Category: Training

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DogDecoder – Learn to Read Body Language

Is Diamond being Aggressive or Playful?

This past week I took on a client with a fearful aggressive dog. This dog had bitten a few people in the past, a few warning bites that didn’t break the skin but the last one did draw blood. They, much like many owners, felt overwhelmed and unsure of what to do. They struggled to see a future where their dog didn’t bark, lunge and snap at strangers or even themselves. The even sadder thing was these owners had tried to address the issue early. They done a puppy class, they had tried a private trainer, they even tried various calming medicines and hired a behaviorist. But sadly all of these attempts seem to make his nervousness worse. The puppy class used choke chains. The private trainer used a shock collar. And by the time the behaviorist got to them, all parties were worried he was too inset in his ways to change at two years old. It was truly a sad situation and I completely understood why they both needed help and were tentative of yet another attempt that could ultimately fail.

As I worked with their little dog, who started the hour long session charging out of the room barking and lunge progressed through the session to walking around the house with me and sitting whenever I stopped. By the end, he was tentatively following me around and would even LAY DOWN in front of me to get a reward. I was thankful, the owners were thankful and the dog was thankful. I didn’t think he was too far gone. He would take a lot of work to get back on track and would need to be monitored closely, but his saving grace was that he clearly was trying to tell others through his body language how nervous and fearful he was. When I started to listen to that, and respect it, our bond increased and a tentative trust formed. Overtime, I told his owners, by learning to listen to what he is telling you will form a strong bond of trust. Having this trust will be key to allowing us help him overcome his other triggers like having (strangers!) friends over, or approaching someone (stranger!) on the sidewalk. But trust and listening to what the dog was saying was a very key step #1.

To further them and to help you become more skilled at learning about what your dog is trying to say, I wanted to show you an awesome little phone app called the DogDecoder. This amazing little phone app was designed by Jill Breitner, a trainer who after many years of dog training realized how few people can actually read the signals your dog is desperately trying to give you. It is available for just $3.99 and works on both iphones and android smart phones.

For those of you without a smartphone or those unsure if the app is worth the $3.99 price tag, there’s are some awesome free videos to see this content online:

Reading dog body language – https://vimeo.com/217431259

Recognizing signs of a dog bite – https://vimeo.com/222081987

Identifying dog play and dog interactions – https://vimeo.com/217431108

The $3.99 app has two different modes. One is essentially an encyclopedia of behaviors. You can click on each one and a cartoon version of a dog named Diamond in some situation will appear. Then you can click the info button to get a written description of what is happening in the scene. Finally clicking the details button will get overlay the image with pointers telling you exactly what body signals Diamond is giving. Here is an example below.

First the app will show you a behavior.
First the app will show you a behavior.
Then the app will describe the signals your dog is giving you.
Then the app will describe the signals your dog is giving you.

The other mode gives you a five question quiz mode which shows you a picture of a behavior and you have to determine how the dog if feeling. Here you have to decide if Diamond is being aggressive with the puppy or is she playing with the puppy. The difference determining how you should react if you see this situation taking place.

Should you interrupt the behavior (so the puppy doesn’t get hurt) or if you can let them continue to play being reasonably sure Diamond is playing nicely?

Is Diamond being Aggressive or Playful?
Is Diamond being Aggressive or Playful?

If you said let the play continue you are correct! Both the puppy and Diamond are showing great play signals that are telling each other “Hey this is fun!” and telling you “Don’t worry we’re having a blast!” But as you can imagine if Diamond were giving different signals, of which the puppy (being young and naive) will likely misinterpret, how it would be up to you to intervene otherwise Diamond will. This is often why under-socialized young dogs at dog parks or other dog filled areas get into altercations because their owners don’t see the signs from their own dog or the other dog. They fail to interrupt or distract their puppy before the other dog has to react.

Dogs try everything they can possibly can to try and avoid causing harm to another person or dog, but if all those other things like body language, moving away or hiding, fail they’re left with only one option to take: a bite. Through learning to read those signs and teaching others to read the signs, we can be closer to our dogs and listen to what they are trying to tell us.

