Come Boy! Come! How A Dog Training Instructor Would Guide You In Class
Coming when called, or the “recall”exercise, is an important step in a dog's training school. If the class is working in a circle, it is done the first time toward the center of the circle and the second time away from the center toward the outside walls. To teach the recall in class, the instructor tells the group:
“Handlers face the center of the room with dogs sitting at heel position. Command your dog to stay. Face him to the full length of the leash. Hold the leash in your left hand. Stand up straight with your feet spaced apart to prevent the dog from darting off to one side! Call your dog by name! 'Sparky, come!' or 'Sparky, front!' Gather the lead up with both hands and when he is close, command 'Sit!' Praise and pat him immediately! Say 'Stay!' and move back again to the end of the lead. Call your dog! Keep your voice happy! Coax your dog to come!
When he obeys, tell him with more authority to sit! Praise him! If the dog doesn't respond the moment he hears his name and the command to come, snap the lead quickly, but loosen it at once. It is done with a motion similar to snapping a whip. You will hear the collar click when you do it correctly.
Don't pull or drag your dog to you or he will never want to come! Use a cajoling tone of voice after the command and after each correction. Use the lead to make the dog sit square
and as close as possible, and to prevent a dash in the opposite direction. Next, make your dog go to heel position! (The handlers will now have their backs to one another, ready to
call their dogs in the opposite direction.) Tell your dog to stay and face him to the full length of the lead! Now circle back to heel position. We'll alternate the recall with the sit-stay exercise.
This will teach your dog not to anticipate your command by coming before he is called. Tell your dog to stay and face him again. Stand up straight! If you lean over, the dog will crawl in instead of coming gaily. Call your dog! Use his name! If your dog doesn't come on your first command, snap the lead hard and then coax him in the rest of the way! Keep your hands low and in front of your body. Gather up the leash in a hand-over-hand motion."
The instructor should watch to see that the command to come is given first, followed, if necessary, by a sharp snap on the lead, which is loosened immediately. The dog must want
to come of his own free will. Remind the owners: "Stand erect with your feet apart to discourage the dog from darting off the one side. Gather up the leash as the dog comes forward. Command 'Sit!' when the dog comes in front and correct him if he sits crooked. Don't forget to pat him."
How To Train Your Dog To Scent Retrieve
Because dogs are drawn more to articles of nature than to manufactured items, start by placing six twigs (bark chips work equally well) in a four-foot-by-four-foot area. Wear scaled, rubber, kitchen gloves when handling the articles to avoid scenting any, and position them so none touches another. Put one of the objects inside your shirt to scent the item thoroughly, and go leash up your pet.
When the two of you arrive at the training site, heel to a point ten feet from the nearest article. After giving your dog the command, "Stay," withdraw one of the scented objects from your shirt. Capture attention by flipping the item in the air a few times. Pass it once under pooch's nose, remind "Stay," and walk to the unscented articles. Place the scented article peripherally near the others such that you can be sure of its location. Return to your dog, briefly put your hand near his nose, then command, "Find It," while gesturing encouragingly toward the articles. Repeated "Find Its" and gestures to get your dog moving are permissible.
As your companion approaches the objects, follow slightly behind. You need to be nearby, but not so close as to distract. When nearing such curious things, almost any dog lowers his head to examine them. (The dog who shows scant interest should be encouraged via voice and gesture to do so; he shouldn't be forced.) As he inspects the items, softly praise, "Good."
Should he try to pick up any article other than the correct one, gently intone, "No, No," while guiding him from it. When your retriever eventually sniffs the right one - regardless whether he reacts to it - instantly respond excitedly, "Good Find It - Bring!"
Pet your companion, telling him what a Good Find It he did, and walk him from the training area, allowing him to carry his prize if he wishes. End the session at this point to guarantee finishing high, which would be at risk were the routine repeated. When you do Out the article, use only minimal force in taking it should your dog fail to release when commanded. Don't chance dampening enthusiasm through compulsion.
After three training sessions like the foregoing, switch to placing the scented object among the others prior to bringing your pet to the area. A week later, change to using ring articles by substituting them for whatever items you've been using. Should you meet any resistance to the formal articles, inserting them inside individual, cloth gloves can make the objects more canine-acceptable.
How To Recognize Stress In Your Dog
Stress is the body's response to any physical or mental demand. The response prepares the body to either fight or flee. It increases blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and metabolism, and there is a marked increase in the blood supply to the arms and legs. It is a physiological, genetically predetermined reaction over which the individual, whether a dog or a person, has no control.
When your dog is stressed, his body becomes chemically unbalanced. To deal with this imbalance, the body releases chemicals into the bloodstream in an attempt to rebalance itself. The reserve of these chemicals is limited. You can dip into it only so many times before it runs dry and the body loses its ability to rebalance. Prolonged periods of imbalance result in neurotic behavior and the inability to function.
