Say It Once!

We often hear students repeating "sit-sit-Sit-Sit-SIT!" or "stayyyyy-stayyyyy-stayyyy" or "Lucky! Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!" etc. 

Often the cues become louder and are repeated very slowly as if we were talking to someone in a foreign language and volume could help make them understand.

It is as if we do not believe that our dogs (who have rather good hearing) can hear what they are saying.

Humans are built for the languages of words. Our brains are wired for incredibly complex networked communication using verbal and written language. 

From the Dog's Perspective
Dogs just don't perceive language the way we do and If someone does not understand your language, repeating a word more times will not help them learn it.

For example, if I say the word Tango to you one hundred times would that help you learn to dance the tango? How about if I said calculus a few thousand times would you be a math genius? If I came over to your house and said "Clean your house!" a few dozen times would you stop everything and clean your house or would you think I was very annoying?

Say it Once
A person who is repeating cues all of the time, will end up with a dog who will learn to wait until you are finished speaking to do the task. In essence you would be training your dog to ignore the first cues and wait for the last cue. 

What Can We Do?
What can we do about all the repeated cues? First we need to recognize that we are repeating things over and over. Being aware will help you take the first steps. We can now focus on becoming more patient with our training. Then we can grab our treat bags and start working with our dogs and make sure we have their attention first. Start with fewer distractions if we do not have attention. Say the cue once and wait patiently to see if they will respond. We might be waiting 30 seconds or more at first. When they do sit or whatever we have asked, then mark it with a verbal marker like "Yes!" and then move our hand to deliver a treat.

Motivation
We often blame the dogs for being stubborn or not listening. I generally think that the dog is just not motivated. Dogs are opportunists, just like we are. Whatever rocks their boat is a motivator not just food but toys, play, praise, touch, movement, freedom, sniffing, swimming or whatever works for them.

Over time, we can start saving our words for cues and sincere praise. Realizing that constant chatter obscures really important communication. By all means use your voice but use it to cue and praise at the right time.

Proactive vs. Reactive
We can also start using words to proactively tell our dogs what to do instead of reactively scolding, correcting, and telling them what not to do. 

For example, If you asked me what I wanted to eat for dinner and I said "not hamburger" that would not be helpful. You wouldn't know what groceries to buy or which recipe to follow to make "not hamburger". However if I said I'd like to have Annie's macaroni and cheese, you'd know exactly what to buy and how to cook it.

To help your dog, teach them what to do. Have them practice sit until they can do it with distractions and then when a person is approaching you can say "sit!" instead of "no jumping!".

Training is a process. During the journey we are learning almost as much as the dog in how to better communicate so we can have happier lives together. I hope this helps you have a richer relationship with your dog.

Be the Cookie!

or Ten Ways to Make Yourself More Valuable to Your Dog

Watching TV shows like Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin as a kid, I was amazed at the rapt attention the dogs gave to their owners. Skip forward a few years when I got a Golden Retriever.  I assumed she would be loyal and give me all of her attention. She was easily distracted and I began to realize that you have to train TV dog attention. It does not just come with the dog.

Here are a few things you can do to increase the chances that your dog will think of you as their sun, moon and stars:

1. Play with your dog. Play games they love. Tug, Find It, Chase (your dog chases you, not the other way around), Treasure Hunt, Hide and Seek, and Fetch are all wonderful games to play. Smiling, laughing and using your voice create an atmosphere of fun will help the dog think of you as the source of good times
2. Install a Learn to Earn program. Feed your dog less from a bowl and more from your hand for doing tricks, showing impulse control and doing some obedience behaviors like sit at the door, sit for your bowl, sit for a leash, wait when I open the car or front door, etc.. Make yourself the gateway to many of the good things in life. 
3. Train with a hungry dog (not starving, just hungry) and use high value, nutritious food for treats. Kibble and flour based treats are minimum wage. Don't be stingy, if your dog is easily distracted, then you might need to use executive wages to get and keep their attention. Even if you have a retriever (read "hungry all the time" and "will eat anything") then you may need to up the ante to develop the attention you need for training. You can use kibble in low distraction environments and something better like hot dogs, chicken or cheese in high distraction environments.
4. Variety is the spice of life! Change to new treats regularly. Dogs get bored of eating the same treat all the time, even if it is high value.  Bring two or three types of treats to a training session and switch to higher value treats when there are bigger distractions.
5. If they love it, use it. Use the things your dog loves to reward them. Just because it costs more or is a pretty color of red (dogs see blue and purple best of all the colors) doesn't mean your dog loves it. Use their enthusiasm as a gauge. Dogs do what works for them, learn how you can make good behavior work for them.
6. Keep your reinforcement rate high. This means keeping the exercises simple enough that your dog can be successful and not taking the difficulty up too quickly. Splitting an exercise down into simple and achievable bits takes practice, and if lots of time (say ten seconds) goes by without having any success or if you find yourself putting your dog back in the stay several times, it means you have bitten off more than they can chew. Decrease the difficulty by decreasing distractions, distance, or duration. Among ourselves trainers call this being "greedy" and we often need to adjust our training plans too. One of our gurus, Bob Bailey, says "Be a splitter, not a lumper".
7. Practice, practice, practice. Play, play, play. Or better yet, practice then play, repeat.
   
8. Keep your practice sessions short enough that you do not loose your dog's attention. For most dogs, lots of short sessions with play breaks will get you to your goal much faster than long sessions. Lots of short sessions are often better to build desired behavior.
9. Motivate your dog to behave well. All training is about motivation and manipulating consequences. Force free trainers use positive consequences to motivate their dogs. Keep your leash loose. If your dog is pulling however they are putting the pressure on the leash. It is your job to figure out how to motivate them to walk on a loose leash or at your side. 
10. Minimize the use of corrections - either verbal or physical. My guideline is to use them only when life or limb are in danger. Using corrections, including collar corrections, can demotivate your dog, physically harm your dog's neck and throat, hurt your relationship with your dog and cause them to pay less attention to you. What kind of relationship do you want with your dog?

Have fun with your dog and keep training throughout your dog's life. As a very wise 5 year old child told me once "They don't stay trained, you know!"


Happy training!

Sandi

Rainy Day Games

If you and your dog have cabin fever, here are some suggestions to take the edge off.

1) Work on your sit or wait at the door. Have your dog look at you before crossing the threshold. Invite friends over to help proof your sit at the door. If you want more help on this attend our Calm Departures & Arrivals class.

2) Teach your dog to offer their front paws so you can wipe them off when they are muddy. Tickle the back of your dog's lower leg until they lift it off the ground, as they lift it up, say "yes!" and reward with a cookie. Repeat five or more times, then put a small towel over your hand and repeat the exercise five or more times. Then start to rub their paws after they offer them to you and reward as you rub them. Take it slowly and reward each step generously. 

3) Teach tug with rules. Play tug, give, sit, tug, give, sit, etc. for exercise, impulse control and to teach the immediate release of a high value object. For more information attend our Tug, Fetch & Release class. 

4) Play fetch or catch with a sit before each throw to improve impulse control. Make sure your dog is not skidding on slippery floors to play fetch. Slipping may cause muscle strain or injury. For more information attend our Tug, Fetch & Release class.

5) Have a treasure hunt, hide treats or toys around the house or go outdoors between rain showers and have your dog find them.  This helps to mentally tire them and teaches them to use their sense of smell. Our Nose Work classes are so much fun and a great way to capitalize on your dog's amazing nose.

6) Play hide and seek. When your dog is in the other room hide behind the sofa, a door, in the shower or behind the bed. Say "Find me!" and wait for them to come and find you. The fewer clues you give the more challenging for the dog. Start with lots of clues like making a noise then fade the clues out so the dog has the responsibility to find you. We teach Recall Games classes that use hide and seek to motivate your dog to look for you. 

7) Give your dog a nice chewy to work on while you are gone or busy. Chewing should be supervised and small bits should be taken away from the dog. If your dog is resource guarding their chewies, do not give them a high value item to practice guarding. Call us for private lessons to end poor behavior.

8) Give your dog a Kong or another intelligent challenge toy with dog food in it. The Nina Ottosson dog puzzles are a wonderful way to spend quality time with your dog.