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Do or Do Not – How Decide What to Train

We all have things we’d like have our dogs not do. Maybe your dog goes full blown Rambo every time the doorbell rings, or maybe your pup loves to snarf things off your plate when your back is turned, or maybe you’d like to have a nice calm trot around the neighbor instead of having your arm pulled out of its socket over every leaf, twig or blade of grass that moves 🙂

When I ask folks,”What do you want me to teach your dog?” they almost always answer in the negative. They’ll say I want my dog to stop doing BLAH. Where that “blah” is any of the many annoying, if sometimes endearing, behaviors that drive most of us nuts. What I think a lot of people don’t realize is that this negative frame of mind, is exactly the wrong one to be in when training your dog.

Let’s use an example.

Client: “I’d like my lovely dog, Fido, to stop jumping on guests every time someone comes to visit.”

How can we teach Fido to stop jumping? The issue here is that if we stop one behavior another one will take it’s place. That’s a major problem, especially if we focus all our training solely on stopping an unwanted behavior. If I get Fido to no longer jump on people, and instead he now nips and bites at guest’s pants and shoes, have I succeeded in this training? I can bet you the Fido’s owners will give a sound NO to that question. Even though, technically, I did do exactly what they asked. I stopped Fido from jumping.

This is one of the major flaws in using punishment when doing dog training. If you only ever hit/jerk/shock the dog when they make a mistake how are they ever supposed to figure out what they’re supposed to do instead? And how can you be assured that your dog who used to only growl at strangers, won’t switch to biting strangers because you only taught him that “growling” resulted in punishment?

Whenever I hear a negative training request, I have to do some human to canine translation. I can’t just focus on what we want our dogs not to do, I need to think instead rephrase it as what we want them to do as an alternative behavior. For the example above, instead of jumping whenever a visitor comes, I’d like Fido to walk over and lay down on a mat until I release him to come say hi to my guests. That’s an alternative. Then we need to work teaching little Fido in small steps how to accomplish that specific alternative behavior vs leaving him to guess what it is we want him to do instead.

It’s kind of a fun way to think about problems in general. Let’s have you try your hand at it. Think of some alternative things you can train your dog to do for each of these unwanted behaviors below:

  • I want Fido to stop taking food from my plate.
  • I want Fido to stop pulling on the leash.
  • I want Fido to quit barking at the UPS truck (Esther’s arch-nemesis)

How did you do? Everyone’s ideal alternative would be slightly different so it’s very important to decide as a family what exactly you’d like to do instead. Dogs need both consistency and patience on our parts to be success, and framing our tasks as teach alternative behaviors is the first step!

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What is clicker training?

This week, I’m taking a break from the blog as I prepare for a security presentation I’m giving on Wednesday. 🙂

But I didn’t want to leave you folks hanging so I wanted to share with you a great introduction on how versatile and creative clicker training is. For those of you who have been following along since I started this blog, I mentioned clicker training way back in the first blog post. Where I taught Esther “feet on” using the word “yes” as my clicker. Anything works as a clicker so long as it is the consistent (which is why an actual clicker works so well).

This video, which was done by Emily Larlham a well known positive trainer and owner of Dogmatics in San Diego. It will go through charging your clicker so it will have value and meaning for your dog. Then go through three ways to use your clicker: capturing, free shaping and luring. Great video and some awesomely talented dogs!

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But I Don’t Wanna!

We all have that thing we never want to do. Getting up for the gym, eating all our vegetables, getting up early for work. You name it. Our dogs are the same way. Nail trims, the dreaded bathtub or a trip for the vet. The only difference between these two things is that we know doing those unpleasant things because we know deep, deep, deep down those unpleasant things won’t last forever and they’re (probably… maybe…) good for us in the long run. You’re dog doesn’t know that. To him or her, the vet trip is forever and it’s the worst thing.

How can we make this unpleasant things more pleasant for our furry friends?

First things first, we need to recognize that everyone, including us, has a limit. In dog training we call this a threshold. It’s a point at which you exceed the dog’s ability to handle the situation and they have a reaction to it. Most often this reaction is one of fear – showing signs of stress, yawning, shaking, or what is often mistaken as “aggression” by barking, lunging, growling or snapping. If you dog is showing any of these signs you’ve gone too far. When a dog is “above threshold” the dog’s mind is in a state of fear and thus we, as trainers, cannot change the dogs reaction to this “unpleasant” thing.