Your dog experiences stress during training, whether you are teaching him a new exercise or practicing a familiar one. You should be able to recognize the signs of stress and what you can do to manage the stress your dog may experience. Only then can you prevent stress from adversely affecting your dog's performance during training.
Stress is characterized as "positive" (manifesting itself in increased activity) and "negative" (manifesting itself in decreased activity). Picture yourself returning home after a hard day at work. You are welcomed by a mess on your new, white rug. What is your response? Do you explode, scream at your dog, your children and then storm through the house slamming doors? Or, do you look at the mess in horror, shake your head in resignation, feel drained of energy, ignore the dog and the children and then go to your room? In the first example, your body was energized by the chemicals released into the bloodstream. In the second example, your body was debilitated.
Dogs react in a similar manner, and stress triggers either the fight or flight response. Positive stress manifests itself in hyperactivity, such as running around, bouncing up and down or jumping on you, whining, barking, mouthing, getting in front of you or anticipating commands. You may think your dog is just being silly and tiresome, but for the dog, those are coping behaviors. Negative stress manifests itself by lethargy, such as freezing, slinking behind you, running away or responding slowly to a command. In new situations, he seems tired and wants to lie down, or sluggish and disinterested. These are not signs of relaxation, but are the coping behaviors for negative stress.
Signs of either form of stress in dogs are muscle tremors, excessive panting or drooling, sweaty feet that leave tracks on dry, hard surfaces, dilated pupils and, in extreme cases, urination or defecation, usually in the form of diarrhea and self-mutilation. Behaviors such as pushing into you or going in front of or behind you during distraction training are stress related.
Dogs Do Not Learn By Dominance And Submission
Many people believe that dogs learn by dominance and/or submission. This is an interesting theory that appeals to our sense of logic and the way nature appears to be ordered from the point of view of the human ego. Supposedly, dogs can learn to respect another individual through dominance. This presupposes that they can perceive another being's point of view. Humans can indeed entertain others' points of view, yet we know that no one learns to work effectively through the dominance/submissive model.
No matter how much employees respect their boss or how submissive they may act around him, they expect to be paid fairly. Not enough pay and the attraction turns to resentment and a poor working attitude. Since humans reject and resist such an approach whenever they experience it, how can we expect the dog, with his more limited view, to work on this basis?
Not only does dominating a dog make him resistant to cooperation, but dominance has nothing to do with the smooth operation of wolf society. While it may appear that the leader is the most dominant in a pack of wolves, and that the inferiors have a profound respect for this "alpha" wolf because he is so dominant, that is a surface misreading of their lives.
Supposedly, this dominant individual teaches the other members of the pack what their lesser stations are, bringing order and stability into the group. However, the reason this individual is superior is because, within the group mood, he is endowed with the most uninhibited temperament and perceives order when the others sense disorder.
This produces an emotional balance, a self-confidence level that makes him active and direct in his behavior when the others are reactive and indirect. This confidence is then broadcast through his body language and probably through an internal chemistry revealed when he eliminates.
Given the pack leader's internal balance, he will experience the least amount of stress when passing on to less familiar ground, as negatives are smaller in his sense of order. In addition, the pack leader will feel the strongest compulsion to be first on any path that leads outward to the hunt as he acts in the most straightforward manner.
The inferiors will depend on the pack leader's enthusiasm to draw them across a threshold that may have a stronger inhibiting effect on them. An individual doesn't become superior by being dominant; the leader, to feel complete, needs the group behind him. Only by guiding the hunt does one becomes a leader.
Dog Training: Timing Is Essential
Good timing is critical to success. When we wait and then react to a dog's behavior, we are always going to be behind the eight ball. On the other hand. influencing a dog's emotional process before he acts is an incredibly efficient manner in which to train him. When timing is correct nervousness is inhibited and drive is reinforced.
Also, since we're affecting the internal emotional process, the dog in effect "chooses" to be calm rather than being forced to be under control. A dog so trained will be mannerly or mindful of domestic restraints even when his handler isn't near.
The key to proper timing is not quickness, although that is a valuable asset. Rather, the key is anticipation. The handler should always be thinking ahead and anticipating what the dog might do next. It is a skill easily acquired if one becomes disciplined enough to pay constant attention to the dog. Without good timing, training degenerates into a question of strength.
By being relentlessly focused on the dog, the handler will start to sense the dog's rhythm of actions and be able to anticipate what the dog is about to do. Then, before the dog acts, the handler can already be in gear taking steps to predetermine what the dog will do next. The dog will be choosing to obey; however, since we're controlling his instinctive emotional process, there won't really be any choice involved.
For example, if you are training a dog to heel you should watch his head very closely. When you sense he is about to shift his attention away from you then make a shock on the collar and begin to praise the dog at the same time. Additionally, pick up your pace, and to complete the process, throw a ball for him to chase or give him a food treat.
