K9 Scent work varies in complexity from the mundane to the inordinately complex. From the type or types of scents you would like to imprint your dog on, to the environmental variables you would like to proof him against, it could take days to years to have a fully functional dog.
For the average hobbyist however, in a few weeks you can have your dog up and pointing the way to anything from bee hives to truffles if you carefully follow a few easy steps.
1. Obedience train your dog. This makes everything easier and you will see why later. The dog should be able to sit, down and recall on command as a bare minimum.
2. Select a reward. As I have discussed before this can make or break your training. You may find chicken/liver/cheese irresistible, but some dogs will just die for a tennis ball. Also some rewards are simply too cumbersome for the speed and spontaneity that is required for concise training.
3. Load the marker. Whatever your positive marker, be it a clicker, or verbalization, you need to associate it with the reward. Before you even begin your scent training, load your marker for at least a few days, if not a couple of weeks.
4. Scent imprinting. Assuming you have selected and collected your target scent, you can now begin imprinting your canine on it. Start out working in a very small and bare environment. Using a dog proof scent container with ample scent in it, allow your dog supervised freedom in the room. Begin by marking and rewarding your dog showing even remote interest in the scent container (a glance, a sniff, any movement towards it). Continue shaping the behavior all the way up to the alert you require. Initially reward any interest, enthusiasm or effort, and start withholding the lesser 20% or 30% of the behaviors that are not as vigorous.
5. Select the Alert. Like the reward this should be well thought out. The alert should be a behavior that will be acceptable in the environment you will be eventually working in, and also a behavior you will be able to associate and request upon command. Typically a bark, sit, down or scratch is used, with some favoring mouthing a brindle or other more complex requirement.
6. Proofing. The final step in your scent training involves proofing your dog to distractions, environmental variables, as well as similar but wrong scents. Your dog may need to eventually be comfortable working in rain or snow, with heavy equipment operating nearby and may need to detect ants versus termites. Proofing a dog to the gold standard can take years, but will certainly take months at the very least. A dog that is proofed to a large number of variables and distractions is worth his weight in gold.
With that, I will let you on your way to try your hand at this immensely rewarding canine training discipline. Relax, have fun and watch your relationship grow.
www.nwtruffledogs.com
Friday, March 26, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Improving Confidence - The Dog's and Yours
I have worked with a number of submissive, timid and insecure dogs over the years and to me they are the most difficult problem to solve. To me it is much easier to tamp down drive, check energy or coral enthusiasm than it is to build confidence, yet that is a problem presented to many pet owners who want to take their canine to the next level or even into Home Depot.
My experience with this has often been in female dogs, though I have seen a different presentation in males in the form of fear biting and barrier aggression.
At any rate, I have tried different things at different times, with different dogs, and have had different results. Dogs are not computers they are individuals, so while having a basic understanding of motivators is great, experience does not always replace trial and error.
Take Lika for example. Lika was slated to be a working dog because that is what her owner wanted to do. Unfortunately Lika was not sure that that is what she wanted to do, desperate as she was to spend time with her master. When I first met Lika I didn't find her to be overly shy, but she certainly was laid back and very soft. When working with strangers she was reluctant and hesitant which was a problem for a SAR dog who needs to be eager to rush up to perfect strangers with enthusiasm and abandon.
Lika's master also had a problem in that he was unenthusiastic. It was a terrible combination. Though they were no doubt wonderful room mates, it was almost a lose/lose combination. We tried a variety of games and activities, but nothing seemed to make a big difference. Oh, there were gradual improvements, just from repetition and habituation, but it was very slow progress.
I tried to convince Lika's master that he needed to put aside all male pride, and become shrill, animated and ecstatic when Lika showed interest, pleasure or comfort in contact with strangers, but this was just not in his bag of tricks. I asked the volunteers working with Lika to make like squirrels and run from her on her approach. I watched her timidly wag her tail when she saw this game but she would look back at her master for approval only to get a gruff nod.
Perhaps part of Lika's problem was not getting the level of approval and enthusiasm from her handler that she needed. Maybe she just was not wired to be a confident outgoing dog and trying to make her was spitting in the wind. Sometimes you have to be ok with not getting what you wanted and loving the dog you've got.
Other examples of confidence are clearly fear based. But not in the dog.