In order to change the dog’s frame of mind, we need to work with the dog when he or she is “below threshold.” This process takes time and patience because we are actually changing the emotional response of the dog. Think of it in humans terms, let’s say you have a phobia of the dark. If I toss you in a room, turn off the lights and then hand you your favorite food of all time. Are you cured? Probably not. I bet you don’t even notice I brought food. You’re too busy trying to claw your way across the room to find the light switch, right? Dogs react the same way. You’ll see ones 100% food motivated dogs, completely ignore hotdogs dropped or even held right in front of their face.

Instead we’ve got to work up gradually to this scenario. Let’s say instead of turning off all the lights, we just dim them to 90% and eat your favorite food. We’ll do this for a while, then turn them back up, then back down, then up, then down, gradually getting closer to that desired darkness. And eventually, we’ll have you eating in the dark with the same reaction as if you were eating in the light. That takes time, but in the end your brain no longer experiences fear when the lights go off, instead you feel happy and excited in anticipation of your favorite food.

In dog world, I’ve been working on this with Luna. Luna, my own dog, has a phobia of people. When I first adopted her, a year ago, she would enter into panic mode (being over threshold) when she was 50 feet away. She’d freeze up, refuse to move or try and back out of her harness. We can’t teach like that, so we worked at 60 feet before she’d get into panic mode. Or we’d “stalk” a person and walk behind them which is less scary then approaching them head on.

It’s important to adapt, be flexible and above all be patient. Change emotions is hard work for both you and the dog. Pairing something awesome/pleasant with some that is mildly unpleasant (like a person from 60 feet away or a 90% dim room), works to change the reaction that that “unpleasant” thing. And it doesn’t always have to be food either. Sometimes, we get too focused on treating or praising we forget other rewards exist too. For Luna, if we approached someone head on for a few feet, her reward was to move away from that person. Sure I looked like a crazy person walking into the yard or crossing the street, but hey it worked for her. The relief she felt after having been “brave” and walking towards her fear was the reward to her.

If anyone has any ideas, topics or questions as they relate to dog behavior or training, please send us an email at contact@underdogstriumph.org and yours may be featured in our next blog!

 

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Special Needs Dogs

Two of my good friends recently had their first baby (yay!). In addition to this little ball of adorable, they also have a few fluffy four-legged kids too. Now if two dogs, a cat and newborn sounds like a handful, their dogs, Violet and Prim, are also both special needs dogs. Both dogs are blind. To help decrease a bit of stress (and hopefully increase sleep) I’ve been watching Prim for two weeks now.

Prim was originally rescued from Missouri. While playing at the park a couple watched a car drive up, set little Prim on the ground and drive away. When the soon-to-be-rescuer got up to little Prim, the could see both of her eyes were completely destroyed. One was severely infected and the other was barely even connected anymore, plus she had a severe case of mange (a skin disease) which had made her lose most of her hair. The rescuer immediately scooped her up and took her to a local rescue. In order to save her life, Prim suddenly lost both her eyes and became blind.

Much like people, each dog handles disabilities different. Violet, their other blind adoption, is like a bull in a china shop. She doesn’t let her disability slow her down in the least. She knows all the key things blind dogs need to know: “step-up”/”step-down” (for navigating stairs), “careful” (for avoiding obstacles), how to give into lead pressure (to be guided via gentle pressure on the leash) and a few bonus behaviors like sit and shake. When at the dog park, she takes off after whatever smell hits her first and will wander for hours chasing scents.

Prim is different. Prim is more cautious. She freezes when she is put into a new place. And it takes here a good week or so to have the courage to explore a new area. She startles easily and has difficulty navigating around. She resists giving into any sort of lead pressure and thus has been unable to be walked. After a follow up vet appointment to help treat the mange, my friends and the vets also determined she’s mostly deaf too.

So what can we do for this adorable fluff?

Prim in Bed
Prim in Bed

In our last blog, we talked about enrichment and a few things you can do to make sure your dog/s are getting the stimulation and activity they need too. But what about little Prim?  She’s lost lost two key senses: sight and hearing. Sounds like it’s time to get creative!