9) Do Doga (doggy yoga) with your dog. Downward Facing Dog, Cobra,  Breathing Awareness and Upward Paw Pose. Be gentle, overstretching can cause soreness and injury.

10) Work on your sit stay add duration first, when that is reliable at least 80% of the time add distance and last add distractions like household members talking, tv going, doorbells ringing. Try not to get greedy and do too much all at once, remember to set your dog up for success. Always go back to your dog to reward them for the stay instead of calling them to you. Only call them to you when you have worked on stay for several repetitions prior. Attend a Family Dog 1 Stay, Wait & Settle class for more detail on how to train a stay.

11) Play Crate Games (visit  www.livingwithdogs.us/books/ for a marvelous the “Crate Games” by Susan Garrett). Crate Games or Mat Games are a great way to teach a sit or down stay, a motivated release, impulse control and how to love your crate or mat. 

12) Teach your dog a fun or a useful new trick. Tricks are a great way to bond and spend quality time together. People usually laugh and have fun when they are training tricks. The dogs have fun when you have fun. Train your dog to shake, sit up, spin in a circle, roll over, play dead, or to pick up their toys. You can train them to know each toy by name and put them in a basket or toy box.

13) Play the Muffin Tin Game. Click here for a video to see how to play.

14) Play 101 Things to Do with a Box a game invented by Karen Pryor who started out as a dolphin trainer and now is world famous for her books.

15) Play Push the Box (with a toy in it). Click here to view a video. 

16) Put your rain gear on and take your dog for a nice long walk. Take a look at this fancy dogbrella available from Hammacher Schlemmer for a hoot. Our Loose Leash Walking class will help you work with your dog to have more fun on walks. 

Dogs are individuals. Every dog has different needs and rewards. Know what your dog likes and use those things or activities to motivate and reward him or her for good behavior. Be safe and have fun.

We hope you will use the ideas that are best suited for your dog. For more information about training your dog to do more visit our website for a variety of classes and dog sports.

Seasons Greetings!

Guests Are Coming!
How Do I Teach 'No Jumping'?
Greetings are often a challenge for so many dogs. I am frequently asked by people "How do I teach 'no jumping'?" Some of the challenges are jumping at the front door or on family members or guests - especially guests arriving for holiday celebrations this time of year and jumping on people on walks. 

The TRIP Toolbox 
TRIP stands or Train, Reinforce, Interrupt, Prevent. These are like tools in your training toolbox. Here's a bit more about the method:

Train Alternative Behaviors
One of the best ways to teach no jumping is to teach your dog what to do. It is easier to teach what TO DO than it is to teach what NOT to do. In class when I ask what do you want your dog to do instead of jumping the answers are "be calm" and "have all four feet on the floor" but it usually takes a little probing to get people to think about the action of sitting as an alternative behavior. Most dogs have had a lot of practice sitting when asked!

Train "Sit to Greet"
In our Polite Greetings class we teach a variety of greetings but the first is always "Sit to Greet" and "Sit for Passers-by". We've been teaching this for years. It still takes practice for a dog to be able to sit calmly when exciting things are happening. That is a part of growing up and learning self control.

How to Train "Sit to Greet"
Practice leads to confidence!
Practice sit when it is easy at first, when no one is at the front door. It may take a few minutes at first but once this is well practiced and well rewarded, it should become easier for both you and the dog.
Practice sit often - every time you go to the door you are in training mode. Taking the time to ask your dog to sit will make it a habit and that will get you closer to your goal of being able to sit when aroused. 
Practice Reinforcing Sit Often - if sit pays executive wages, then sit becomes a valuable behavior to your dog. Over time, if your timing is good, then you can use praise, patting and fewer food 'paychecks' if your dog begins to think sit is it's own reward.
Practice being consistent - It isn't really fair to allow your dog to jump on Uncle Dave or Cousin Bob and expect them not to jump on little children, elderly people with fragile bones or people with holiday finery or white silk suits.
Practice sit until released. Release your dog after a few seconds at first then increase the time slowly rewarding often.
Practice sit with everyone in the family. If one of the family members is impatient or doesn't ask for a sit at the door, they are training the dog what to expect.
Practice with set up situations. Ask a friend over for dinner or appetizers and use it as an opportunity to train the dog. 
Practice in the Real World. On your walks you can stop when someone passes you or someone wants to greet you or your dog. 
Practice sit with duration, (aka "stay") rewarding your dog for holding the sit frequently as they are sitting.
Practice with progressively more difficult distractions. Your dog will not be ready for prime time right away. If you are trying to do this two days before your New Year's Eve party or Thanksgiving at your house you may want to use management instead.

