Archives : 2009 : February

Training Dog's To FINALLY Fetch

I hear this comment a lot when I’m out at the park with Bauer, my Golden Retriever throwing him his tennis ball…

“Man, I wish my dog would play fetch… He’ll go get the ball, but he never brings it back”

And when I hear this, I always give the person a courteous laugh, but inside I feel sad for them.  Playing fetch with your dog can play such an important role in their physical and mental health.

And so many people think that their dog’s wont fetch.

But the truth of the matter is that ALL dogs could learn how to play fetch in a matter of days or weeks by just following a principle I call “Motivation Manipulation”.

Motivation Manipulation is about becoming more aware of what is motivating your dog to do the things he does… and to be in tune to those motivating factors at all times.

For example, my dog didn’t know how to play fetch when I first got him either.  I had to work at it.

I would throw the ball to my dog, and then ask him to bring it back, which he never did.

Instead he would go chase after a ball I threw and then wonder what the heck to do with it.  What lots of people do at this stage of training a dog to fetch is go after their dog.

Let’s think about this from the dog’s perspective for a moment.  What motivating factors are making the dog behave the way he was.

1. He WAS motivated to chase the ball, that’s why he went after it.  So in this case it must have been fun to chase.  And I don’t know about you, but get a bunch of dogs together at the park and they love chasing things.  I think it’s just in their DNA.
2. So why didn’t the dog bring the ball back?  Well, what would motivate the dog to bring the ball back.  What part of bringing it back to you is motivating in any way if he’s never brought it back before.
3. And if you decide to go after your dog, be careful… this might actually become a fun game of keep away, and motivate your dog to NEVER come back.

Do you see how lots of motivating factors are keeping your dog from playing fetch appropriately?

So how do you train a dog to fetch an item and be motivated to bring it back?  That’s where the principal of “Motivation Manipulation” comes in.

In this case, we would look at exactly the behaviors we want a dog to do, in this case we want him to chase a ball, fetch it, bring it back to us, and drop it at our feet, right?

Most of us don’t normally have to motivate our dogs to chase the ball, some might, but for 90% of dog owners that isn’t usually the problem… and that part doesn’t need extra motivation.

It’s when the dog fetches the ball we throw that all of a sudden he doesn’t have any motivation to bring it back to you. So… dun, dun, dun (dramatic sounding noise We insert EXTRA motivation here to make up for the lack of motivation.

a.k.a. yummy ass treats!

A good piece of meet is usually strong enough motivation to get any dog to come on back to you.

You’ll probably find that in the beginning you shouldn’t throw the ball to far away, and only make your dog fetch a ball back to you 5 feet or so.  And let him know that if he doesn’t bring the ball back, he doesn’t get a treat.

Continue to refine this process until your dog knows that he actually has to drop the ball directly at your feet or their is NO food reward.

And remember, your dog won’t be perfect when you start, he’ll see you holding the treat and might drop the ball, or only bring it back half way… that’s perfectly fine and normal.

Just make sure you start with easy retrieves at short distances before you work on training your dog to fetch things from a LONG way away.

Don’t want to always have treats on hand? Not a problem.

Remember, I called this ‘Motivation Manipulation’ not just adding motivation.

You see, over time your dog will realize that he LOVES playing fetch, and for many dog’s that love of fetch is stronger then the love of food.  Which means we only have to use food for a short period of time until the dog realizes that if he wants to fetch the ball again (assuming he loves to fetch) he has to bring it back to you.

It’s just that we trick him to bring it back to us in the beginning with food.  And it’s the act of throwing the ball again right after he’s eaten his treat, that then trains the dog to bring it back for another fetch (where fetching becomes it’s OWN reward)

Pretty cool that it works this way huh?

So if your dog doesn’t fetch, head out to the park this week and give this method a try and leave me a comment back on this post of how it worked or if you have any questions.

Happy Fetching!