I was complaining to my animal behaviorist and training mentor that I hated nothing more than a dog that rocked the whole vehicle charging and barking as you walked by and my dog had begun to do just that. She explained to me that I had taken on a guarding breed and he was doing what guarding breeds do. Guard. She told me I got the wrong breed if I didn't want my guarding breed to guard my car. Love the dog you got. But she further advised me it was not unreasonable for me to expect the dog to not do that when I was in the car. When I am in the car, guarding the car is my job. It is a matter of confidence.
If a healthy ambitious dog trusts that you are going to handle a situation, and you give him every indication that you can, he will submit to your leadership. If a healthy ambitious dog senses some ambivalence or insecurity in you, then he may just step up to the plate and handle it for you. Even if your insecurity is that you fear the dog is going to have an outburst at some unsuspecting stranger. This presents as many different problems to include barrier aggression. A weak or insecure person and a strong dog can be a dangerous and unpredictable combination.
I asked my trainer to help me work on my dogs vehicle barrier aggression. We started with obedience and again a muzzle. I feared something bad was going to happen when my dog confronted an unsettling situation. My dog thought that my fear was something he should act on, even though the fear was exactly that he would act. Placing the muzzle on the dog allowed me to relax and develop confidence. If I was sure nothing bad was going to happen then the dog sensed my comfort and succumbed to my leadership. Next thing you know he was getting cookies from every gas attendant, banker and drive through and I didn't fear them reaching in the car. Problem solved. It was that easy.
Fear and barrier aggression is a common problem and I advocate muzzles all the time. Muzzles give these poor dogs and owners a real shot at addressing the issue with some measure of safety. Unfortunately there is a negative perception about a muzzled dog and that is very unfortunate. A muzzle can be a wonderful training tool and can deescalate an dog with an escalating behavioral problem, and give them the opportunity to become more socialized and well adjusted. This is an opportunity they may never get if their owner is too embarrassed or inhibited to be seen in public with a muzzled dog.
My experience with this has often been in female dogs, though I have seen a different presentation in males in the form of fear biting and barrier aggression.
At any rate, I have tried different things at different times, with different dogs, and have had different results. Dogs are not computers they are individuals, so while having a basic understanding of motivators is great, experience does not always replace trial and error.
Take Lika for example. Lika was slated to be a working dog because that is what her owner wanted to do. Unfortunately Lika was not sure that that is what she wanted to do, desperate as she was to spend time with her master. When I first met Lika I didn't find her to be overly shy, but she certainly was laid back and very soft. When working with strangers she was reluctant and hesitant which was a problem for a SAR dog who needs to be eager to rush up to perfect strangers with enthusiasm and abandon.
Lika's master also had a problem in that he was unenthusiastic. It was a terrible combination. Though they were no doubt wonderful room mates, it was almost a lose/lose combination. We tried a variety of games and activities, but nothing seemed to make a big difference. Oh, there were gradual improvements, just from repetition and habituation, but it was very slow progress.
I tried to convince Lika's master that he needed to put aside all male pride, and become shrill, animated and ecstatic when Lika showed interest, pleasure or comfort in contact with strangers, but this was just not in his bag of tricks. I asked the volunteers working with Lika to make like squirrels and run from her on her approach. I watched her timidly wag her tail when she saw this game but she would look back at her master for approval only to get a gruff nod.
Perhaps part of Lika's problem was not getting the level of approval and enthusiasm from her handler that she needed. Maybe she just was not wired to be a confident outgoing dog and trying to make her was spitting in the wind. Sometimes you have to be ok with not getting what you wanted and loving the dog you've got.
Other examples of confidence are clearly fear based. But not in the dog.
I was complaining to my animal behaviorist and training mentor that I hated nothing more than a dog that rocked the whole vehicle charging and barking as you walked by and my dog had begun to do just that. She explained to me that I had taken on a guarding breed and he was doing what guarding breeds do. Guard. She told me I got the wrong breed if I didn't want my guarding breed to guard my car. Love the dog you got. But she further advised me it was not unreasonable for me to expect the dog to not do that when I was in the car. When I am in the car, guarding the car is my job. It is a matter of confidence.
If a healthy ambitious dog trusts that you are going to handle a situation, and you give him every indication that you can, he will submit to your leadership. If a healthy ambitious dog senses some ambivalence or insecurity in you, then he may just step up to the plate and handle it for you. Even if your insecurity is that you fear the dog is going to have an outburst at some unsuspecting stranger. This presents as many different problems to include barrier aggression. A weak or insecure person and a strong dog can be a dangerous and unpredictable combination.
