Why does a dog seem to have a natural instinct to chase a squirrel?  Here it’s explained in depth why your dog may react to a stimulus such as a squirrel or something similar.  Using some solid puppy training techniques you can subdue the way your dog reacts when he is faced with this situation.  Once you have mastered this you can feel more comfortable walking your dog in situations where you know there are going to be outside stimuli that would typically greatly upset your pooch!

(more…)

Here Dr. Ian Dunbar explains what the term dog friendly training means. Using a little humor he is able to really convey what a dog is probably thinking. Dr. Dunbar has greatly advanced positive reinforcement through his 30 years of training and has been a role model for those getting away from dominance theory principles.

It is my hope that people who are in the research phase of figuring out which types of puppy training techniques will be most effective for their dogs, will take this videos message to heart.

Because if more of us dog owners took Dr. Dunbar’s approach to training our dogs, and in learning how to train our dogs with the approach he’s talking about… we’d all have happier, much better behaved dogs.

Thank You Dr. Ian Dunbar for a wonderful speech!

Technorati Tags: Dr. Ian Dunbar, Dog Friendly Training

If your dog training is not going well, he’s not obeying and doesn’t seem to be listenting I wanted to share with you the answer to a  recent comment about the blog post I published a while back about the number one mistake to avoid making with a dog that is NOT responding to his training because he was not motivated by food.

>NOTE: If you have not yet seen my video of the number one mistake to avoid when training your dog click here:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com/blog/river/

*** Question From A Reader ***

[Chet],

I totally agree with this type of programming [you warn about in your blog post] however what do you do if your dog is not food motivated? My dog Jack (lab/american eskimo cross) is not food motivated at all. Even when I offer him cheese he comes slowly and sniffs it and then takes it with the tips of his teeth to drop it on the floor again. Sometimes he eats it sometimes his sister gets to it Quick! It’s been a challenge training him.

Chantelle

>>> My Comments:

Chantelle,

Let me first say this about “Non Food Motivated” dogs…

9 out of 10 people who think they have a non food motivated dog, really just have a Full dog.

In a recent BBC article I read that over 50% of dogs in the UK are overweight, and 76% of their owners had no idea they’d fattened up their dogs.

So I’m not saying that your dog isn’t food motivated, but the chances are really good that you just need to cut back his food.

For some reason, animals that gorge themselves are less likely to take food treats — shocker, I know

You might want to run this by your vet, but if I was really wanting my dog to work for food, I wouldn’t have a problem feeding him once a day, and no more then twice.

Again, consult your Veterinarian if you think that’s unwise, but my hunch is they’ll side with me 95% of the time.

That being said, non food motivated animals do exist, but they’re still trainable.

Remember, the only reason I talk about using food to train your dog is because most dogs like it and it’s the fastest reward you can give that allows you to get more repetitions in.

But sometimes the emotional rewards for doing a bad behavior outweigh the desire for a food treat.  Or sometimes just ignoring you is more valuable then a food treat.

When this is the case, you have to find something that your dog likes enough to want to work for.

Take the behavior of teaching your dog to walk on a loose leash for example.

We’ve just recently launched a membership site that you can try out for free for 30 days when you order our Hands Off Dog Training course, and one of the newest videos we added was a video on how to get your dog to walk on a leash without pulling… using food as a reward.

If you’d like to see that video you can add it to your order when you get this course:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com

And that method we show you in that video is the number one method that works for getting most dogs to stop pulling on their leash using only positive reinforcement.

However it didn’t work for my dog!

Again, this isn’t because the technique isn’t good, it’s the best technique their is.

It’s because my dog finds it MORE rewarding to sniff around and go explore his environment, then eating a food treat or playing with another dog.

So I created clever training environments where I was actually able to reward my dog for walking on a loose leash by using the reward of throwing a tennis ball.

If you’d like the full explanation of how I taught this behavior and the best way to do it, it’s one of the many methods I teach in my 8 week Emotional Conditioning program for dogs. 

To learn more about that program go here:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com/dreamdog

So to finally answer Chantelle’s question about how to train your dog to come when he won’t take treats.

If my dog had been the kind of dog that didn’t like coming back to me for treats, I would have had a pocket full of tennis balls, and I’d NEVER, EVER, EVER throw him one for the first 6 months of his life if he didn’t first come when I called him.

I’d take a tennis ball everywhere I went, and would use it as his primary reward for listening to me.

This would condition the dog’s brain to realize that he always gets something he wants when he comes back to me.

And I can almost hear the grumblings as I write this from dog owners who are saying to themselves, “But I don’t want to always have to reward my dog for doing things all the time”.

