Timing Your Treating

Okay, as promised, how and when you treat is as important as what you use. I tell my students on day one to reward the behaviors you want and ignore those you don’t. (There is an exception here for aggressive and dangerous behaviors). Sounds simple enough, right? It can be, but depending on how fast your dog tends to move, how fast you move, the level of difficulty of the behavior etc… it gets harder.
Let’s quickly define a “reward”. Anything that the dog finds pleasing and will want again. Praise, a food treat, a tug on a toy, a thrown ball etc… are all rewards. Food treats are the most convenient and easiest to use initially, so hopefully, you have a treat motivated dog. The thought of a reward motivates a dog to do a behavior again, so it gets the reward again. We do not have to get too detailed into that. Just be sure you are actually rewarding your dog from your dog’s point of view. Not what you think the dog should like. Rewards might also change. After three straight weeks of hot dog treats, your dog may no longer find the hot dog rewarding. Change it up.
The general rule of thumb is to treat your dog within 2-3 seconds of the behavior. Obviously, sooner is better and sometimes necessary. This is where clicker training or a “marker” word are needed. A “marker” is the sound the clicker makes, or the word you use the exact millisecond the dog does what you are looking for. The marker is associated with the reward in the dog’s mind (there is a process to this association that I am not covering here. If you do not know how to make this association, you can find it online or contact me). So even if you cannot reward the exact moment the dog does something right, you can use your marker. My marker is “good”. Many people use “yes”. Simple, quick and easy to get out. Or use a clicker device.
Let me put this into action for you. If you are teaching your dog to “sit” for example, you will want to have the treat ready and offer it to the dog as soon as the butt hits the floor. At the same time, you are giving your marker. If you are not ready and super fast, some dogs will pop back up before you have a chance to move your hand the two inches necessary to treat. That is why your marker must be instantaneous with the action. If the dog is already standing when he gets the treat and you did not mark the sit, you just rewarded the standing position, not the butt on the floor. I see very often, a dog that did a very nice “down” and was immediately marked and praised, but the handler is standing, fumbling for a treat. 5seconds later, the dog is jumping up, sniffing for the treat and the reward is being given to a dog that is jumping (which would usually be a behavior we ignore). Marker or not, how confusing is that to the dog? In the dog’s mind, he thinks the behavior is to down and then jump up so he can get the treat. That is why the marker is key and reward timing is everything. You have to be quick, especially when you are first teaching a new behavior. Be on the ground with your dog if you have to. I understand that the timing is rarely perfect early on, just try to do the best you can and really pay attention that you are rewarding the correct behavior and only the behavior you are looking for.

What's in YOUR treatbag?

I learn with every new class I teach something that I now know as common knowledge is not necessarily for those new to dog training. Unless you have one of those dogs who just is not treat motivated, treats will be a part of your training forever. More so in the beginning than later on. I tell my students the first week of class to bring more than one kind of treat. Not only do you need treats of different value, but you need variety to keep the dog interested. Not that I couldn’t eat chocolate chip cookies all day long, but it is better to mix in a peanut butter cookie now and then.
I usually have 4 types of treats in my pouch. Fortunately, with Bailey, one of those can be dog food. Sometimes I make it more exciting by mixing the dog food in with a freshly cooked, still steamy, hot dog. The grease from the hot dog rubs off a little onto the food. I also always try to have Zuke’s products or similar. The Mini Naturals are a perfect training size for all but the largest of dogs. Jerky Naturals and Solid Gold are nice sized squares. They break easily into 4 or 2 pieces or you can give the whole thing for a jack pot ( a super big, super yummy reward for finally accomplishing a behavior or performing a task the dog generally dislikes). There are those who say that treats can be tiny, nothing more than a taste to be effective. My boys disagree. However, you should not give large pieces all the time either. Dogs can fill up quickly and too many treats can pack on the pounds.
Anything soft and easy for you to break (or bite off) and the dog to chew are good training treats. String cheese, hot dog slices, diced veggies if you can get away with it. I once read a training book which suggested not to use fatty ham trimmings as treats. Okay, um, good advice. I do not think I want to reach my hand into a pouch full of fatty trimmings. Hot dogs and the like can get a little greasy, but your dog will happily lick your fingers (smelly hands can also make a dog think you have a treat when you do not). I also wear my grungy jeans when training, so I can just wipe my hands on them! One trick with hot dogs and other meats, I line my pouch with a baggie so it does not get as greasy. Sometimes, I have the baggy on top of dry treats if I do not want to mix the two. Roll the top of the baggie down for easy access to the hot dogs, yet it is still easy enough to reach underneath.
What you use is important, but so is how you deliver the treat. We will talk about that next…

Luey is a good dog.