I asked my trainer to help me work on my dogs vehicle barrier aggression. We started with obedience and again a muzzle. I feared something bad was going to happen when my dog confronted an unsettling situation. My dog thought that my fear was something he should act on, even though the fear was exactly that he would act. Placing the muzzle on the dog allowed me to relax and develop confidence. If I was sure nothing bad was going to happen then the dog sensed my comfort and succumbed to my leadership. Next thing you know he was getting cookies from every gas attendant, banker and drive through and I didn't fear them reaching in the car. Problem solved. It was that easy.
Fear and barrier aggression is a common problem and I advocate muzzles all the time. Muzzles give these poor dogs and owners a real shot at addressing the issue with some measure of safety. Unfortunately there is a negative perception about a muzzled dog and that is very unfortunate. A muzzle can be a wonderful training tool and can deescalate an dog with an escalating behavioral problem, and give them the opportunity to become more socialized and well adjusted. This is an opportunity they may never get if their owner is too embarrassed or inhibited to be seen in public with a muzzled dog.
Tuning Drive
Building drive seems as first a simple problem to solve. Your dog is lackadaisical, aloof, unmotivated or easily distracted. All you have to do is find out what flips his trigger, right? Ah well, not so fast, Sparky! Drive is a wonderful and treacherous tool.
When I mail ordered my first working dog from France, I picked him up at the airport and looked at him cowering in the back of the crate. Great. This wasn't a good sign I thought. I took him right out and started flooding him with new and diverse experiences. No time to start like the present. He tolerated all of this with a tense aloofness. Partially the breed, partially mishandling. And then I began his search and rescue training.
The dog was a little aloof, so I decided to perform some drive building. Each time he located his subject (found a person), I had him grab a tarp that they were wrapped in and tug and play with it. This cause two problems. He didn't really make a good connection with the human...he was in it for the tarp. He began tugging at clothing or nipping people sleeveless arms who weren't wrapped in a tarp. Yikes!
It wasn't an aggression problem, it was an over driven dog who was taught a bad habit by an inexperienced trainer. I was pretty unconcerned about it at first, after all, a lost person isn't going to complain that the SAR dog tugged at his pant legs when they were found, but the first problem I ran into was people didn't want to hide for him any more. The second problem is that people wanted me to pay for the $250 North Face jacket he maimed. And I could see other potential problems in our future.
The nips were not aggressive but they were lighting fast and intense. He was performing a little herding dog action on his lost subjects. That will teach them to get lost! Of course I share all of this at grave risk of people labeling my dog a biter. True he bites, but he doesn't MEAN it. Uh huh. Tell that to the guy with the big purple pinch on the back of his arm.
Something had to be done so I removed the dog from SAR training and began working with an animal behaviorist. The first thing we did was muzzle him to remove my anxiety regarding errant nips. We taught him some solid obedience and a rock solid 'leave it' command. After he was more socialized and under control, we returned to SAR and armed our subjects with an e-collar. This could have been a great tool were it not for imperfect timing and hair trigger.
I further began ignoring the advise of my SAR mentors and trainers and I refused to amp my dog like a police K9. Yes, yes that works great for your labradoodle, but my dog has drive in spades and he doesn't get to take it out on a bite sleeve. Instead of blindly revving the dog up, I was much more careful and meticulous about how much energy to give him. Were we going out for a four hour training, or just a quick run-a-way. And as he approached his subject, I gave him cool down commands or negative markers and advised my training volunteers to do the same.
It wasn't a matter of weeks, but within six months, the dog understood that under no circumstances was he to make contact. And without sacrificing a cent of drive, this dog would go out for the pure joy of the hunt and work for hours.
The moral of this story is, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Build only as much drive as you need and can control.
When I mail ordered my first working dog from France, I picked him up at the airport and looked at him cowering in the back of the crate. Great. This wasn't a good sign I thought. I took him right out and started flooding him with new and diverse experiences. No time to start like the present. He tolerated all of this with a tense aloofness. Partially the breed, partially mishandling. And then I began his search and rescue training.
The dog was a little aloof, so I decided to perform some drive building. Each time he located his subject (found a person), I had him grab a tarp that they were wrapped in and tug and play with it. This cause two problems. He didn't really make a good connection with the human...he was in it for the tarp. He began tugging at clothing or nipping people sleeveless arms who weren't wrapped in a tarp. Yikes!