First, we need to focus on key sense Prim has that does work. Smell is the strongest sense a dog has. It’s somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 times better than ours, which is statistic I can’t even begin to fathom. Taste also is closely tied to smell and as Prim munches down her dog food with as much vigor as a small fluff can, I can tell you that sense works very well too. 🙂

At work, I started taking a single USA made <<chicken strips>> and tearing it into the smallest pieces I possibly can. I’m talking like 1/3 of a dime in size here. And then I sprinkle them all over the floor. Believe it or not, Prim tracks down Every Single One. And it takes her about 20-30 minutes to consume what was originally a two bite chicken strip. Her tail wags like crazy the entire time. We’ve taken a simple boring two second activity, and turned it into a brain engaging, stimulating quest for chicken bits!

The second thing we can do is change her environment to make it more accommodating to her disability. While Prim was visiting I set her up with a little den in the living room. I put a uniquely textured rug (the only one of its kind in the house) in front of it and every single time I brought her into the house from somewhere I would place her here in the same exactly orientation. This serves two purposes, it allows her to identify where she is at, and marks her “entrance” to her little cave. The den also provides protection on three sides so she can feel safe & secure inside it. I also put a small diffuser above the crate with some lavender scent. This way, she knows the strong smell of lavender = her house.

Prim in Den
Prim in Den

The last thing we started working on was beginning preparations for a walk. In the last few days she’s started to explore the house and sometimes ends up in different places when it was time for dinner. I’d prep her food and set it above her crate then head off to go find Prim. I’d put my hands under her front arm pits (where a harness would rest) and gently encourage her to walk forward. When she did, she gets lots of high pitch praise (the one thing she can sorta here) and some good butt scratches. When we, finally, made it back to her doggie den, she’d be jackpotted with an entire bowl of delicious dinner!

The one major thing I did struggle with was how to wake Prim up. She’s a VERY heavy sleeper and not even high pitch sounds would wake her from her snoring slumber. I tried tapping on the ground, even stomping heavily as I would walk up to her but even that would only sometimes wake her up. And oftentimes she’d show stress signals at being startled awake, like a lip lick. Finally as I laid on the ground outside her den wracking my brain… Prim just woke up, tail thumping against the back of the crate. I was super confused. Can you guess what I did?

I breathed on her. And again, her noses KNOWS it was me and woke her up gradually without any stress signals. Yay!

All in all, having Prim visit with me for two weeks was a delight. It challenged my dog trainer mind to think outside the box to help meet her needs. It encouraged me to slow down and let her think, as with her limited senses it takes her a few extra seconds to understand what I was asking her to do. Special needs dogs are just as enriching to our own lives as able-bodied dogs, and I know this little fluff has definitely buried her way into my heart!

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Enriching Your Dog’s Life

Enrichment (n) – the action of improving or enhancing the quality or value of something.

Humans constantly desire to enrich our daily lives. It would be easy to do the same old thing, day after day, week after week, but we don’t. We volunteer. We socialize. We form families and friend groups. We learn new things and take up new hobbies. Yet it is all too common to see a dog who is being deprived of this same rich life.

It is common for folks to think they are providing for their dogs by providing the basic needs: good food, shelter, companionship, maybe some new toys and a romp in the backyard once in a while. But our dogs need more. They cannot and shouldn’t live out their entire stuck doing the same thing day in and day out.

Think of the last time you were stir crazy. Maybe you took a few days off or had a extended weekend. How long could you stay in your house for? Even though you’ve got netflix/movies, maybe a computer, and some books to read. You’ve got all these things, how long until you crack? For me, I can normally find things to entertain myself with for a week. The same thing happens to your dog.

The motto: A tired dog is a good dog holds true. A dog who is not only physically tired but also mentally tired is a good dog. They are fulfilled. Let’s take a look at the two pieces of this “good dog recipe” – physical enrichment and mental enrichment for some ways to enhance your dogs lifestyle.

Physical Enrichment:

The number one thing you can do for your dog is to walk him or her. Walking even if only for a short period of time, provides both physical and mental stimulation. Walk different places, take different routes, drive to a park and take a hike. New smells, sights and sounds all work to stimulate the mind and the walk itself works to tired your pup out physically too. Walks have been shown to provide numerous benefits to heart & lungs and combat diseases too – for both dogs and people! And don’t forget to let your dog SNIFF things. With a nose as powerful as theirs is, let them use it. We oftentimes forget to stop and smell the roses but don’t deprive your dog of the same!