Or they don’t want to always have treats on them.

And the good news is that you don’t have to.

There’s a process for weaning your dog off of rewards that actually increases their motivation for them to obey you more.  It’s a principal I call Random Rewarding and you can learn more about it in my Hands Off Dog Training program here:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com

Hopefully that helps!

-Chet

P.S. Do you have a training story you’d like me to share in this newsletter?  If so please send it to info@thedogtrainingsecret.com because I’d love to brag about you

*** Question From A Reader ***

Good Morning [Chet],

Your information has been so helpful.  I have a six month old, 50+ pound female German Shepherd and she has recently started a really bad habit.  In the morning before I leave for work I gate her to the kitchen.  Once gated I like to give her a Happy Hips treat.  She is very much aware of the routine and from where and when I get her little treat.

Typically I take it out and set it on the table or counter while I close up the container and prepare to gate her in.  Recently she has decided that she’s going to help herself to the treat that is on the table or counter.  Additionally, I keep her lead on the Bombay Chest near the front door. 

When I reach for it she jumps up on the chest with anticipation to go outside.  Once given the “sit” command, she patiently waits for me to prepare her for going outside but I don’t like that she jumps up on things the way that she does. What can I do to deter this behavior?

Irritated with the behavior!

Veronica D. Greene

p.s. this dog has been diagnosed with Hip Dysplasia so her jumping is detrimental to her well being.

>>> My Comments:

Glad to hear my information has been helpful Veronica, and I’d be glad to address your issue of unwanted jumping on counter tops.

In my Hands Off dog training program I show a training video of how I got an 11 week old puppy to stop lunging for food I dropped on the floor within a matter of minutes.

And I show you exactly how to teach a dog to have what I call “urge-control” and be able to resist things he really wants — life food on the floor or on counter tops.

And it’s NOT done by punishing or telling the dog “No”… at least that’s not how I did it.

Here’s what you need to understand…

The reason a dog will lunge for food dropped on the floor, or jump up onto the counter to get a treat is because the act of misbehaving is IMMEDIATELY rewarded by food.

And when you reinforce a behavior, even accidentally, you increase the likelihood that the behavior will increase in frequency.

So how do you tackle this problem?

First you have to STOP the behavior from being self reinforcing in the first place.  Meaning you need to make it so even if he jumps up on the counter another 100 times over the next few weeks, not ONCE will he find a treat or anything rewarding.

It sounds like you’re TRYING to do that by telling your dog to sit, but the problem with your dog only behaving when you TELL him to is that the dog tends to always want to misbehave first, and you always have to reprimand him.

In Leslie McDevitt’s great book, Conrol Unleashed she talks about a great approach to fixing this problem that she calls “Environmental Cues”… or cues that your dog recognizes in his environment instead of ones you have to verbally say.

For example, if you have a dog who likes to run out the front door when it opens, she talks about how you can train a dog to not walk through ANY open door… because dogs are capable of learning that an OPEN door is actually a cue to stay.

Well the same goes for food left out on the ground or on counter tops.

You can teach your dog that the environmental cue of open access to food, means he’s supposed to do a behavior (aka. sit and look you in the eyes).

And you do this by first BLOCKING access to the dogs reward, and then secondly waiting for the dog to “Self Correct” himself and do ANY other behavior then trying to get at the food.

In your case, if it was my dog jumping onto the counter, I would place the treat on the counter where I knew my dog would try to jump up and get it.

When he got ready to jump up, I’d quickly take my hand and cover up the treat so the dog couldn’t get it.

He might try to lick at my hand or dig under it to get the treat, but I’d just continue to block the dogs access to the reward until he gave up and got off the counter.

But here’s the KEY part…

Many people would advice you to click the second the dog jumped off the counter, but I would suggest waiting ’til the dog got down AND…

Looks you in the eye!

That way you, you can then click your training clicker and reward your dog with a treat for having all four feet on the floor and looking you in the eye when he wants a treat.

It works GREAT!

And here’s another thing…

I would recommend rewarding your dog with a food item that’s BETTER then the one he’s trying to get at.

This will help him learn that if he constantly resists his urges to get at food, no matter where it is, he’ll very often earn a SUPER reward for his good behavior.

If you’d like to see a video of me teaching this to my own puppy, read this:

http://thedogtrainingsecret.com/tips

Hopefully that helps!

-Chet

I’ve got some exciting news!

I’ve just finished writing a New “Special Report” that you’re going to want to read right away. It’s called “Reprogramming The K9 Mind” and you can download it by clicking below:

>>> Reprogramming The K9 Mind <<<

In this report I talk about what I think is keeping you from having the dog of your dreams. And it’s something I rarely hear other trainers talk about.