It wasn't an aggression problem, it was an over driven dog who was taught a bad habit by an inexperienced trainer. I was pretty unconcerned about it at first, after all, a lost person isn't going to complain that the SAR dog tugged at his pant legs when they were found, but the first problem I ran into was people didn't want to hide for him any more. The second problem is that people wanted me to pay for the $250 North Face jacket he maimed. And I could see other potential problems in our future.
The nips were not aggressive but they were lighting fast and intense. He was performing a little herding dog action on his lost subjects. That will teach them to get lost! Of course I share all of this at grave risk of people labeling my dog a biter. True he bites, but he doesn't MEAN it. Uh huh. Tell that to the guy with the big purple pinch on the back of his arm.
Something had to be done so I removed the dog from SAR training and began working with an animal behaviorist. The first thing we did was muzzle him to remove my anxiety regarding errant nips. We taught him some solid obedience and a rock solid 'leave it' command. After he was more socialized and under control, we returned to SAR and armed our subjects with an e-collar. This could have been a great tool were it not for imperfect timing and hair trigger.
I further began ignoring the advise of my SAR mentors and trainers and I refused to amp my dog like a police K9. Yes, yes that works great for your labradoodle, but my dog has drive in spades and he doesn't get to take it out on a bite sleeve. Instead of blindly revving the dog up, I was much more careful and meticulous about how much energy to give him. Were we going out for a four hour training, or just a quick run-a-way. And as he approached his subject, I gave him cool down commands or negative markers and advised my training volunteers to do the same.
It wasn't a matter of weeks, but within six months, the dog understood that under no circumstances was he to make contact. And without sacrificing a cent of drive, this dog would go out for the pure joy of the hunt and work for hours.
The moral of this story is, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Build only as much drive as you need and can control.
Luring Behaviors
Now that you have the clicker loaded, and you have learned to cue and mark behaviors, we can talk about luring and shaping. In the old style of dog training when you wanted to teach your little Brutus to sit, you would look Brutus in the eye, and sternly command "SIT!" while simultaneously pressing down on Brutus' rear end. The inevitable result of this is that Brutus would rise to the pressure you have placed downward and the battle of the wills ensued until at last Brutus would give in and plop to the ground in resignation, certainly having forgotten the cue that instigated the whole affair. Whoever thought that physically manipulating the dog into the position you desired never read Newton's Law of Motion.
"So if I can't push my dogs butt down when I want his butt down, what CAN I do?!" Glad you asked. We are going to use a much more humane method of training....more humane on you that is. OK, so you say you want your dog to sit? Take the cheese square, not that dried up ol' dog biscuit you call a 'treat', a cheese square, and hold it between your dogs eyeballs, about 12" away, carefully caged in your fingers so your dog can't actually can't get it. You dogs nose will rise in eager anticipation and attempting to sniff the treat. As the nose rises, so rises the cheese in an arc right over the top of your pooches head directly between his ears. He may back up, and dance around a bit, but if you keep trying to place that cheese about five inches directly above you pups head, and between his ears, eventually something magic will happen. He will get tired of trying to crane his neck around and he will sit. Instantly pop that cheese into pooches mouth and praise profusely.
Yes, we did not give the command of sit. We will discuss that later. But look! We produced a sit without pushing, prodding and pain in the rear. You have learned to lure your dog. Where your dogs nose goes, his body must follow. Using a piece of cheese, or chicken or something equally tasty, you can lure your dog in all kinds of directions and positions. Move forward, back-up, sit, stand, stand on two legs, and on and on. Yes, luring is not perfect. Sometimes your dog will be quick and sneaky and get the treat. Sometimes your dog will get frustrated and lose interest before the desired behavior is performed, and we will work on all of that. But more often-than-not with practice and good timing, he will, without realizing it, be coaxed into the act you want performed, and each time you achieve it, it will become easier and easier, until it is time to name or cue the behavior.
"So if I can't push my dogs butt down when I want his butt down, what CAN I do?!" Glad you asked. We are going to use a much more humane method of training....more humane on you that is. OK, so you say you want your dog to sit? Take the cheese square, not that dried up ol' dog biscuit you call a 'treat', a cheese square, and hold it between your dogs eyeballs, about 12" away, carefully caged in your fingers so your dog can't actually can't get it. You dogs nose will rise in eager anticipation and attempting to sniff the treat. As the nose rises, so rises the cheese in an arc right over the top of your pooches head directly between his ears. He may back up, and dance around a bit, but if you keep trying to place that cheese about five inches directly above you pups head, and between his ears, eventually something magic will happen. He will get tired of trying to crane his neck around and he will sit. Instantly pop that cheese into pooches mouth and praise profusely.