If you’re pressed for time or you find a few minutes to spare in a busy day, play a few rounds of fetch with your pup. You can increase the mental enrichment of fetch by asking for a routine obedience command like a sit or a down between throws. For example, you throw the ball, the dog brings it back, you pick it up, ask for a sit, mark the sit with a “yes” and pitch the ball again.

Mental Enrichment:

Mental enrichment games are a super fun to come up with because you can get very creative with them. Dogs, much like people, appreciate novelty. You buy premade enrichment toys like a kong, dog puzzle or other food based toys online. But there are also a lot of simple things you can do for free too.

We like to play “find the kibble” at home. While my dog is out and about in the backyard, I’ll hide 15 – 20 pieces of dog food throughout the house. You should start this game off easy and keep all the treats in a small area, then expand outward to other rooms/areas of the house. This engages the dogs mind as well as fulfilling a basic dog need for foraging or scavenging. You’re just giving getting a bonus by providing appropriate “scavenging” materials instead of trash or other more disgusting things dogs seem to love haha.

Keeping your dog both mentally and physically tired by providing an enriching environment can set your household on a path to peace and tranquility. That same feeling you get after a long, fulfilling, busy day, you can now give to your dog!

Next week we’re going to take a more in depth look at a special needs dog named Primrose and how enrichment games can help her improve her quality of life.

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How do I find a good trainer?

There is a lot of jargon with it comes to dog training. We’ve already talked about some of terms like “lip lick”, “calming signals,” “markers” and more. Coming from outside this crazy (and excitingly awesome) dog filled world it can be sometimes a bit difficult to navigate. Let’s say you’re in the situation where you have a dog with some behavioral issues you would like to work through with a trainer. But how do you go about even finding a “good” trainer? Heck, what even makes a “good” trainer and how do you sift through all the “bad” ones to find a good one? Let’s take a look at some key things you should look for in a trainer.

  1. Promotes Positive Training Methods.
    I will say that “positive” training is (and should be) all the rage. However it’s a more difficult to understand than just shocking a dog or jerking the collar to punish the dog does something wrong. That’s because positive training methods are based solidly on the science of how dogs learn and general learning theory. Sadly this popularity means that lot of dog trainers say they are positive, then have you forcing your dog to do things the dog clearly doesn’t want to do. Or worse these trainers have you doing things to your that you don’t think you should be doing. Positive trainers should NEVER use fear, pain, or intimidation to get a dog to do something. Instead they should rely on something pleasant (positive) like food/praise/toy/petting/etc to increase the likelihood that the wanted behavior will happen again (reinforcement). Your trainer should NEVER asked you to do something that you do not feel comfortable in doing. And finally you should avoid any trainer that uses terms like “pack theory” or “dominance” or “alpha rolls” in their training methods – all of these have been disproved by science.
  2. Digesting the Alphabet Soup of Dog Training Certifications
    In my opinion the worst thing about the dog training world is that it is unregulated. That means that there is no centralized governing body that determines what someone has to do in order to become a “dog trainer.” If I wanted to make a “Ellen’s Best World Dog Trainer” program I could, and people who graduated from it could be called “Professional Dog Trainers” – even if they had never actually worked with or touched a dog. O.o This to me is a huge disservice both to those wanting to become masters in their fields and those seeking a well educated professional for training purposes. A lot of trainers will belong to or have graduated from certain dog training programs. I myself will soon be a graduate of the CATCH dog training academy. It’s important to research these programs to understand the background of your trainer. A lot of these programs, for instance the American Kennel Club (AKC) Canine Good Citizen Evaluator simply requires an attestation that you have worked with dogs for 2+ years and you pay a fee – that’s it. There are plenty other programs that will simply take money in exchange for a certificate or title. Others never require you to ever touch or interact with a dog to be certified. They key takeaway from this is that fancy letters after a dog trainer’s name does not always equate to actual knowledge or experience in working with dogs.
  3. Check Out Reviews & Online Presence
    While I know not all trainers are as tech savvy as I am, a lot of trainers now have youtube channels or websites where you can go read about and watch the prospective trainer in action. One of my favorite youtube folks, Zac George, has weekly videos showing him working with dogs. This is perfect for being able to see your dog trainer actually work with dogs. You can take a look for things like: are both the dog/trainer comfortable? Are both having fun? Does the trainer’s actions support their descriptions of how they train? Other trainers have online reviews posted that you can read about other’s experiences with that trainer. If you can’t see them digitally, ask if you can sit in on a class to see what it’s like. Most trainers should let you audit a class (without your dog) to see if their methods are a good match for you. Other important things to look for is the communication style. Is the trainer able to break training theory/tasks down into small manageable steps? Are they able to explain things when you have questions? Effective communication between someone who lives and breaths a subject and someone who is just starting out is very key to having a successful experience.

