Saturday, June 12, 2010

One Minute Rule Makes For Well Trained You and Dog

As I cruise along here in the Project Happiness Life with Dog as Training Partner experience I’m finding some of the coolest little things that are changing for the better for me, and of course my dogs, in a big way.

For one thing, I was really really tired of being unorganized and pretty much have been my entire life.  I strive for organization and somehow end up more disorganized than ever.  There’s a good reason why my dog is my best friend as well though... my Weimaraner nor my Lab give one paw that things are not put in order!

Anyway, one of my list of 7 Things I Am is Creatively Organized.....

which means that I do want order in my life, I just need it all to be put together in a way that makes sense to me.  That means it needs to be somewhat colorful, and have the things I use the most look good where ever it is that I choose to put them away.  It might not be the rules everyone needs to fall under, but it is what works for me.  I’ve never been too good at staying inside the box.

I’ve always tried to attack doing this by getting organized all in one day.  I’d leave things for later because I was going to make a time to get EVERYTHING organized.  Big surprise I know... that big chunk of time never happened.  When I discovered the idea...

What you Do EVERY DAY counts not what you do sometimes....

and that’s where the one minute rule has really got me going in the direction I’ve been trying to get to for years.  I’m getting nicely organized in a very creative way! 

The One Minute Rule

The One Minute Rule is where if you see something and it will take less than a minute to get done you should do it right then.  Things like picking up my shoes.  Putting the dish that I just ate off of in dishwasher, throwing the laundry in the hamper instead of on the floor by the bed since I’m going to put them back on in the morning anyway... maybe.... which I don’t cause I like to wear new clothes everyday anyway.... deleting the junk e-mail, storing PDF’s, articles, downloads... you know important things where I can find them in the folder that would make sense instead of leaving it as an attachment on the e-mail and then doing a search through 10,000 e-mails to find it again when I need it.  Those types of things.... The One Minute Rule applies to.

So many little things I do now with the one minute rule in mind.  When I come inside from the car instead of putting the miscellaneous items I’ve taken for some outdoor adventure in a pile, I put them where they are supposed to go.  Even the dog leashes.  It takes less than a minute and the little messy piles are gone all the time now.  Good stuff.

Dogs and The One Minute Rule

So how would this pertain to life as a dog?  Well... many dogs are not able to hold a sit in the house, outside the house, by a table of food and certainly not in the midst of another dog in the area or person who appears to possibly be carrying a treat.  In all of these scenarios The One Minute Rule applied to teaching sit initially and then getting a dog to do it anywhere is an amazing trick as well.

The failure of most dogs that the words untrained, or badly trained, or not trained at all is simply the basics are not solid.  For dogs that means sit.

Telling a dog to sit and then not following through is a mistake done commonly and is a product of our unwillingness to take the less than one minute to put the dog back into a sit and make it a habit to start holding that sit longer and longer.... like a minute!

Put in those terms I’m sure there is more than one person that is guilty of letting the dog down by being too busy to help with a one minute sit.  That’s okay... I found that starting today is the best option.... and that what you do every day is what counts from now on.

Project Happiness Life with Dog as Training Partner

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1 comment:

Clint Cora said...

The one minute drill is a great one. Now at five years old, I still put both my dogs through one minute sit and stay drills usually both inside and outside the house each day.