“He's a good dog”. A simple statement, but something I needed to be reminded of. I will try to make a long story, not so long. I spent this past weekend at an agility trial hosted by our dog club. For those of you not familiar with these, as members of the host club, you spend pretty much all day at the trial as a worker when you are not running a dog. For me, with one dog, running time totals all of maybe 2.5 minutes. The rest is waiting and working. And this day, there was a lot of waiting and working on top of a very unsuccessful day in terms of agility runs. My day started with a beautiful Jumpers run by Luey, that I blew on the very last jump by not being in position, causing him to knock a bar. Completely my fault, completely avoidable. Our second run of the day, well, we can probably blame some on Luey. He missed a contact and for whatever reason, known only to him, he would not complete the weave poles on two tries. While I am not generally competitive by nature, I do like to succeed and meet standards that we are capable of meeting. Neither myself nor Luey met those standards that day. So I was a little frustrated and unhappy about the day.
A casual joke with an acquaintance regarding my frustration resulted in her stating the obvious about Luey, “he's a good dog”. With that statement came a million thoughts in my head and my having to agree that yes, he is a good dog. Maybe he is not a superstar agility dog, but neither am I a superstar handler (or a superstar anything for that matter). What he is however, is everything that I want him to be in so many ways. He is my boy. He is my silly, tail wagging, wiggly, advanced obedience and trick performing show off dog who loves agility, works as a therapy dog, happy to be anywhere as long as he is beside me, whether it be an all day dog event or a lazy day on the couch. And at the end of each day, he must be snuggled next to me in bed with his nose buried under something.
I would not trade any one of his quirks for all the clean runs in the world and I am embarrassed that I forgot that for even one day. Luey IS a good dog and never again will anyone have to point that out to me. So I look forward to finding out what we can get wrong at our next trial in January. I will be fine with it, because I have such a good dog to get things wrong with.

Meat flavored pills are fooling no one

Rhymes with Orange is a comic in one of our local papers. Today’s strip featured the head of a dog and the caption “Canine Anatomy: What you didn’t know”. The picture pointed out the teeth, tongue and throat complete with spring loaded flipper for pill expulsion! How funny and how true.
Dogs and pills have always been a mystery to me. Our late beloved Chow was not overly excited by toys or treats. You could put a couple of dog biscuits down and they would eventually be eaten over a day or two. Believe me, I tried to find a treat he would eagerly accept, but I really never did. So, nothing about that “meat flavored” heartworm pill was appetizing to him. My trick was to mix them in with some canned food. That was his idea of a treat. Then came Luey, who is a treat hound, only turning his nose up at certain all natural treats which advertise no this and no that and apparently no flavor. I have had some pretty bad all natural, vegan type cookies, so I know where he is coming from. He also wants nothing to do with his meat flavored pills. I can trick him as well with the canned food. Once in a while he finds them, but usually he does not.
Then came Bailey, dog equivalent to a Hoover vacuum. This is a dog we can reward with his own dog food. So when he turned his nose away from the flavor tabs, I was floored. But no big deal, I can just hide them in canned food for him as well. Wrong. The little bugger finds them in there too! What is in these pills that a dog who rarely actually even chews can detect and eject? I am going to have to get creative now… the challenge is on!

Pet Safety

We are almost half way through October and I have failed to mention it is National Pet Safety Month. It is also Adopt a Shelter Dog month and Wishbones for Pets month and I could go on and on. I believe pet safety is of uber-high importance, it is something that we need to think about every day. I actually have had pet safety on the mind recently as it is now very dark in the early morning when my boys get their morning walk and soon it will be dark by the end of our longer, evening walks. Fortunately, we live in a neighborhood with sidewalks. We constantly work on staying on said sidewalks and not wandering out into the street.(Yes, I am talking to you Bailey). We have also taught the dogs to stop where roads intersect the sidewalks. My favorite safety step are the lighted, flashing collars they wear, which are conveniently sold at dogism.com. These are just a few examples of safety on leashed walks! Pet safety can be overwhelming. We have to worry about the foods they eat(or might eat despite our best efforts), plants we keep in the house, chemicals we use in and outside the home, toy parts on both dog and children’s toys, how we transport them… you get where I am going with this.