Now that you know three things to look for (or look out for) in your prospective trainer, let’s talk about how to find a good, positive, experienced trainer.

  1. Check the APDT Trainer Listing
    The Association of Professional Dog Trainers (APDT) has a search feature for those trainers who have joined them. This, while being another title which requires only a brief application and fee, is a very well known throughout the dog training world as being one that works hard to promote dog training methods based soundly on science. I myself am a member and I have also used its search capabilities to locate a trainer for a consultation of one of my own dogs. That’s RIGHT. I asked for a second opinion on one of my own dogs. Dog trainers can’t know everything. Some trainers will have small niches of things they excel or super enjoy training and they’ll have others which they aren’t so good at. Good trainers know their strengths and know when they are out of their areas of expertise, and will be upfront with you about it. If they tell you they need to refer you to another trainer/professional/vet trust they are doing this for the dog. I ended up finding a wonderful local woman to watch me work with my feral rescue who I had, then, only had for 3 weeks, to ensure I wasn’t pushing too hard or causing more stress as I helped Luna adjust to the world around her. She gave me some tips and exercises I hadn’t already thought of, and reconfirmed that sometimes two brains are better than one! 🙂
  2. Ask Your Friends, Neighbors, or Coworkers
    Almost 50% of folks in the U.S. have dogs. And I can guarantee almost all of these dogs have something they are currently working on for a behavioral improvement. A lot of these dogs’ parents have participated in some form of dog training. Ask them for information about who they used and what their opinion of the place/trainer was. You could also try checking out places like dog parks or local agility/trial clubs to see if they have recommendations for trainers too. Then research those suggestions to find the match that’s right for you.
  3. Appreciate the Art Form of Dog Training
    This is very key when you first start working with a trainer or evaluating one. Dogs, much like people, have different learning styles, different motivators and different ways of solving problems. A good trainer will know this, but for newbie trainers or newbie owners it’s easy to overlook. Dog training never has a one-size-fits-all solution. If a trainer comes in with a plan before they have even met you or have diagnosed the dog with an issue before they have even seen the dog, steer clear. Dogs speak from head to tail using their entire body and voice to communicate. If a trainer doesn’t take the time to read these “words” then you probably won’t have a good experience and neither will your dog. You also need to be conscious of this fact. After a dog trainer evaluates your dog, you will both come up with one or more plans for adjusting the behavior. These plans might not work out. This doesn’t mean you or your trainer is wrong, only that it might need some adjustment to match your dogs learning style and personality. 🙂

Overall when seeking out a trainer for anything related, you need to be patient and thorough in order to find one that is experienced, professional, and fits both your needs and your dogs. In the case of a behavioral issue or even just basic obedience, it is never a decision in which you should take lightly or just flip through the phone book to find. You (and your trainer) want the absolute best for your dog – so take the time (and have the patience) to find one that’s the perfect fit for you!

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Dog Bite Prevention Week

Last week was dog bite prevention week. All throughout the week I saw all sorts of posts telling you to:

  • ALWAYS watch children of any age around your pet,
  • Learn and watch for any body language signs of stress (like last week’s “lip lick” video)
  • Never punish a growl.

That last one really stuck with me. Never punish a growl. It was and is something a lot of folks punish their dog for doing. Their dog may growl at the postman or growl standing over their bone (resource guarding). It’s natural dog language saying: “HEY! Back off. I don’t want to hurt you but I will!”

Along those same lines I read one of the best description of why aversive forms of dog training DO NOT work. An adversive would be anything which cause pain to your dog like shock collars, prongs, choke chains, sprays, etc. The article stated this:

“Aversive methods and equipment suppress aggressive displays but not the underlying cause of the aggression.”

