Category: Puppies

To Click – or Not to Click?

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We are often asked the question:

“I am wondering if your classes will require me to use a clicker. I guess I am too uncoordinated to manage the clicker, treats, and leash all at once.  Is clicker use optional at your school?”

… and the answer is a resounding “Yes, clicker use is optional.”

We do use clickers in our classes and try our best to help our students get over their concerns about coordination. Let me tell you, if I can conquer a clicker (arthritic fingers, inconsistent timing, etc.), anyone can! However, it’s difficult enough to be handling a 5-month-old puppy and listening to the instructor and learn, without struggling with a clicker. So we are flexible. And patient.

The clicker is merely a tool that helps us teach the dog things that we can teach without it. In my experience, the clicker speeds up the dog’s learning because of its uniqueness (a sound never heard except in the context of learning (with treats to follow), but you can teach your dog good behavior with the use of a special word instead of the clicker. Your instructor will help you with this.

Here’s an article on starting with the clicker.

Puppy Party, week 4

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Today was week 4 of our Puppy Party class. This is a class for puppies from about 12 weeks to about 10  months of age.

For today’s lesson I had planned the following:

  • Cavaletti
  • Black plastic bag and shiny tarps on floor
  • All our squishy Bosus, pods, FitBones and such – our “squishy” things
  • Ladder
  • Work on sit stay
  • Targeting hand chapter 3 – positioning puppy using hand target
  • Puppy Zen (handler with outstretched hand – to side — (cookie within), puppy sitting front, reward for eye contact (click-treat); advanced puppies’ handlers had two outstretched hands
  • Teach stand
  • Review targeting to mat
  • Last minute I threw in some tarps (including a “solar” one with reflective stuff on it) and a black trash bag

These classes always take on a life of their own. Today was exceptional in that I almost didn’t hang onto it at all. Way too much fun!

Only four of our eight puppies came. We were competing with one case of kennel cough, a conformation show in the area, and one handler who keeps forgetting about the class, and another who was taking her pup to the orthodontist (!). We had fun anyway. Would have been twice as much fun with them.

The puppies were very happy to greet each other. They’re old buds now, at four weeks into the class – even last week’s addition, a 12-week-old Rottie girl, was happy to meet up with the other pups.

I invited all to wander around on the random “course” I’d laid out with the ladder, about 10 “pods,” Bosus, two FitBones, and two FitBone ramps; the two tarps and the trash bag spread out in a corner, and ending with four cavaletti set at 2”. Next week I must have video! A lovely, gentle chaotic dance ensued, with puppies engaging with the items in the environment and with each other and even occasionally with the puppy “moms” at the ends of their leashes.

Our little cocker pup, who was horrified at the concept of the shiny tarp surface, ended up parading all over the weird stuff and prancing through the ladder (it was her enemy last week). Zazzy, the Berner, who was also terrified of the ladder last week, went through it like an old friend. She kept trying to take the cocker pup (LilyMae) home with her (by the cheek, unfortunately, though she was gentle about it).

This went on for way too long, except that was it continued to be fun for the pups and they all made obvious advances in confidence. Our one older pup, Olive, who is a 10-month-old Lab, was sitting astraddle on the FitBones (another missed Polaroid moment) and doing nice sit-stays and other tricks for her mom.

We did not do targeting to the mat, though we reviewed hand targeting and using it to position the pups around our bodies; did some puppy Zen (they were brilliant – Olive was successful with two hands). We also did not teach the stand. I never teach the stand. I hate to teach the stand.

I love the informality of the class. The people are all opening up and asking more questions of me, are making friends with the other moms, and learning to let their puppies show them what they can do.

Can you believe I’m getting paid to do this?

What Motivates YOUR Dog?

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Motivation is critical in training dogs. We need motivation, and so especially do our dogs. What motivates most of us best is seeing our dogs learn and love learning.

For the dog, there can be a huge discrepancy between what you think is motivating and what your dog actually finds motivating. Sometimes, depending on circumstances or surroundings, motivators that have been top in the dog’s opinion become mundane and uninteresting — sometimes even annoying! Thus, it’s very important that you know what drives your dog and that you have a variety of these things available when you train.

Use the list below to help make your own list of what your dog loves; you’ll probably have items that are not included in the list (tell us about them!). On the other hand, you may find some new ideas here! Think like your dog, and rank them in importance. Be sure to include at least 10 items in your list.