Pet safety even changes from season to season. However, a lot of keeping pets safe is common sense. Training your dog is also a good step towards safety. There is a ton of information out there on keeping pets safe. Some of it might not be so good, so verify anything questionable. Remember there are products out there too for keeping your dog safe, from harnesses in the car to high tech identification tags. So if October gets you thinking about your pets safety, you have a lot to think about this month!

What month would make a good National Dogism month…??

Doggie Stay-cations

Going out of town and leaving the dogs? Where oh where to leave them? Who do you trust and what can you afford? From standard kennel and pet resorts, to dog walkers and overnight sitters, there is an option that will most likely work for your dog and your budget.
When I was a child, we would take our dog to the vet to be boarded. I am pretty sure my Sheltie was kept in a cage and let out in a little yard a couple of times a day. You could not pick up your dog after 5pm or on Sunday. That was pretty much how it was done and the fact that he came home safe and sound was really all my parents were looking for. Today, we have a whole new outlook. I also believe, price is not as big of a factor as it used to be. We are no longer leaving our dogs to go on vacation, we are sending them on a vacation of their own.
Our first dog was a Chow my husband and I, um, acquired (a story for another day). He had a good temperament, but had his issues. Boarding was not a good option. We were lucky enough to have a friend come stay with him most of the times we were away. If it was a quick weekend, we could get away with a dog walker coming by. He was fine alone and could hold it forever. When we got Luey, it was a different story. Luey would not do well left alone for any length of time, nor was he a fan of the doggy daycare type environment. Our luck continued that we had good friends either willing to come stay at our house or take him in. We saved money too by swapping dog sitting services with each other. Adding a puppy changed things a little. Dealing with puppy issues and puppy energy is not for everyone. We had an occasion where we could not find a friend available for the weekend, so we simply split the dogs up so it was not so much work for one person. I know they enjoyed their one on one time as well.
There are professional pet sitters you can pay to come spend the night in your home if you do not have a friend who can do this. I have seen many people willing to open their homes to a small number of dogs and take them in as one of their own pets. They sleep on dog or human beds and just become part of the house hold activities. These might be good options for shy or nervous dogs.
Then there is the “pet resort” environment. These can be found as standalone facilities or a part of someone’s home. Rarely is a crate or dog run to be found, instead the rooms are furnished with comfy dog beds, usually music and/or a television, a half or windowed door so the dogs do not feel closed in and frequent outside play time with other dogs. Many offer grooming services, even spa like treatments, so your dog is pampered, beautiful and clean when you pick him up. Often, you can even watch your dog via “dog cams” over the internet while you are away. At a family event this past weekend, my Aunt and Uncle from Virginia were telling me what they saw their Bailey doing at “camp”. From what they described, it really was pretty much like camp.
It might be a good idea to check out some local options now, before the time comes that you have to decide where your dogs will vacation while you are away. Do some online research and then check out your favorites. Dog walkers and pet sitters usually insist on a meeting in your home before they commit. Pet resorts and hotels might have certain hours where they have the extra staff to walk you around. I would recommend checking for proper licenses and insurance, but small scale operations might not have this, even though they are very loving and reliable. Use recommendations from friends and trusted sources and most of all, go with your instincts. If something does not sit well with you, keep looking. There are worse things than wondering “does my dog even miss me”?

There is more than one way to skin a cat

If you do a search or browse books on a term such as “dog training”, you will be slightly overwhelmed by the various options and opinions. Many of the methods out there do tend to fall into general categories such as positive reinforcement, dominance theory, luring , shaping, clicker etc… the modern version of two broadest categories can be simply defined as “the Ceasar Milan way” or the “Victoria Stillwell way”. Please understand that neither Ceasar nor Victoria developed their methods from scratch. They are both based on long term dog theory, the dominance theory (Ceasar) being in existence longer than the positive reinforcement methods of Ian Dunbar(Victoria). Researcher beware – there are very strong opinions on both.
I encourage anyone who is interested in any dog training to do their own thorough research. Personally, I feel that there are pros and cons to both methods and which ones to choose or what combination of trainings to use depends largely on the dog and the handler. I also believe that as a trainer, I should understand and appreciate each method for what it is and while I can have an opinion, it comes down to what my students want and need. I would of course refuse to use older, harsh training methods that border on abusive. This can be a fine line, a very gray area to some, but I use my common sense.
Maybe both fortunately and unfortunately, there is a lot of emotion that plays into most if not all of the decisions we make regarding our dogs. Take care not to let emotion make the decision for you, but use your emotion to help you make a training decision you are comfortable with and not what someone tells you to be comfortable with.