I wish I could LIKE that description a thousand times over. You would not believe the number of times I hear people talk about seeing something on Youtube or TV where some “trainer” used a shock collar and BAM instant transformation. And to an extent you do see a transformation. You’ve paired a painful experience with (hopefully) the thing you don’t want the dog to not do. But this has one major flaw: It doesn’t stop the dog from feeling the same things they were before, it only stops them from showing them. Therefore, sure on the surface, it appears as though the dog’s problem is fixed.

There are two major issues with this:

  1. What happens if your timing is off on the punishment. You dog starts chewing on a shoe and you reach for the shock remote, just as your child, Timmy, walks through the door. The dog looks up at the child and BAM gets hit with the shock punishment. “There,” you think, “he’s stopped chewing on the shoe”. But your dog thinks, “Man, when Timmy walks towards me – it hurts!” You’ve taken a minor problem of chewed loafers and created a dog with aggression (fear) towards children.
  2. The second issue is that you’ve turned your dog into a ticking time bomb. You had a dog who growls whenever people get close. You punished him every time he growls. He stopped growling. Now he goes from standing next to a person -> biting them. He still feels the fear but there’s no warning growl in the middle to prevent the attack. You’ve eliminated it.

To related this to humans, let’s say you are scared of spiders (and who isn’t!!). I bring you into a room filled with spiders, you scream. I punish you. After a few days of practice, spider -> scream -> smack, eventually you’ll stop screaming. The outward  display of fear is gone. But how do you feel about spiders? Internally do you think you will ever associate spiders with something that isn’t scary or painful? Probably not.

Now think about you being out and about with friends and family and a GIANT spider falls into your hair. How would you react? Would you be calm and collected now that this spider is on you? I think not (I know I wouldn’t be!!). Same is true when you use adversives on dogs, you aren’t actually changing the dog’s frame of mind towards the thing, you’re just masking the external displays of it. You’ve created a ticking time bomb with no ticks to tell you it’s even armed.

The above quote was taken from 4Paws University’s post on dog bite prevention: https://www.facebook.com/4pawsuniversity/posts/10155217059142070 I encourage all of you to follow them on Facebook as they put out awesome positive training items throughout the week!

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Dissecting Doggy Body Language

This past weekend I attended the Rescue Me Seminar put on by the Iowa Weim Rescue and hosted by Iowa State. One of the first talks was given by Dr. Suzanne Millman an Associate Professor of Animal Welfare. She talked to us about how to “Maintain Harmony When Adding a Pet to your Home.” Her talk was filled with all sorts of great tips for maintain peace when you introduce a new pet (of any species) to your home, especially if you already have some furry critters living there.

One of the main points she drove home is the planning involved in bringing home a new pet. Even more so than just focusing on the physical things they’ll need like a bowl, food, collar etc, but really look at the reason behind getting another pet in the first place. There are no wrong answers, but think through the following questions and ask yourself.

Before getting a new pet ask yourself:

  1. Why do you want to get a new pet?
  2. Who will be affected by this new pet? (Humans AND Animals)
  3. What risks are involved and to whom?
  4. Create a plan to introduce the new pets and come up with plans for any conflicts.
  5. Ensure YOU have the time to address these conflicts and concerns to allow harmony in your home!

This talk was particularly relevant as last summer I added a new dog to my crew, Luna. Luna is a 2 year old rescue from AHeinz57 in Adel. She was terrified of people, so much so that I would classify her as being a feral (or wild) dog. She would attempt to flee if anyone came within 65 feet of her. When I went for a meet & greet, I spent over an hour with her, as she built up courage to sniff my hand. I knew I would be in for a challenge! (I wasn’t wrong, it took her over 3 days to venture from her crate! Another 2 weeks before she would sit on the couch.)