Reinforcement: Timing Is Key  
Ask your dog to sit, then use a marker like the word "Yes!" to tell your dog when they are doing the right thing and after you mark it, then you can praise, pat and then get you food reward it AFTER you mark, praise and pat. This seems like a very small thing, but if your reward is in sight before you ask for a sit, then your dog is going to think the food in your hand is a part of the signal to sit. If they are used to seeing food, then what happens if you don't have food bribe in your hand? The dog won't know what you mean and thus will not sit. Cue first, praise, pat, then the paycheck always comes last.

Interrupt Poor Behavior
If your dog is jumping on someone, you will need to interrupt the poor behavior by gently taking your dog's collar and pulling them down and away from the person or dog that they are jumping on. 

Prevent & Manage
When you don't have time to train, management is your friend. Management works well for puppies and adolescent dogs, as well as untrained dog but if you want a stellar companion dog, you will need to set aside some time to train. 

If you don't have time to train, you can manage the situation. It really helps the dog learn impulse control if their choices are limited while they are learning. You can limit their choices by putting them on leash, even in the front hall. We often tell people to keep a leash and rewards near the front door. You could also give the dog something to do - like chew on a bone or go fetch a ball.

If you haven't yet trained your dog, your other options are to put your dog in a safe place - on a leash, in a crate, in the back room, outdoors, in the car (well ventilated and safe) or take them to a friend's house or a boarding kennel. 

Distractions, Distractions!
Can your dog sit around distractions? Can they do it in a house? Can they do it with a mouse? Can they do it in a box? Can they do it when they see a running fox? We call distraction training our Dr. Suess lessons. As your dog gets better and better at sit, you can add a little bit of distractions at a time. Here is a list of some common distractions:

• Your movement: slow & fast
• Your distance from your dog
• Noises, like plastic bags crinkling, dogs barking, squeaky toys
• Toys or food on the ground
• Doorbells or knocking on doors
• Mailman or package delivery person 
• Other people moving or talking
• Other dogs walking by
• A favorite person approaching
• Cars, bikes, runners, skateboards going by
• Animals moving, running or making noises
• Toys being thrown near them
• Wildlife running
• Be creative and add some every day distractions to this list

There is a never ending list of distractions, so practice really helps your dog work through different situations.

When Do I Correct My Dog?
Our philosophy is for the handler to take responsibility: train first and set your dog up for success! We advocate using few, if any, corrections. Think about it, if your untrained dog failed whose fault is that anyway?  Take responsibility and train your dog or manage them to keep them out of trouble. A correction puts the responsibility on the dog. If you have not taken the time to really train your dog under all circumstances, then it is not really fair to expect them to know what you want them to do with distractions, or when they are excited or aroused. 

This not only takes practice, it takes patience, it takes being consistent and it takes a little bit of self control and maturity on the dog's part - which comes with time. 

Fortunately, practice can be a fun game and a few minutes a day at the door, or on a walk will pay off handsomely!

What Other Behaviors Can I Train for Greetings?
Here are a few behaviors (or if you like tricks) that you can train instead of jumping. 

• Go to your crate or mat
• Hold a ball in your mouth, instead of mouthing the guests
• Go Say Hi
• Relaxation Protocol
• Doggie Zen
• Crate Games
• Tricks: Bow, Sit Up, Shake

We teach topic classes in many of these specific behaviors, so you can look up our Living with Dogs website and join us in a class or contact us if you'd like to learn more. Also, join us for more interesting articles, photos and events on our Facebook page.

Training gives you more freedom from embarrassment and freedom to relax in all kinds of social situations. Hopefully, this will give you some ideas about how to train your dog to be a well-behaved dog that you can be very proud of. We hope all your holidays are fun and relaxing! 