  1. Steak
  2. Liverwurst
  3. Frisbee game
  4. Tug
  5. Canned catfood
  6. Back scratch
  7. Peanut butter
  8. Car ride
  9. Chase game
  10. Sniff around a tree

Rewards are not all — or always — created equal

Think about how your dog will react to your choices in different circumstances: training at home, coming to agility or obedience class, playing with his friends in the park, etc. You may notice that some of your reinforcers are not suitable for certain activities (e.g., hard to use “go for a ride” at agility class, at least not more than once per session). You should also consider, if using food, that a variety of food choices taken from higher and lower rankings might be more useful than only one food type, even if it’s the top choice. For instance, if your dog will KILL for chicken, you may want to bring it to class to use for “superior” performance, especially of a difficult task, but that you also have some jerky treats to use for “good” performance, and even alternate those jerky treats with a “lesser” treat in order to keep the dog guessing — and interested!

If your dog is having problems focusing on you — he continually puts his nose on the ground and wanders out to the end of the leash, or keeps trying to visit a nearby dog to socialize — just isn’t interested in what YOU are doing, definitely rethink what you are using as motivators. A high-powered motivator delivered frequently for a job well done should be sufficient to keep the dog with you. Be sure that your working sessions are short, especially in the early learning phases, so the dog doesn’t become overwhelmed with the job you are asking of him. Understand that sometimes the environment is just too stimulating for a dog and he is unable to focus. That is when you might move him away from all the activity or ask to have a barrier between you and the other dogs. Alternatively, you could lower your expectations for the time being. Often a dog will be overstimulated the first time he is in a new place (especially a training class) but is a totally different dog, able to focus and work, at the next class session.

FOOD TOYS ACTIVITIES (cont’d)
Alpo treats Basketball Back scratch
Apples Ball on a rope Barking session
Baby food Boat bumper Belly rub
Bacon Boomer ball Ball game
Beef or other bones Braided tug Car Ride
Bil Jack Burlap sack Chase a laser spot
Bologne Cow milker toy Chase game
Canned cat food Fleece tug Chasing tail
Carrots Frisbee Clapping & cheering
Cat treats Furry mouse Cuddling
Charlee Bears Gumabone Flyball
Cheerios Hockey puck Get in the kennel
Chicken Jolly Ball Get out of the kennel
Cheese Kongs Go into the house
Cooked pasta Leashe Get out of the car
Croutons Nylabone Howling session
Crackers Protective sleeve Hand targeting
Dinner Puppy tug Heeling
Dog biscuits Riot Tug Herding (sheep, children, leaves)
Dried liver Rocks Hose – chasing water
Drinking water Rope tug Hunting rodents
Fish flavored treats Rubber chicken On the furniture
Freeze dried liver Sock with ball Trip to the park
Greenies Snowballs Pee on a tree
Ground beef Squeaky toy Play with other dogs
Ham Squishy ball Play with the cats
Hamburger Stick Play with children
Hard boiled eggs Stuffed Animal Pulling a sled
Heart, kidneys, liver Target stick Playing in Sprinkler
Hot dogs (chicken, beef) Tennis ball Running off leash
Ice cream Tug toy Praise
Ice cubes Retrieving
Jerky (beef, turkey …) Tummy tickle
Kibble
DOG ACTIVITIES (Alone)
 Go outdoors
Liver cookies Meeting other dogs Hand targeting
Meatballs Ratting Heeling
Oinker Roll Shredding paper Herding (sheep, children, leaves)
Peanut butter Swimming Hose – chasing water
Pizza On the furniture
Popcorn Trip to the park
Pureed liver
INTERACTIVE
ACTIVITIES
 Play with other dogs
Pupperoni Go for a walk or ride Play with the cats
Rawhide chews Wrestle with you Play with children
Red Barn or similar Clicker session (free shaping) Pulling a sled
Sausages Weave legs Running in sprinkler
Sardines Bow Off leash hike
Steak Jump in arms Praise
String cheese Roll over Retrieving
Venison Back up Soccer game
Right side heel Pee on a tree
Shake hands Agility
Play dead Tracking
Spin Tug game

Stay to Play

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Here’s a fun game to play with your dog that will help teach her impulse control, develop a more solid stay and an enthusiastic release.

Tug-N-Treat toy, available from Clean Run, helps teach your non-toy-motivated dog to lust after toys Search for it at cleanrun.com

This exercise will help teach your dog what a release cue is and will build in anticipation for that cue. So be sure you know what word you’re using as a release, and stick with it!

You can use a special toy, but if your dog isn’t crazy about toys, you can use a Tug-N-Treat toy, or even her favorite treats.

Tease the dog with the toy (or food) and ask her to sit.  Immediately release from the sit (OK!), CLICK, and then run with the toy. When the dog catches up, play (or feed). If you’re feeding, add plenty of praise; feeding should be more than merely dropping a piece of food into the dog’s always ready maw. Be excited!

