Negative Intelligence

Mac will be 14 weeks on Tuesday. He does some good things but he much prefers to be getting up to mischief.
I nearly fell into the trap of trying too many things too soon.
For the last week I've been walking Mac in a quite area. I've not being doing much with him at all. I walk him through light covert and I praise him when he works the ground. I do a few whistle recalls during the course of the walk and occasionally I'll plank a ball in the covert and give him a "lost" command. I make a huge fuss of him if he finds it.

In the house, I've been playing with Mac, getting him to take an object gently in his mouth then release the object with a "dead" command. I've also introduced a "leave" command when he picks up something that I'd prefer to keep out of his mouth!!

I've witnessed a few episodes where Mac doesn't want to bring a ball back to me or is reluctant to walk to heel or come when called. I generally ignore these behaviours and stop interacting with him for a few minutes. If he continues to resist, I tend to finish on a happy note and get him home ASAP. I always try to finish with a waggy tail.