Chet

Over 498 Dog Owners Are Begging For This…

A little over a month ago I posted a question on my blog to see if there was an interest in people going through a weekly “Virtual Video Training” Program For Dogs, that teaches your dog how to:

1. Greet ANY stranger in a friendly manner — whether out in public or at your front door
2. Training your dog to sit calmly every time you or friends go to pet him
3. Behave Perfectly on walks, whether on or off leash… and completely stop pulling
4. How to walk your dog through a crowd of people and maintain complete control
5. How to stay sitting or laying down in one place when you REALLY need him to
6. Strategies for getting him to come WHENEVER he’s called… no matter how much he doesn’t want to
7. Training drills to teach your dog to be NICE to other dogs
8. How to get your dog to pay attention to you… and NEVER get distracted… even in chaotic environments
9. Plus strategies for teaching your dog to behave himself in your home when you are NOT there.

And to put it bluntly, my blog got slammed with over 498 comments from people dying for an online training class where I would teach a new lesson each week in webinar format… & give weekly homework assignments for EXACTLY what to train your dog that week.

But the part that REALLY got people excited was that on top of the weekly trainings, I’m also going to provide every person a video camera to record each training session and send in for a training critique each week.

I mean let’s face it…

Even if you’ve taken your dog to a great local trainer who can get your dog to perform in a classroom setting, the real tough part is getting your dog to behave in the REAL world, where they’re distractions, territorial issues, and REAL life keeping you from finally having success with your dog.

So I thought the BEST way for me to help you get your dog to obey in the REAL world, was if I could actually see your dog on video, how he was reacting to each weeks training lessons, and give tips that way…

… tips that would be custom fit for your dog’s unique environment!

So here’s the deal.

I’m going to be opening up registration for this new coaching class some time next week, and I’m expecting it to sell out pretty fast.

So if you’re even a little interested in participating in this group coaching program, or you’d like to learn more details about this program, you’re going to want to fill out your first name and valid email address into the form at the end of this post.

Don’t worry, signing up for this early-notification list doesn’t mean you’re committing to the program.

But filling out this form will put you on my early-bird notification list, which get’s you 1st access to this coaching program when it opens.

Plus… I’ll be releasing more details about what I’ll be covering in this new program to everyone who fills out the form, like how it works, what format, etc.

So if you’re interested in learning more about his Virtual Video Training program for dogs, and getting first access to registration, here’s the form:

Contact Information
First Name *
Last Name *
Email *

Why Dog's Struggle To Understand No

Let’s face it… we’ve all had our dogs choose to not listen to us at one time or another.

We’ve all asked our dog’s to come here, or drop it, or told him NO; only to have him completely ignore us because he’s interested in something else.

At first we try to simply repeat the command, like somehow he didn’t here us the first time.

Sometimes this approach works, and other times it just seems like we just have to start saying No louder and louder.

Why does this happen?

Is this just a dog related issue, or is there a bigger law of learning at work here?

Let’s think about this from a few different angle that more of us can relate to.

For those of you who don’t know, I have an 11 month old son who’s up and walking all over the house.  He has no bad intentions, he just reaches and goes for whatever his little mind feels like going towards.

Sometimes what he goes for are OK, and other times they are a bit dangerous, like when I realized it was time to get some electrical outlet covers as he was reaching for them with his fingers.

When I first saw him reaching for the electrical outlet I shouted “No” at him, not to be mean, but for his safetly.  The second he heard my voice his little head jerked up and he stopped reaching for the light switch.

Did this mean he understood my No command?

Or did he just get startled by dad making some big loug noise.

It was probably the latter, because 2 seconds later he was right back reaching for the outlet.

You see, when we give commands to any living creature those commands need to have consequences.  Those consequences can be either good or bad, but they have to be there to help understanding.

And what animal trainers have known for years, is that if you ask for the same behavior from an animal too many times in a row, especially without a reward, that behavior becomes less and less reliable.

How many times have you told your dog NO, and then rewarded him when he obeyed lately?

The number’s probably slim to none.