Start out with the dog right next to you.  Work both sides.

If the dog gets up before your release, just don’t play. (“oops!” and back into a sit)

The dog has to sit and remain sitting, and wait for the release to play the game.

Gradually add distance from the dog, but don’t worry too much about duration. She must, however, hold it while you walk away and wait for her release.

Early in teaching the game (after your dog understands that you expect her to stay until you release her), start to tease her with movement. Start this when you’re still close to her. Look like you’re getting ready to run (rock back on your heels slightly, tense to spring, wiggle, move your feet – you’re adding both duration and distractions here, hopefully building her anticipation – and control). If she breaks, just start over without any comment. Remember, it’s a game! Keep it light, and fun!

“Yard Training” Your Pup

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… by Cathy Hughes

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the house training process for our dogs. This is amazing to us since humans have been faced with this task for centuries…you’d think we’d get it right by now. Perhaps the confusion starts with the name–“house training.” From the numerous calls we get it seems that owners house train dogs quite well! That is to say, many dogs wait until they are safe inside the house before relieving themselves! This is not what the owner intended… what they were shooting for is a dog that is “yard trained.” Let’s look at a few simple rules that would apply to yard training an adult dog as well as a puppy.

  1. Feed the pup at regular intervals and on the same good quality food while in the learning stages. Remove any food that has not been eaten within 15 minutes after offering it. Water should be available until the same time every evening…around 8:00PM is good. The pup should be taken outside immediately following each meal and again about 30 minutes later. The owner must accompany the pup so you can praise her when she performs the appropriate behavior. As she is “going”, calmly give a cue such as “go potty” or “do business”. You can then use this cue to let the dog know what is expected of her when you take her out to relieve herself in the future. When she has completed voiding, calmly praise her and give her a treat.
  2. The dog should be taken out first thing in the morning and after naps.
  3. The dog should be taken outside prior to and after indoor play periods (or any other excitement such as the arrival of guests or your return from an outing) and make sure she relieves herself before she comes back into the house after outdoor play periods or unsupervised periods outside.
  4. The untrained dog must not be given free range of the house. She should be in the same room you are in or confined in a crate or outside area when you cannot supervise her.
  5. Do not scold your dog when you come upon an accident in the house. This will only confuse the dog and make you unpredictable in her eyes. This can actually lead to aggression problems later. At the very least it will make her reluctant to come to you when you call her!
  6. If you catch your pup in the process of voiding in the house, act shocked and hurry her outside. Take any of the material, via paper towel, out to the area of the yard you wish her to use. The next time you take her out, take her to that area and let her sniff those items. Once she is going in that area, you can remove the toweling.

Some trainers recommend “scruffing” the pup when you catch them “in the act” in the house. That seems to have worked with some dogs; however I have seen dogs that have learned not to void in their owner’s presence when subjected to this method. Those are the cases where the owner calls me and states that their dog went into a different room of the house and voided following a 45 minute uneventful session in the yard! These owners have actually trained their dogs so well not to void in their presence that the poor dears cannot bring themselves to void outdoors with their owners in attendance.

If you follow these guidelines and see no improvement after 10 days, a veterinary exam may be in order. Young puppies can have urinary tract infections or parasites that may interfere with the progress of yard training. If the vet exam is negative, then you may need to enlist the services of a behaviorist. Some yard training problems are only a symptom of other problems in the canine/human relationship.

Ask your trainer for help in teaching your dog to indicate her desire to go outside. Some dogs do this naturally, but some need to be coached to speak or ring a bell hung on a door knob when they need to be let out. Your trainer can also give you advice on crate training your puppy/dog.

Dogs are not perfect and may have an accident once in a while. Cleaning the area to discourage repeat visits can be accomplished by first saturating the area several times with plain soda water, blotting up with towels in between applications. Finally dab rubbing alcohol on the area. This will not leave a residue that attracts dirt and dust–and it smells awful to the dog long after humans are unable to detect the odor. There are also enzyme-based cleaners on the market that report good results.

As you can see, good management is the most important tool when yard training your dog. Practice it and you should see improvement soon. GOOD LUCK!

Shaping a Behavior

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Can your dog read your mind?

Of course he can! You’ll probably swear to it after you’ve shaped a few behaviors, and you can tell your friends this is the case. But you’ll know the truth – that he’s offering you behaviors because he’s been reinforced repeatedly for those behaviors – and he even figured out what works (i.e., what you want. There you go, he can read your mind!).

I like to “shape behaviors” because this method is 100% hands-off and the dog gets to decide what to do – or so he thinks. This method empowers dogs to use their brains – and they do have brains – to figure out how to earn the reinforcement. It’s the most rewarding method I’ve used to train dogs, and I’m talking about rewarding to me, as well as to the dog!