And when you get this one thing right, you can finally have a dog who can…

	Greet ANY stranger in a friendly manner
	Sit calmly every time someone tries to pet him
	Behave Perfectly on walks, whether on or off leash
	Remain calm walking through a crowd of people
	Stay in one place when you REALLY need him to
	Finally be NICE to other dogs
	Pay attention to you… even in chaotic situations
	Behave himself in your home when you're NOT there.
	And Much, Much More!

So please do yourself a favor and go read “Reprogramming The K9 Mind” right now… then come back and share any takeaways you had while reading the report.

I’m really looking forward to your feedback!

Sincerely,

Chet Womach

Just wanted to drop all my blog readers a quick note and let you know that the free stop dog barking video I promised you has just been released.

You can find it here:

The Stop Dog Barking Video

I think I really over delivered on this video, as it’s a tick over an hour long, and covers a LOT of different strategies for how you can stop your dog’s barking fast.

Enjoy!

Chet

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

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

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!

In the Hands Off Dog Training Formula I have a dog obedience training video that I believe is critical to ever having your dog behaving in your home.

And I don’t mean if he’ll sit or not bite, that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about behaving himself when you aren’t there… and training your dog HOW to behave in your home so you aren’t always having to keep an eye out for what kind of trouble he might be getting into.

When I taught my dog these 2 skills, my life with him got infinetly easier.

These two skills are…

1. The ability to disengage from ANYTHING he was currently doing and back away, or “Leave it”
2. The willingness to drop ANYTHING that he has in his mouth

If you’ll take the time to teach your dog these 2 skills, it makes all the difference in the world.

He’ll drop baby toys he wasn’t supposed to have, he’ll leave people alone if you need him to, he’ll back away from people who are afraid of dogs, and it does one other thing…

It teaches your dog that YOU are the boss.

That he can’t just get into anything he wants to.

He learns that there are rules, and that it’s in his best interest to follow them.  And you may not realize this, but teaching something as simple as “Back Away” or “Drop It” actually helps establish you as the leader of your household… but in a way that isn’t dominating.  A leader your dog can respect, because we taught him the skills with positive reinforcement, and he understands what you mean 100%.

And there is a natural instinct in dogs to do what I call “Fill The Void”.

“Filling The Void” is when a dog looks around his environment and says to himself, “hmmmm, there is nobody leading this parade.  And if somebody doesn’t start leading, I’m going to have to fill that leadership void.”

It’s an instinct that in the wild keeps dogs alive, but as pets can become incredibly annoying if we don’t understand what’s going on.

And to understand what’s going on, is a bit beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll give you a quick summary of the main points.

You see dogs speak “dog”, which as it turns out is a COMPLETELY different language than english.

It’s a NON verbal language.

It’s a language where tone, and pronounciation do NOT matter.

It’s a language of observation of their surroundings, and it’s genetically hard wired into them because of their past history of descending from wolves.

They can’t ignore this language.  It’s in their DNA to obey it.  And if we as their owners don’t learn to speak a few “words and phrases” of wolf, we’re going to end up with a hi maintenance dog.

Here’s an example that shows you how just making the littlest of mistakes with your dog, tells your dog so much about you, without you ever realizing it.

A leader of the pack checks out new territory before everyone else.

So I ask you, do you make your dog sit before you walk out your front door 1st?  Or do you let your dog run out first and then you follow?  What do you think that says to your dog in “Wolf”?

It says that sinse you don’t know how to make me sit back while you check things out, I need to fill the void and start to become a better leader of this house.

So how does this relate to “Back off” and “Drop It”.

Well one of the issues that comes up in dogs is with what is called “resource guarding”.  It’s when a dog protects it’s bone or toy or food.  And it can create dangerous situations, if for example a toddler tries to go take a bone away from a dog who’s chewing on it.

The dog might bare his teeth and snap at the child.  And we don’t want that.

So what you can do is follow the instructions that I teach in my “Back Away” dog obedience training video that is one of the things that comes with my Hands Off Dog Training Formula.

It’ll show you how to get a dog to back away from whatever he’s doing, inclucing playing with a toy, eating or whatever.

And by taking a few weeks to teach this skill you’ll be able to show your dog that it’s in his best interest to obey you… and NOT because he’ll get beat or yelled at if he doesn’t comply, but because of how we teach you how to structure a positive reward that overtime is MORE motivating than holding onto that treat, or not letting go of a toy when you need him to.