Yes, we did not give the command of sit. We will discuss that later. But look! We produced a sit without pushing, prodding and pain in the rear. You have learned to lure your dog. Where your dogs nose goes, his body must follow. Using a piece of cheese, or chicken or something equally tasty, you can lure your dog in all kinds of directions and positions. Move forward, back-up, sit, stand, stand on two legs, and on and on. Yes, luring is not perfect. Sometimes your dog will be quick and sneaky and get the treat. Sometimes your dog will get frustrated and lose interest before the desired behavior is performed, and we will work on all of that. But more often-than-not with practice and good timing, he will, without realizing it, be coaxed into the act you want performed, and each time you achieve it, it will become easier and easier, until it is time to name or cue the behavior.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Introducing Your Blogger
So now you have had an opportunity to see the wonderous ability we have to train our dogs with very little effort. With careful observation, a clicker and a cookie, you have been able to get your dog to perform a new behavior with relatively little effort and stress.
I started loving dogs while growing up on my parents hobby farm in the rauceous town of Boring, Oregon. My mother tried her hand at breeding Saint Bernards during which time Heidi became a beloved part of our family. Heidi, however, was neither trained, nor well mannered. Saint Bernards are not easy trainers, but I don't recall anyone making a big effort with her. I do remember fur, mud, and frantically running around the neighborhood trying to catch the boistrous but friendly pet. Heidi taught me that having a dog without manners is not fun, no matter how much you love the dog. Having a BIG dog without manners can be downright treacherous.
The next family pet that made a memorable impression on me was an adorable little American Eskimo named Nomie. American Eskimo's are a notoriously easy-to-train breed and because of this and their striking looks and high energy, are often selected for performing and entertaining by circus' and the like. I decided to take it upon myself to train Nomie, teaching her a variety of functional commands along with some fun behaviors such as roll-over and play dead. Nomie was so fun and easy to train that I was hooked.
I joined 4-H for dog training, but there didn't seem to be a big knowledge base in the area for that, and raising a seeing-eye dog was not in the cards for me, so after graduating from high school and joining the military, dogs were out of my life for the next six years.
When I finally arrived at a point in my life where having dogs was again feasable, I adopted a series of older 'used' dogs. :) They were wonderful pets and family companions, and had for the most part acceptable manners . When I felt I was ready for a challenge I adopted a german shepard and rotweiler mix puppy named Zuess. I had up to this point read my heart out on canine training books, but in the eighties, training methods were still blunt and archaic. I began training Zuess in earnest even teaching him to 'seek back' for rocks I had deliberately dropped on trails.
Zuess was an amazing dog with a huge heart. He was, what I thought at the time, incredible at scent detection. Later in canine search and rescue training, I learned how low my expectations really were. But he had heart and ambition. One game my children and I played with Zuess involved everyone hiding in the back yard and letting Zuess find us one after another. He loved that game. One day, deciding to push the envelope I held Zuess on the front porch while my ex-husband went and hid. He ran to the back yard, jumped into the bed of the pickup truck, onto the roof of the truck, up onto the roof of the carport. When I released Zuess, he went without hesitation straight to the roof. I thought that he went so fast that he could not have possibly scented and I wondered if he listened and interpreted the sounds or sound direction. I don't really know, but he would have been a wonderful police dog. Through a series of unfortunate and tragic circumstances, Zuess left our home much too young.
Many years again passed without a dog in my home or heart, until at last, I decided it was time to bring furry fun to the family again and we adopted a Newfoundland puppy. D'Artagnan was about three months old when Miranda Gaddis went missing from near our Oregon City home, and a month later, Ashley Pond. During the ensuing search for the two missing girls law enforcement officials and search and rescue volunteers searched Singer Creek which ran through my backyard. A few months later a canine search and rescue team inadvertantly parked in my yard while searching Singer Creek during follow-up training. I later found it to be a common practice to re-search areas where people have gone missing in the format of a training mission.
