to Sit and he wanted to lay down! That's a fairly small mistake, and I'd say he's doing very well!


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Pupdate: Saturday, April 9th 2022





For Rafa's training today, we went to the Promenade in Santa Monica! He's doing well with all his commands, he just gets a little too excited sometimes and wants to get close to me or anyone around him. He's still young, so this is expected, but my goal for him right now is to get him to the point where he is comfortable sitting still for at least a couple minutes!


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Pupdate: Sunday, April 10th 2022



Rafa went to Hollydale Park today for training! He is getting good with all his commands, so to raise the difficulty a bit, everything you'll see in today's video was done with zero tension on Rafa's leash, and I relied solely on the E collar! You can see he makes a few mistakes, but overall a good performance!


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Pupdate: Monday, April 11th 2022






Rafa and I went to Citadel Outlets today for training! I was hoping it would be more crowded so Rafa would get exposure to distractions, but the weather was a bit cloudy, seemingly keeping most shoppers at home. He did well nonetheless! One person did come up and ask to pet Rafa, which I allowed. Although he isn't jumping on people anymore, he's still struggling with sitting still when greeting them, which I hope to fix by introducing him to more people throughout this week!


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Pupdate: Tuesday, April 12th 2022



Rafa and I went to Legg Lake today! We started doing training exercises with the leash dragging to raise the difficulty a bit. As you can see in the above video, Rafa did well with this! He just needs to tighten up his commands a little!


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Pupdate: Wednesday, April 13th 2022






Today Rafa and I went to Almansor Park for training! There were plenty of people exercising, geese swimming, and squirrels running to serve as good distractions for Rafa during training!

I felt that Rafa was ready to go off leash today, so instead of just letting the leash drag while training, we took it all the way off! He performed all of his commands quite well. His performance just needs a little bit of tightening up.

After training, he got to have a nice play date with another puppy! He really enjoyed that.


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Pupdate: Thursday, April 14th 2022



For training today, Rafa and I went back to Citadel Outlets! It was much more crowded than the other day, which means much more distractions for Rafa! He did very well off leash. The above video is a run through of what Rafa will do in his final video!


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Pupdate: Friday, April 15th 2022



Rafa went to a local park today for training! For today's pupdate, I want to show some of the manners Rafa has been working on. In the above video, you'll see Rafa's food manners, door manners and car manners! For food manners, I want to be able to put food in front of Rafa without him immediately lunging at it. For door manners I want Rafa to sit nicely at the door when I open it without rushing out ahead of me. For car manners, I want Rafa to hop up into the car and walk directly into his kennel. Rafa has been getting good at each of these!

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Pupdate: Saturday, April 16th 2022





For my last full day with Rafa, we went to Venice Beach for training! All the different people and dogs served as good distractions for him! After that we went to a local park for a more relaxed time together! Rafa has come a long way and I'm so proud of him! I'm going to miss him when he goes home!









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