Seasons Greetings!

From all of us at Living with Dogs,

Sandi, Ed, Irene & Kait
Tempe, KK, Piper & Pilot

What Training Schedule Works Best for Dogs?

I enjoyed reading about this cool new research and wonder if it would help my students who are working on stay for dog sports? 

Here is our new logo, designed by long time student Marguerite Meyer. Thank you!

Proactive & Progressive Training

I am a proactive trainer. I teach my students to try to be proactive and patient too. The other day a student who had a new rescue, Sadie, came to me for help. Sadie is a very energetic and a persistent jumper when greeting new people.

I explained to the client that by jerking the leash and correcting the dog verbally with "Eh-Eh!" or "No!", that the client's attention to her dog may be actually increasing the jumping behavior and actually hurting her relationship with the dog. She had a hard time understanding how force free training would work, but she was willing to give it a try because the corrective approach wasn't working for her at all.

We started by ignoring Sadie's jumping for a bit. I walked up to her and when she jumped, I did not move, look at her, talk to her or interact with her. I was using the lack of social interaction to extinguish the behavior. Finally, after waiting 30 seconds, she sat by herself. marked her behavior with the word "Yes" and rewarded her richly, We poured on the praise, scratched her generously behind her ears and rewarded with tidbits of food her for sitting.


I wanted to use some preventative management so she could not practice jumping on me while we trained, so I stepped on her leash so that it did not restrict her but stopped her jumping up. Meanwhile, before she could start jumping, I asked for a sit and rewarded her lavishly again this time for by dropping her food rewards on the ground. A high rate of reward is very important in the beginning when a dog is replacing old behaviors with new ones. We continued with a very high rate of reward for about 2 minutes and then we gave her a break so she had time to soak that lesson in. Breaks are important too. We continued practicing with three lessons asking for a "four feet on the floor" sit and tapered off on the food rewards very slowly, while praising and patting and playing with her. By the end of about 5 minutes she was no longer jumping on me.

Sadie will go home and practice greetings for the week. We may have to warm her up again next week, and continue the lesson until she is no longer jumping, even if that means a year of training.

When a dog practices a behavior for a long time, it becomes ingrained in their brain, in a neural pathway. We want that old neural pathway to become weak through lack of practice and lack of rewarding consequences. We want to create a new neural pathway that gets stronger with each day's practice. This requires patience and persistence on the owners part. She is very motivated to stop the jumping, because Sadie could jump on her elderly mother and knock her down.

We could go a bit further with the training in the time she has and make sure that Sadie had lots of experience greeting many different people, men, women and children and proof her for different environments and set ups, like the front door with the door bell or knocking noise.

My mother always told me "Inch by inch, life's a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard." and that holds true in dog training too. Sadie is a fun and smart dog and I expect her to learn relatively quickly with a progressive approach and lots of practice. Her owner is delighted with Sadie's progress and is now interested in Agility, which would be a really nice way to use some of Sadie's boundless energy!

Photos by Pierre Tardiff (c) 
The top photo is another Agility student, Gypsy and the bottom photo is our lovely Aptos training field.

On the Path: Changing Fear to Joy

Fear can be a tough nut to crack. Changing a dog's emotional response takes persistence, but is so well worth the time. The result is a dog who is more comfortable in the world.

I've been working with my Jack Russell Terrier Kenzie's fear of large animals including horses and very large dogs. Her fear came about in one very short moment, that I wish had never happened.

When Kenzie was a 12 week old puppy my brother in law scooped her up without asking and put her up on top of his horse, she was terrified. I asked him to get her down right away, but within a few seconds the damage was already done. As a young pup in her sensitive imprinting window, this was a very fearful experience that made a lasting impression.

Later that summer we drove to Idaho to a dog show and to visit a friend on her farm. My friend saw that Kenzie was afraid of her sheep and she said "I can fix that!" and as she said this she scooped up the young Kenzie and dropped her in the sheep pen without asking me first.  Kenzie again was terrified and the sheep were terrified as well, stampeding around the pen. I quickly climbed over the fence and rescued her, but again damage was already done. I was upset that she had been compromised. It made things much worse - she did not "just get over it".