While the teams were re-grouping at their vehicles, I made contact with a wonderful ladie named Tina Parr. Tina gave me her card and invited me to attend the annual recruitment. I was absolutely ecstatic and never new that such opportunities existed, or could even exist for me.
As luck would have it, as I was gearing up for the personnel portion of the search and rescue training, I found the most amazing and competent trainer I had ever met during a PetSmart puppy class. Faye talked the talk of an animal behaviorist. She knew her stuff inside and out, and I was so taken with the possitive reinforcement style of training and her clear and unmistakable knowledge and experience that I took six more classes with her, participating with three different dogs.
So here I am, blogging about my take on training. Seven years after joining search and rescue, having read countless books, and participating in hundreds of hours of canine training, and dozens of hours of classes, workshops and clinics, I think I feel comfortable enough to share my experiences, what has worked and not-worked for me, and share my love of canine training.
So there, gentle reader, you have it. And if I might leave you with one parting observation, that while it is completely true you can train a dog with leash jerks, shock collars, and alpha-rolls, there is another way that will leave you and your pet living a happier more harmonious life.
I started loving dogs while growing up on my parents hobby farm in the rauceous town of Boring, Oregon. My mother tried her hand at breeding Saint Bernards during which time Heidi became a beloved part of our family. Heidi, however, was neither trained, nor well mannered. Saint Bernards are not easy trainers, but I don't recall anyone making a big effort with her. I do remember fur, mud, and frantically running around the neighborhood trying to catch the boistrous but friendly pet. Heidi taught me that having a dog without manners is not fun, no matter how much you love the dog. Having a BIG dog without manners can be downright treacherous.
The next family pet that made a memorable impression on me was an adorable little American Eskimo named Nomie. American Eskimo's are a notoriously easy-to-train breed and because of this and their striking looks and high energy, are often selected for performing and entertaining by circus' and the like. I decided to take it upon myself to train Nomie, teaching her a variety of functional commands along with some fun behaviors such as roll-over and play dead. Nomie was so fun and easy to train that I was hooked.
I joined 4-H for dog training, but there didn't seem to be a big knowledge base in the area for that, and raising a seeing-eye dog was not in the cards for me, so after graduating from high school and joining the military, dogs were out of my life for the next six years.
When I finally arrived at a point in my life where having dogs was again feasable, I adopted a series of older 'used' dogs. :) They were wonderful pets and family companions, and had for the most part acceptable manners . When I felt I was ready for a challenge I adopted a german shepard and rotweiler mix puppy named Zuess. I had up to this point read my heart out on canine training books, but in the eighties, training methods were still blunt and archaic. I began training Zuess in earnest even teaching him to 'seek back' for rocks I had deliberately dropped on trails.
Zuess was an amazing dog with a huge heart. He was, what I thought at the time, incredible at scent detection. Later in canine search and rescue training, I learned how low my expectations really were. But he had heart and ambition. One game my children and I played with Zuess involved everyone hiding in the back yard and letting Zuess find us one after another. He loved that game. One day, deciding to push the envelope I held Zuess on the front porch while my ex-husband went and hid. He ran to the back yard, jumped into the bed of the pickup truck, onto the roof of the truck, up onto the roof of the carport. When I released Zuess, he went without hesitation straight to the roof. I thought that he went so fast that he could not have possibly scented and I wondered if he listened and interpreted the sounds or sound direction. I don't really know, but he would have been a wonderful police dog. Through a series of unfortunate and tragic circumstances, Zuess left our home much too young.
Many years again passed without a dog in my home or heart, until at last, I decided it was time to bring furry fun to the family again and we adopted a Newfoundland puppy. D'Artagnan was about three months old when Miranda Gaddis went missing from near our Oregon City home, and a month later, Ashley Pond. During the ensuing search for the two missing girls law enforcement officials and search and rescue volunteers searched Singer Creek which ran through my backyard. A few months later a canine search and rescue team inadvertantly parked in my yard while searching Singer Creek during follow-up training. I later found it to be a common practice to re-search areas where people have gone missing in the format of a training mission.
While the teams were re-grouping at their vehicles, I made contact with a wonderful ladie named Tina Parr. Tina gave me her card and invited me to attend the annual recruitment. I was absolutely ecstatic and never new that such opportunities existed, or could even exist for me.