So what can you do instead?

I reccommend that you try to teach your dog’s behaviors that mean something to him.  Things like leave it, or drop it, that have very real meanings, and very real ways of training them that allow you to give your dog a reward when he obeys you.

For example, I try VERY hard to never tell my dog NO, and to never yell at him with his name when he’s in trouble.  Instead, I spent time early in his life teaching him to leave things alone like his food bowl, or to drop items on cue that he was chewing.  And I worked on them enough so that they are VERY reliable.

And the second thing I do is I try to use the ‘leave it’ or ‘drop it’ commands as commands for staying out of trouble instead of NO.  And I always have a reward nearby to randomly reward my dog with a food treat for obeying me.

Plus I make sure to continually keep these behaviors sharp by NOT overusing them, and making sure I spend a little time each week giving food rewards for leaving or dropping certain items on command, so he doesn’t just stop listening to me because he knows nothing good ever comes from obeying me.

I encourage you to have an open mind about this topic…

You may be reading this thinking to yourself that your dog DOES understand no because you use it along with punishment, or you swear your dog looks guilty when you tell him NO, or several other reasons.  And to those of you thinking those thoughts, you bring up some great points that I’ll talk to in future posts, as there are some good, bad and easy to misunderstand points to all those points.

But we’ll save them for another day.

Happy Training!

Chet

How To Make A Dog Stop Barking

Today I want to talk to you about a concept that I call “Training a Greeting Routine”, so that he stops barking at strangers who come into his territory… specifically people who come to the front door.

And I think it’s important before I show you one of the ways for how to make a dog stop barking at people who come to your home to understand a couple of principles.

First, I believe that in MOST, but not all cases, your dog is barking at people for instinctive reasons.  Reasons that are engrained in him from his genetics, passed down by his wolf ancestry.  It’s their instinct to protect their territory, and I think it’s helpful to realize that it’s an instince and not that your dog is mean, or annoying, or some other humanesque trait that we want to call him by.

It’s simply a natural behavior, that he’s following through on.

There’s a good book that I recommend you read on this topic that takes this concept of genetic pass down traits even further, called “The Other End Of The Leash”.  It’s one of those MUST reads if you want to better understand your dog.

And in the case of dogs barking at people coming into their territory, one of the reasons he may be doing this is because it’s normally the job of the leader of the dog pack to protect his territory.  So if your dog doesn’t think you’re fulfilling your guard dog duties your dog may try to fill the void naturally.

But that’s a deeper topic for another time.

The second principle I’d like you to understand is a pinciple that I call the “One Track Mind Theory”.

The one track mind theory states that an animal seems to have a hard time doing two things at the same time.  For example, dog’s don’t seem to be very good at barking at a stranger while performing a behavior like a down, shake, or go to your mat.

It’s doesn’t always hold true, but it does seem to work most of the time, especially if you ask the dog to do a specific behavior before he get’s too emotional.

Professional animal trainers would call this reinforcing an alternative behavior, and they’ve been using it to sucessfully mange animals in theme parks all over the world.

And in this post I want to give you a little better idea of how you can use this same concept to train your dog to perform a “Greeting Routine”, or an alternative behavior to barking, when he sees people coming up to your door.

The first step to training this behavior is to teach your dog the ‘down’ command.

I’m not going to go into how to do that in this post, but let’s just say that you want him to learn down, and learn how to stay in the down position until you release him.

But that’s just the beginning.

Even if your dog performs an excellent down/stay for you in your living room.  That doesn’t mean he’ll do it when he’s all amped up emotionally when that doorbell rings.

You have to build him up to that point.

You need to start inviting people over to your home to be in the room as you train your dog.  Slowly make your dog’s environment more and more distracting, until your dog will hold a down/stay even with a 6 year old’s birthday party going on and pizza being spilled on the floor.

Remember to set your dog up for success, and only add more distractions when you notice your dog being able to handle them.  And build them up to the point where no matter where you go, or who you’re around your dog will listen to you.