For those five questions above, I wanted to get Esther a new canine friend. Rufus had passed away about 5 months prior and she was getting lonely (despite going to work every day) without another canine to communicate with. I knew I had a dog, and two cats, already. So I would need to pick out a dog that was calmer and had zero prey drive to chase cats. After meeting Ms. Luna I was fearful of her not ever being able to trust humans again, or worse yet that I had picked out another companion for Esther who wanted to do nothing more than hide. But we persisted. And now Esther has a best buddy. They sleep, play and go to work together. Every day Luna gets a little braver and everyday she sinks deeper into all of our hearts <3

Here is one of their first captured “play” session. This was almost 6 months after I adopted her. I disabled the audio on the video (because who wants to hear me yammer at my dogs) but also because it really illustrates how quietly (and quickly!) dogs communicate with each other. Much like in Dr. Millman’s talk, this is a supervised play session. Without me being there, Luna is too inept at reading dog language and Esther is too intolerant of her crazy play “boxing,” – there would definitely be a dog fight without me supervising. In the video, first we’ll watch the minute long play session, then we’ll break it apart to see the individual signals Esther gives Luna (which Luna ignores) and how I act as an interpreter between them. This helps either from going over their threshold, which you can think of like a tipping point of becoming overwhelmed and reacting to what’s going on around them. Enjoy!

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Gamification of Training

Training. Most people think of training as that boring thing you have to do to drill you dog into becoming a proper canine member of society. Each day you practice the same thing, over and over until one day, maybe, your dog will understand. Or worse yet, you dislike the idea of drilling something over and over so much, that a small fixable problem turns into what seems like a insurmountable one. What a lot of people don’t realize is that your dog picks up on your “bored” or “disinterested” approach to training and it effects their learning too.

To get good results, we need to teach positively, and be upbeat and quick pace for our dogs to remain interested and engaged in what they’re learning. The same environment applies to humans too. Think back to your own favorite professor or teacher growing up. Did that person stand at the front of the classroom, and read from the slides or make you do drills for hours on end? No. Dogs enjoy the same types of learning environments we do.

This spring I enrolled in the “Spring into Transformation” course taught online by Absolute Dogs. Their whole training model focuses around making training enjoyable for both canine and human. And most importantly have fun while learning useful skills to build confidence and promote optimism. Thus far it’s been an interesting take on dog training for me. So often in training everyone is working towards a final finish line: like a sit or a down. We try to micromanage everything instead of teaching the dogs skills they need to apply to general situations.

This, I feel, is a major flaw in most training classes. You teach everything in one location. Dogs are terrible at generalizing behaviors to different situations. Human however excel at this. If I teach you how to read in the living room and then hand you a book in the kitchen. Odds are you’ll still know how to read. Dog’s minds don’t work like this. If you only teach dogs how to sit in the living room, they will ONLY know how to sit in the living room, ask them to do so in the kitchen and it will take a while before they realize you’re asking for the same behavior. This learning difference can make dog training hard because we can’t possible train in every single situation we might encounter in real life.

Spring into Transformation turns this on its head. Instead of teaching your dog to say wear a muzzle, you teach them the general behavior of getting rewarded for sticking their face into things. Even more basic things like getting your dog to walk across uneven surfaces or unfamiliar surfaces like marble, gravel or wood chips is transformed into a game that’s fun and enjoyable for you both.

To illustrate this we have our TLC alumni super star Esther. She’ll be demonstrating a new game called “feet on” which is designed to get dogs used to walking on different textures and to get comfortable with unsteady surfaces. All in all it builds both confidence that the new sensation won’t hurt them, and optimism in that novelty brings about good things! For the video below, we’re just using Esther’s dinner as her rewards, so instead of just getting an entire “free” bowl of kibble, she works for it (and you’ll see how much she hates that haha!).

For now, don’t worry about the techniques, we’ll chat more about all the components later, but here’s some basic lingo to get you started. I’m using “yes” as a clicker as I didn’t have my actual clicker handy and Esther has been taught both clicker or “yes” mean it marks “that” was the behavior I was looking for. I use a combination of “luring” to pull her onto the pillow the first few times, then I’ll fade that away and see if she offers the behavior herself without any guidance. Esther is very good at these “guess what crazy thing mom wants you to do” games and as you’ll see below how quickly she picks up the “game”. The other thing you’ll note, is I don’t use any verbal words for what I want her do to – something a lot of folks forget. Since she doesn’t know the behavior yet… how can it have a name? We’ll add the name in later, after she already knows it. Watch below as Esther attempts her first “feet on” on a very easy object – a pillow. Enjoy!