To teach a dog a new behavior, a good trainer will divide the behavior into small “slices” – pieces of behavior that when put together form the final action we want the dog to perform.

For example, to sit in front of you, your dog must first lift his head up, shift weight back, slide his rear legs forward while dropping his haunches… In shaping a sit, each of those pieces would be clicked and treated multiple times. The more pieces a desired behavior is sliced into and each of those pieces reinforced, the more solidly the dog learns the final desired behavior.

Playing the following game with your dog will give you an idea of how the act of reinforcing small behaviors will lead to a dog happily learning things you never dreamed of! Continue reading

Clicker Basics

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Three things to understand about using the clicker –

    1. You will click one time when your dog does a behavior you like.

Timing is everything! Pretend you’re taking a snapshot of the desired behavior. Click at exactly the instant that the behavior is happening. This means you should start the click when you see the dog’s muscles tense to sit or move. A touch early will probably mean you’re clicking on time. And what you’re really clicking is the dog’s decision or intent to move.

    1. Each click must be followed by a reward.

The reward can be a treat, or play, or a ride in the car (rather time consuming), a sniff at a tree… The goal is for the reward to be truly rewarding to the dog, not what you think should be rewarding to the dog.

    1. The click ends the behavior.

As soon as he hears the click, the dog is “allowed” to get up, or change otherwise out of the position you were clicking.

Charge!

To the dog, the click means the following:

  1. What he just did at the instant you clicked was what you will be rewarding him for.
  2. The click is always followed by a reward. Every time. 100%. The dog’s human must not fail!

To teach the dog these simple things, follow these steps:

  1. Put 10-15 small pieces of yummy food in one hand and a clicker in your other hand. Your dog is with you. You may attach the leash to a hook, stand on it – just secure it so the dog is safe and won’t wander away. Pretty soon he won’t even think of wandering away!
  2. Click once and give your dog a treat. Reach down and put the treat in his mouth. The dog does not have to do anything to earn the click or the treat; he just has to be there to eat it.
  3. Repeat.
  4. Repeat.
  5. Repeat until all treats are gone.

You’ll probably notice that at about click #5 or #6 the dog is looking at you sharply when he hears the click. This is good.

If the dog shows no interest in the food, he might be full from a meal, the food might not be yummy enough for him, he could be stressed by the environment, or he could be dead. You’d probably notice that. We can deal with these other issues.

You have just “charged the clicker,” i.e., “classically conditioned” the dog to anticipate a food reward when he hears a click. His association with the click is a good one. You will be using this conditioned response to teach him many things.

What next? See Shaping a Behavior

Download this article as a PDF

Vaccinations and Puppies

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Border collie puppy at Mountain View Dog Training puppy kindergartenMany of our students have questions about vaccinations and the safety of their pups in classes before they are “fully” vaccinated. We feel your puppy is safe coming to our small classes if he has received his first two vaccinations against parvovirus and distemper. Your pup will not be ready for rabies vaccination until he is at least 4 months of age; however, puppies are able to attend class before they reach that age. The chances of them being bitten by a rabid puppy are about 0 to none. 🙂

Many veterinarians and behaviorists believe that early socialization is so important that achieving that socialization in a safe environment is worth the small risk involved. Without this critical socialization period they can develop many behavioral issues which cannot be fixed later, and can result in injuries and eventually to an early demise for the dog, after a short, unhappy life.

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB) in 2009 released a position paper outlining the importance of early puppy socialization, preferably before the puppy reaches 12 to 16 weeks old. Four veterinarians with extensive experience discuss early puppy socialization in a roundtable format. The article below may help you to make your own decision about your puppy’s safety:

http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/early-puppy-socialization-classes-weighing-risks-vs-benefits

Other Considerations on Puppy Safety

In our puppy classes, we warn people with very young, potentially under-protected pups not to walk their puppies in the park.  Always consider, when taking your young puppy out and about, the other dogs are that using those locations to eliminate.

When you travel with your puppy, look for places to take him out to potty or for a travel break in places less traveled by other dogs –  like bank parking lots, libraries, obscure parks, etc. Avoid rest stops, gas stations, and other popular stopping places. And be sure to pick up after your dog!

And As Your Puppy Grows…

And here’s food for thought, as your dog matures:  There are many concerns about over-vaccination of our pets. Many of our dogs have sensitivities to certain vaccines, and reactions to the rabies and other vaccines are almost commonplace. Here’s a discussion of a holistic approach to vaccination as compared to the conventional approach:

http://www.organic-pet-digest.com/dog-vaccination-schedule.html