As luck would have it, as I was gearing up for the personnel portion of the search and rescue training, I found the most amazing and competent trainer I had ever met during a PetSmart puppy class. Faye talked the talk of an animal behaviorist. She knew her stuff inside and out, and I was so taken with the possitive reinforcement style of training and her clear and unmistakable knowledge and experience that I took six more classes with her, participating with three different dogs.
So here I am, blogging about my take on training. Seven years after joining search and rescue, having read countless books, and participating in hundreds of hours of canine training, and dozens of hours of classes, workshops and clinics, I think I feel comfortable enough to share my experiences, what has worked and not-worked for me, and share my love of canine training.
So there, gentle reader, you have it. And if I might leave you with one parting observation, that while it is completely true you can train a dog with leash jerks, shock collars, and alpha-rolls, there is another way that will leave you and your pet living a happier more harmonious life.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Naming & Cueing Behaviors
Once you have been observing and marking a new behavior with your clicker with some regularity, you are ready to name the behavior or create a cue. In the old fashion method of training you would try fervently to get your dog to perform a behavior after you say a cue. Bridging the gap between the cue or command and the performance of the behavior was hit-and-miss and exhausting. We are not going to do that anymore. From now on, when we give a cue, we already know with 80% certainty that the behavior is going to happen. We will improve that later.
How do I know for certain that the behavior is going to happen? Well for starters you read the first two posts, and you have chosen one behavior to work with. With your spectacular goody bag and clicker always at the ready, you have been watching for and rewarding this behavior every time you have seen it. Dogs are very smart about getting food and once they learn how to push the button that dispenses the food, they will do it at every opportunity.
At this point, it would not hurt to cut back on the regular kibble for a day or two. A hungry dog is a dog that will do back flips to get that cube of cheese. So there you are in your recliner and your beloved pet wanders in positioning herself strategically between Frasier and your eyeballs. Just as she prepares to sit, look at her directly and say 'Sit'. The split second her bottom contacts with carpet, CLICK and TREAT! Make a mild fuss but not enough to make her forget what happened. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Later we will discuss selecting commands and cues for behaviors you are going to ask, but right now this is a learning opportunity for you both and our only objective is to help you learn the rhythm of opportunistic training. No more training times, no more frustration, just observation and marking.
Breaking this training method down in the simplest of terms, you are observing, naming and marking a behavior. Later we will talk about luring and shaping to help speed things along, but it is important to note that right now our focus is on building our dogs desire to pay attention to us, explore behaviors to see what works, or in this case gets the cookie, and getting us in the habit of giving selective attention. Paying less attention to things we don't want and more attention to things we do want.
How do I know for certain that the behavior is going to happen? Well for starters you read the first two posts, and you have chosen one behavior to work with. With your spectacular goody bag and clicker always at the ready, you have been watching for and rewarding this behavior every time you have seen it. Dogs are very smart about getting food and once they learn how to push the button that dispenses the food, they will do it at every opportunity.
At this point, it would not hurt to cut back on the regular kibble for a day or two. A hungry dog is a dog that will do back flips to get that cube of cheese. So there you are in your recliner and your beloved pet wanders in positioning herself strategically between Frasier and your eyeballs. Just as she prepares to sit, look at her directly and say 'Sit'. The split second her bottom contacts with carpet, CLICK and TREAT! Make a mild fuss but not enough to make her forget what happened. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Later we will discuss selecting commands and cues for behaviors you are going to ask, but right now this is a learning opportunity for you both and our only objective is to help you learn the rhythm of opportunistic training. No more training times, no more frustration, just observation and marking.
Breaking this training method down in the simplest of terms, you are observing, naming and marking a behavior. Later we will talk about luring and shaping to help speed things along, but it is important to note that right now our focus is on building our dogs desire to pay attention to us, explore behaviors to see what works, or in this case gets the cookie, and getting us in the habit of giving selective attention. Paying less attention to things we don't want and more attention to things we do want.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Opportunistic Dog Training - Lifestyle Changes
So now that you have been priming the pump, dragging pooch around with a clicker and a treat bag for a week or so, you are ready to begin training in earnest. NOT!! Remember we are not going to do that. There is nothing earnest about it. It will be fun and rewarding for both of you. And we will not be beginning anything, we have already begun and using this method training will never end, but will always succeed in the long run. Remember what I said about never? Same here.
You are probably pretty impressed by how easily and vigorously your pet began responding to the sound of the clicker. If not, read the first blog all the way to the end. Remember you were not supposed to make eye contact or make so much as a peep. Your pet is responding to the clicker, not you and that is exactly what we want. This will be helpful in the future when the whole family wants to join in the fun.