Exposing a dog to something they fear without being able to  escape it is called "Flooding". We often see dogs becoming reactive because they have been flooded with the stimuli, usually with the bad experience of being attacked while on leash and unable to escape. I often hear people say about dogs "Just let them get over it!" or "Let them work it out" by exposing them to the things they are afraid of. The issue with this approach is that 1) it is cruel, 2) the dog may become overly sensitized, 3) the dogs may shut down and learn that being unresponsive is the way to get through it (learned helplessness), 4) and the dogs become even more fearful and reactive.

Ideally we would change the dog's emotions to happiness or even joy when they see the formerly scary thing! Through Counter Conditioning and Desensitizaiton we are able to pair scary things with good consequences like safety and food rewards and make it less scary for them.  Let me explain....

On our beach walks we have been running across a lot of large dogs, some well mannered and others not so much. Kenzie usually lowers her head, and begins to walk stiffly toward them, then will quiver her lip if they get close and then show a little bit of teeth. If the dog is big and lunges toward us, she will snap at them. I usually stop her by calling her name before her head goes down and give her an alternative job to keep her busy but wouldn't it be better if I could be more proactive and keep her from showing fear at all?

The most effective technique I have used to date has been "Look At That" (LAT). I learned about LAT from Leslie McDevitt's "Control Unleashed" book. Basically I taught her to look at inanimate things first and marked a quick glance with the word "yes!". KK knows that "Yes!" means she has done a good job and can come collect her paycheck (food reward) so she has to turn around and come to me. In her nine years she has not ever, not even once missed collecting her paycheck, imagine that!

After eight weeks of going to our local training group practice where there is a giant breed dog, and working on LAT it finally started working. Why did it take so long? Kenzie is usually very quick at catching on to things. She's been a star in Treibball, loves doing Agility, enthusiastic at Nosework, wonderful at Freestyle (what little we have done), she even tried Dock Diving and Flyball -- so what's the deal? Why didn't she learn to recover from her fears more quickly?

The Reverse Learning Curve
Two things....first, around large animals Kenzie did not feel safe and second, when dogs are uncomfortable or fearful it takes much longer for them to learn anything. Her learning curve usually goes steeply up ad then plateaus, but when she is afraid of something, it appears that the techniques that I am teaching her are not working, at least for a much longer time and then finally all of a sudden she demonstrates that she understands. The reverse learning curve for fear is the opposite of our usual training experiences. The reverse learning curve was first described by Dr Peter Borchelt, an animal behaviorist in New York City. She had created a neural pathway in her brain, which is a habitual response to a stimulus. A neural pathway is much like the erosion that creates a path for a river like the Grand Canyon is the pathway for the Rio Grande. Her response pathway was deep and well ingrained with practice. I had to "dig" a deeper pathway for a happy, relaxed response in order to change her emotions.
.

I had to work on her feeling safe - that was accomplished by creating distance between us and the very large, gregarious dog. Food rewards alone did not make her feel safe. Second, I had to give her enough time and repetitions to learn - she'd been practicing her "growly bear" habits for a long time, too long for me to be able to change the underlying emotions overnight. She needed thousands of safe and happy exposures in many new places with many new dogs to start making a change to her habits and emotions.

Is Kenzie completely fixed? Probably not. What dogs learn first, they learn best. It takes a lot of work to change those early responses and dig those new neural pathways. I will continue to work to manage her environment and keep her safe and working on the conditioning to change her responses.

On Looking Back and Going Forward
I'd give anything to have those moments back in order to not have had this problem but it is a waste of creative energy to spend time worrying about the unchangeable past. Going forward into the future, I know now to protect my dogs, manage their environment and work on getting lots of happy experiences so we can ride through the bumpy times.

I've been able to use these experiences to benefit hundreds of puppies and family dogs as well as sport dogs and reactive dogs in our classes at Living with Dogs. I am grateful for my job and all of the wonderful things we can do to help dogs live better, happier lives in their homes and in our society.

Our beach walks are now very fun and Kenzie continues with her amazing abilities to learn new behaviors -- as long as she feels safe!

I wish you and your dogs many happy, fun and safe experiences!