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Dog Obedience Training Blog
Teaching Your Thief How to Retrieve
I am in a fairly new relationship. I have never had the joys of having children of my own and so raising a puppy was always a fairly easy task for me, after all I am a professional ha ha. I have never dealt with someone giving the wrong commands at the wrong time, or reinforcing bad behavior, so I was dismayed the other day when my pup grabbed a piece of nasty trash and as soon as I noticed she playfully bucked and bowed and frolicked in the opposite direction. Calling her sent her bounding in the opposite direction tossing her prize into the air and daring me to chase her. “Ahhh” I thought, “Someone has been chasing her when she has confiscated a naughty item”. My new family are not yet professional dog trainers!
The Grab And Chase Game has to be, hands down one of a dog’s favorite pastimes. This interactive game requires a partner, who is often quite animated and angry and who haughtily chases the thief around and around the house. Most often the dog is enjoying every angry moment and expletive as they spryly dance throughout owner’s legs and dash by, gaining grace and distance with every well timed movement as their owner crashes into furniture and throws themselves toward the walls and floor in an attempt to catch the robber.
Your dog is having the absolute time of his life, and because he does not have the ability to reason, he doesn’t really realize at some point he is going to slow down or give up and give you the upper hand. This is normally when punishment arises and enters the equation. Dogs don’t understand punishment, they go from having a great time to being toss around, yelled at, or worse kicked, beaten or abused. Typically, no matter what the punishment and because it arises “AFTER” the deed is done it does not diminish your dogs excitement at the prospect of doing it again.
Often the item is swallowed, or ruined before the owner has the opportunity to take it from their pet and so the anger is magnified by the frustration.
So, what do you do then when Scruffy grabs your underwear and begins to dash through the house? I use doggy psychology to my advantage. I have two options that will work to MY advantage:
- Prevention: I make sure I NEVER leave any object out that he may get a hold of that he shouldn’t have (I do recommend this for high priced items. You will never see my $500 sun glasses on or near the floor) or I keep him on a leash so that I can pluck the item out right away, extinguishing the ability he has to run and be chased. This is not always realistic.
OR
- Reward: I praise him and go get him a treat as exchange for my underpants.
Trust me the look on his face will be just as confused as the look on your faces now at reading this or on my clients faces when I recommend the same feat. Yes!!! Praise and reward!!! This also keeps you from playing the run and chase and frustration game. Instead of being rewarded by the “Best Game Ever” (remember that for him chasing him and interacting with him IS a reward), he is rewarded for showing you and bringing it to you.
Reverse psychology, if you will, instead of chasing him when a bad situation arises; reward him for doing the right thing and bringing it to you.
Please, keep your expensive and dangerous things locked up so that a deadly situation does not occur. But when faced with this situation, give up and give in and let your dog know if he has something and brings it to you instead of running there is a reward in it for him.
Won’t this “create a monster” out of your dog? That is the most frequent question I get after the look of shock and horror goes away. People are afraid that this will create a criminal and reward bad behavior. Yes, to some degree you will watch the behavior escalate but if you know some key learning and behavior principles you can get the behavior you want.
At first, you will see your dog grabbing objects and bringing them to you for reward. Just this morning my puppy spit a dime at me while I was getting my soon to be step-son ready for school, and yes I rewarded her for it. Once she begins to realize that the game is bringing me the object, then I can determine if I like the behavior or not.
Personally, I like dogs that retrieve. I have raised, trained and work with Service Dogs for people with disabilities for most of my career and I like having a dog that picks up the things I drop, heaven forbid I have to bend over and pick something up! It is a skill I relish in and enjoy. My dogs can retrieve anything from as small as a paper clip to as large as an over turned wheel-chair.
Once the behavior is consistent, (no more dart and dash) I either choose to continue to reinforce it with praise and rewards and then ask for it on command, or I never reward the behavior again and wait for the behavior to extinguish.
You see, dogs are just as shallow as we humans are if at first they are paid for a behavior but then never receive payment for that behavior again, they refuse to show it anymore. Imagine your job decided to quit paying you, with no payout you would probably never go back there again. However, if they increase your pay, reward you with onsite education, frequent bonuses and treat you with kindness and praise, you will probably be a happy employee for life.
If you don’t want to see this behavior continue, never reward it with anything but half-hearted praise again. You will quickly see a decline in the thieving.
If you are like me, lazy, and like to have a dog around that retrieves on command then give it a command and start requiring more and more until you have a polished retrieve (more on this later).
Your dog is simple; even negative emotions and behavior elicited from you can be rewarding. Use the knowledge of reverse psychology to your benefit. It is a lot easier than chasing your dog out of frustration!
I love a dog that retrieves
I do like the grab and chase game, Great Suggestions and Tips.
[Reply]
@ September 14th, 2010 at 08:47I think your comparison of dogs behavior to that of a human and their job is excellent. I never thought of it in that way but it seems right on target. I really enjoyed this article.
.-= ValsNewPuppy´s last blog ..Puppy Feeding Plays a Big Roll in Development =-.
[Reply]
@ October 29th, 2010 at 12:34strange that,I started doing this with my 9 month old pup,just a few weeks ago,after having him chew holes in clothes as he ran off with them all the time. I could not get him to play fetch either, even though my other dog loves to play. He was the smallest of his litter and was basicly bottle fed and cuddled by the breeder. I thought perhaps he didnt have enough crucial time with his mum and litter mates at a young age.He is rough and grabs my bigger dog to get things away from him.He just lets him to it.So apart from trying to put all things away ( he is a big boy at 50 lbs) as he can reach rather well.He did start looking for things to bring, but as you did I gradually stopped reinforcing it. The extra I got from all that is that he will now go get a ball and bring it back. Not always but sometimes. I was looking for ways to engage him with play,as he only ever played chase,and didnt seem to get the whole play thing ( he was 12 weeks when I got him.Wondered what your take on this is- the lack of play. Give hin a puzzle toy and he will eat his way through it.
[Reply]
@ August 28th, 2011 at 09:25