In this sequence of events, I'm not correcting the dog for being disobedient, I'm shocking the nervousness that I feel is about to influence the dog's behavior and disrupt his focus on me. The praise, food, and the ball then serve to convert the shock to a stimulation. Since I'm the source of the excitement, the dog's calm focus on me from which he was about to stray is renewed and reinforced.
I like to emphasize the point about timing with the following analogy. Suppose you were a therapist assigned to help a heavy drinker recover from alcoholism. When would be the best time to influence this person's pattern of behavior - before, or after he decided to gulp down a drink? The very same question is before the dog trainer: Is it best to react to a dog's behavior or is it better to take the initiative and ensure that the dog always performs appropriately? Why wait for a negative behavior to express itself?
Developing Your Leadership Through Eye Contact
Every wolf pack has a leader, also referred to as the alpha figure. This wolf, sometimes a male, sometimes a female, controls many aspects of pack life, including, to a degree, defecation and urination rights and spots. Dogs, of course, are directly descended from wolves and now live in human packs. Problems arise when an individual dog, either through his genetic makeup or improper training by his owner, comes to think of himself as the leader of the pack.
If your dog thinks that he is the leader, you are in trouble. How can you know? Usually if you have behavior problems with your dog, you are not considered the leader no matter how you think you are viewed by your pet.
One way to establish your leadership or “Alphahood” is to simply get your dog's eye. You might think that your dog looks at you quite frequently, but take a moment to think about the terms. They are usually the dog's. Does your dog look at you but only when he feels like it? That's not eye contact. That is the dog looking at you because he wants something. You can establish eye contact on your terms by formalizing the look-at-me process.
Take your dog, on leash, and have him “Sit.” Hold a little upward tension on the lead and bend down and touch your dog's muzzle and immediately bring your hand up to your eyes. At the same time, make a clicking sound and say something like, "Laddy, look up here at me right now."
Don't just say the dog's name or "Laddy, look." It won't be enough to get the dog to lock eyes with you. What you're aiming for is about three to four seconds of solid eye contact when the dog looks up at you with an attitude of "your wish is my command." Make sure that after you touch his muzzle and then your eyes that you straighten up right away so that the dog truly looks up at you and not you down at the dog.
Once you have the lock, end the moment with some light verbal (not physical) praise such as, "Good boy. Laddy!" Then turn and go about your business. Do not worry about leaving the dog sitting there wondering, "What was that all about?"
Your dog will soon realize that what it is about is “look at me when I ask you to look, watch me, get out of your own world and into mine.” This is a wonderful foundation for any puppy or older dog (especially if house-soiling is a problem) because the eye contact starts to overflow into his regular, daily life so that he looks at you from across a room. Then you can catch your dog's eye more readily to direct him to not do something.
An Effective Way To Teach Your Dog To Drop On Recall
Many dogs will do the “drop on recall” better the first time you try it than ever again in their lives. This is because the element of surprise is so powerful that first time that the trained dog simply complies with the command on the spot. Later on, he tends to come more slowly and drop quite slowly. For this reason, this command is used sparingly. If not, you will really slow up your dog's recall.
If used carefully, this command can be a life saver. If you call your dog and then see danger approaching the path he is taking, you can stop him by dropping him and save his life in the process. Therefore, do not use this flashy command over and over to prove yourself, your dog or to entertain your friends. Teach it and then save it for an emergency.
Once your dog learns to readily drop from a distance on verbal or hand signal alone, you can begin to train the drop on recall. In this command, the dog is asked to come from afar and then dropped (given the down at a distance command) when he is half way to you. With practice, your dog can be dropped at almost any time along the way so that if you need to drop him at any point, you will be able to do so.
In order to teach your dog to do this, place him on a “Sit, Stay” position at some distance. Six feet is not enough since that would allow him to get too close after the “Come” before you had a chance to drop him. Ten or twelve feet should do the trick. Call him to come. When he is one-third of the way toward you, raise your arm in the distance signal and say “Down” in a good, strong, and firm voice. Your dog may drop on the spot. If so, wait one second and then call him to come, using both voice and hand signal for “Come.” As soon as your dog gets to you and sits in front, make sure to give him lots of love and praise. Do the exercise one more time and then move on to another command.
If your dog does not drop when told, run to meet him and drop him with the raised hand that gave him the down signal. This procedure works very well and, with patience on your part, your dog can learn to accomplish this very stunning looking but very practical exercise. Practice it twice a week, with no more than three times per session.
What if your dog does a perfect drop on recall but consistently creeps in on the come, expecting every plain recall to turn into a drop on recall? In this case, and it is a very common occurrence, work on exercises to speed the recall and defer practicing the drop for a couple of weeks while you do so. Call the dog to come and run away from him, turning at the last moment to let him catch you. Praise wildly.