Then you’re ready to tackle the greeting routine.

This can be done several different ways, but one way is to train your dog to lay down on his mat when he hears the doorbell ring.

At first you’ll have a partner help you ring the doorbell, followed immediately by your cue to lay down on his mat or bed, and then followed by a great tasty treat as a reward.

Over time your dog will learn to realize that the doorbell is the cue for laying down on his mat, and you’ll want to teach him to stay their for longer and longer periods of time before he earns his reward.

You know you’re dog get’s it when you hear the doorbell ring, and on the first try your dog will go over and lay on his bed.

Try to get your guests to give the dog ZERO attention, not to look at him, and not to pet him, until you’ve sat down… at which point you can release your dog and have your guest give him the treat you snuck into their hand when they walked in (without your dog noticing).

What this will do overtime is teach your dog that people coming to the door are the CUE to do another behavior, and that he always get’s tasty rewards if he’ll hold that behavior until released.

It’ll take some time, but working on building a ‘Greeting Routine’ for your dog will help him be less territorial of your home and really help curb the barking at your front door.

Until Next Time…

Happy Training!

Chet

Training Away Your Dogs Aggression

Regardless of the size of your dog, it’s critical to take steps in the beginning to prevent dog aggression.  There’s nothing worse than having your dog bite someone.  It’s embarrassing, it’s frightening and it can cause your dog to be taken away from you and lose its life.  Why deal with that kind of angst when the solution is actually quite simple.

There are different types of aggression but many of them stem from the same thing, a lack of socialization and preparedness.

Fear aggression while it can stem from trauma often comes from a dog not knowing how to deal with a situation.  Dominance aggression comes from a dog who is confused about his relationship with the family and preparation aggression comes from a dog that is quite simply not prepared for what life has to offer.

Basic training like sit, stay, and heel are a good foundation to truly protect your dog from aggressive behavior consider undergoing a toddler training regimen.

Jeff Kinsley of SoundAnimals.com says, “Toddler training is where we do behaviors that maybe don’t have a medical or grooming purpose and they may not even seem like they are all that enjoyable for the dog.  However, toddlers especially may be more apt to do them like yanking on the tail, pulling on an ear, pulling on the fur, grabbing on the dog, charging up to the dog which again some adults even will do these things with dogs they don’t know.”

He uses food as a source of pleasure for the animal thus making the dog both accustomed to having hands on them as well as associating the handling with pleasant experiences like cheese or hot dogs.  While it may seem like a good idea to have children in on the training process, with toddler training how you approach it depends largely on the age, size and temperament of your dog.

“If the dog is older,” says Tinsley, “and is objecting to some of these things, you’re definitely going to want to leave the kids out of the process at the beginning until the dog will allow people to do all these things without any objection and that we start slowly back with children.”

Kinsley also recommends making training into a game.  “With younger dogs that are just going through this toddler training process for the first time, I definitely encourage people, especially if they have young kids to play games with the dog.  Simon Says is a great game.  Simon would be one of the adults holding a handful of high value treats, like again chicken or cheese or something.

“They’re Simon and they tell the kid Simon Says pull the dog’s tail.  And when they pull the dog’s tail, the dog gets chicken.  They go through a little process, obviously with the understanding that we’re not going to be hurting the dog and that we’re just going to be getting the dog used to these kinds of behaviors.

Socialization plays an important role in raising calm and non-aggressive dogs.  Whether you have small dogs or larger ones it’s important to expose your dog to a wealth of experiences.  Take them to the park, take them to the city, take them to the dog park, to visit your family.  Take your dog to the dog daycare, let other people walk them, feed them and so on.  Let your dog become accustomed to as many sights, sounds, situations and experiences as possible.

The more prepared they are the less likely they’ll be to attack out of fear, lack of social preparation or even dominance.  Training, toddler training, and basic dog obedience training will go a long way toward raising a well adjusted dog who can handle just about anything.

We want to thank Jeff for that valuable information!