Now we are going to talk about opportunistic training. With this training methodology, our dogs are going to show us their stuff and we are going to sit back and grade it, like officials at the Olympics. "Why would my dog want to show me his stuff?" you might be wondering. Because we have the clicker AND a bag of goodies.
Even before day one of "priming the pump" was over, you probably notice Fifi was expressing a LOT more interest in you, and expressing it much differently. You might have even noticed she was going out of her way to get your attention, or make eye contact. Great job on the treat selection if this was the case. Now we are going to start becoming a little selective about when we click that clicker. Without being obvious, start watching your pet out of the corner of your eye. She just sat down? BANG! Click and treat! Grant you, she is clueless about why this happened and will assume it was random.
For the next three days pick ONE behavior that you see your canine perform on a somewhat regular basis. The behavior should happen with relatively high frequency, it should be spontaneous, and it should be positive. Peeing on the carpet does not count and we will address that in a different post. Sitting is a good one to start with, but if you prefer laying down, or picking up your slippers, knock yourself out. It has to happen fairly frequently so that you can catch her in the act.
Click and treat every time you see her sit, or whatever behavior we chose. Right now our focus is not so much to train a new behavior, but to train a learning method. Your dog is learning that sometime when she does something, something good happens. She also has learned that when she hears that click it means she will get a treat. 1+1 = a dog that will continue to try new things and that means a dog that is primed for learning.
During this phase, you will notice your pup starts to sit a lot around you. Click and treat every time she does it. Don't look at her, don't talk to her, don't fuss over what a good girl she is, we will be doing more of that later. Right now she is just learning the program, and the nice thing about the program is that like a baton, it can be passed from family member to family member and she will not care who has the clicker and the treat bag.
Continue to observe and click. You probably only need a few days on this phase of the training, but don't worry about rushing to the next step. All of the time up front will be time well spent in the long run. And have fun! You and your pup are bonding, your heart rate and blood pressure are going down and she will help you live a longer and healthier life!
You are probably pretty impressed by how easily and vigorously your pet began responding to the sound of the clicker. If not, read the first blog all the way to the end. Remember you were not supposed to make eye contact or make so much as a peep. Your pet is responding to the clicker, not you and that is exactly what we want. This will be helpful in the future when the whole family wants to join in the fun.
Now we are going to talk about opportunistic training. With this training methodology, our dogs are going to show us their stuff and we are going to sit back and grade it, like officials at the Olympics. "Why would my dog want to show me his stuff?" you might be wondering. Because we have the clicker AND a bag of goodies.
Even before day one of "priming the pump" was over, you probably notice Fifi was expressing a LOT more interest in you, and expressing it much differently. You might have even noticed she was going out of her way to get your attention, or make eye contact. Great job on the treat selection if this was the case. Now we are going to start becoming a little selective about when we click that clicker. Without being obvious, start watching your pet out of the corner of your eye. She just sat down? BANG! Click and treat! Grant you, she is clueless about why this happened and will assume it was random.
For the next three days pick ONE behavior that you see your canine perform on a somewhat regular basis. The behavior should happen with relatively high frequency, it should be spontaneous, and it should be positive. Peeing on the carpet does not count and we will address that in a different post. Sitting is a good one to start with, but if you prefer laying down, or picking up your slippers, knock yourself out. It has to happen fairly frequently so that you can catch her in the act.
Click and treat every time you see her sit, or whatever behavior we chose. Right now our focus is not so much to train a new behavior, but to train a learning method. Your dog is learning that sometime when she does something, something good happens. She also has learned that when she hears that click it means she will get a treat. 1+1 = a dog that will continue to try new things and that means a dog that is primed for learning.
During this phase, you will notice your pup starts to sit a lot around you. Click and treat every time she does it. Don't look at her, don't talk to her, don't fuss over what a good girl she is, we will be doing more of that later. Right now she is just learning the program, and the nice thing about the program is that like a baton, it can be passed from family member to family member and she will not care who has the clicker and the treat bag.
Continue to observe and click. You probably only need a few days on this phase of the training, but don't worry about rushing to the next step. All of the time up front will be time well spent in the long run. And have fun! You and your pup are bonding, your heart rate and blood pressure are going down and she will help you live a longer and healthier life!
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