Occasionally when you are heeling the dog, break away without warning and call “Come, Come” to him. Again, let him finally catch you and be praised. Play recall games with several family members calling the dog to come in random order and zestfully praising him when he does so. When you do practice the drop on recall again, only do it once or twice, following it up with some fast, active work, some speedy straight recalls followed by lots of praise.
Advanced Dog Tricks: How To Train Your Dog For The High Jump
With your dog present in front of you, erect both jumps, configuring them at low height and setting them ten feet apart. Do it again. Then walk your dog to a point between the obstacles and a dozen feet behind them. Aim the animal toward the High Jump, and command, "Stay." Walk to an equidistant spot, relative to the obstacles and the dog. Emphatically point and step toward the High Jump and command, "Hup."
As your dog sails over the correct jump, praise, "Good Pup," and take him back to the starting point. Command, "Stay," return to the location opposite the animal's, and repeat the exercise. Do the routine twice more, then end the session. On the next day, repeat the preceding exercise once. Then "Stay" your companion, having first aligned him toward the other obstacle, the Bar Jump. Return to your command location, and - adding pronounced body language - command him over this second jump. If he does as well with it as he did with the first hurdle - and he probably will - great!
Now the work is gradually raising the jumps' heights, repositioning them until they're eighteen to twenty feet apart, phasing out aligning pooch toward either jump, and starting him from at least twenty feet. During the teaching sequence, should your pet take any action other than the correct one, don't chastise him. Perform some work at which he excels (to finish high), and call it a day. Initiate a more structured method tomorrow.
Directed Jumping - Structured Method
Begin by leaving your dog on a “Sit-Stay”, fifteen feet from and facing a Standard High Jump. Walk to the hurdle's opposite side and command, "Hup." Skip the finish. Repeat the exercise, but this time move leftward a few feet as your pet leaves the ground; turning to face him as he lands. Run through this routine three more times, then close the session.
Start the next period by leaving your dog on a Sit-Stay, fifteen feet from and facing a standard High Jump. Walk to the obstacle's other side, and after standing there for a few seconds, move a few feet to your left. Adding an exaggerated hand signal, verbally command your dog over the jump. (Should he attempt to run to you, block him and repeat the "Hup" command while gesturing toward the obstacle. If need be, lift him over the hurdle.) Repeat this new procedure three times before ending the period.
Over the next few sessions, gradually position yourself farther left until you're twenty feet removed from the centerline between the two jumps. Though less distance is required in competition, the extra-mile principle operates here by saying to your dog that he's to clear the indicated obstacle regardless how far you are from it.
The next stage is steadily moving your pet's starting point to your left (his right). "Sit-Stay" your friend three feet left of the two jumps' centerline, and walk to a point opposite his new starting position. Adding excessive body language (stepping and pointing toward the desired jump), command, "Hup."
A Simple Six-Step Dog Training Method
Training a new behavior follows a simple six-step method. Depending on the dog and other circumstances, a good trainer will vary his training method when he decides that a particular training challenge needs either a little more or less. When you have used the method enough to know it well, you can add your own personal touch as needed.
The following are six steps for teaching your dog a new behavior
1. Get the behavior.
2. Mark the behavior.
3. Reward the behavior.
4. Repeat the behavior until it happens easily at least 90% of the time.
5. Add the verbal cue as your dog does the behavior to associate the word with the appropriate response.
6. Use the verbal cue to elicit the behavior.
You get the behavior by capturing, shaping, or luring it. You mark the behavior with the click., or some other reward marker that your dog has already learned means that the reward is coming. Reward the behavior by following the click with his favorite treat or, in some cases, with a favorite toy or other desirable reward, such as swimming or going outside.
Repeat the behavior until your pet is offering it easily before you add the verbal cue, so that he will associate the word with the correct behavior response. For instance, by saying "Sit" as he does it, you are telling him that the name of the behavior he is doing is Sit. If you ask him to do it before he's offering the behavior easily, you risk teaching him that the word sit means "stand there and look at me," or worse, "sniff the ground and pull on the leash."
After your dog has heard the word at least a half-dozen times during the behavior, depending on how quickly he seems to learn, then you can say the word first to elicit the behavior. Be sure that his attention is focused on you so that he actually hears the word, and keep your body position the same as it was when you were getting the behavior before. If you had been doing the “Sit” while you were standing and you suddenly start asking for it while you are sitting, he won't understand that it's the same thing.
Give him a few seconds to respond. When he sits, click! and reward. If he doesn't sit, use the minimum amount of assistance necessary (through body language or a lure, not through physical assistance) to get the behavior, and repeat the exercise. If you find that he will only respond if you help him, start to minimize the amount of help you give until he is sitting for the verbal cue without any help from you.