But It's Mine - Resource Guarding

When a dog resource guards he is telling you that whoever or whatever is approaching when he has whatever or whoever is threatening.  It is not because he is dominant or feels you are below him in the pack order.  The more you battle with your dog and prove you can take whatever the worse it gets.

With puppies I like to build a history of people approaching while my puppy is eating or chewing or sleeping and good things happening.  Simple exercises like puppy eating dinner and someone walks by and throws a piece of sausage in the bowl.  Pretty soon the dog is looking forward to someone approaching the bowl.  This leads to being able to call the dog away from the bowl or cue another behaviour.  I practice the same approach with toys and bones.

Old school methods did a lot of taking toys to prove you could.  In my experience this left me with a dog that if the opportunity presented itself, such as outside with a dead thing in his mouth, there was no way he was going to come within hands reach so I could take it.

I am also proactive and while playing these games with my dog I always protect the dog from feeling threatened so he does not practice guarding.  For example my dogs are all in crates when they get fresh bones so they can all chew in peace.  No one is obsessing about taking someone else s and no on is feeling threatened that someone else will take their bone.  Same with dinner they are at the very least separated and usually crated so no bad feeling are being practiced.

I have been in houses where the dogs are fed side by side sometimes even with bowls that are attached.  From what I have observed there is usually one dog who feels a little (or sometimes a lot) intimidated and to me that is just not a good existence.

Finding Something To Reward

I read a book the other day that spoke about how are brains are trained to find the bad and not the good.  It said you actually have to train your brain to observe the good.  I think this is an important part of dog training.

I will take as an example a new beginner class coming into the room.  Most people will correct their dogs multiple time per minute.  Leash pops, bum squishes, hey hey, etc.  For most of these dogs they have never experienced that many dogs in that small a room while they are on leash.  Even more confusing to the dog is the behaviours they are exhibiting have been rewarded in the past.

Instead wouldn't it be great if you rewarded your dog for any good behaviour.  I am sure at some point your dog was not pulling, or barking, or lunging.  That is an improvement and I guarentee you if you continue to reward the good, the good will happen more often.

Remember any behaviour that is rewarded will be repeated.

The Quality of a Cue

Let's start with defining the meaning of cue.  A cue is a word or signal that the dog receives that elicits a response.  To properly create that response the cue needs to be paired with the action over and over until the dog has made the connection.  No puppy, no matter how smart the breed or parents where comes with any cues, your job is to train them.

To begin this association of cue and response you have to be able to create the response before you add the cue.  For example you want to teach your dog a verbal cue for sit.  Most puppies and/or dogs will sit when you show them a treat and then bring your hand up by bending your elbow.  Once you can predict that the moving of the hand will get the sit and not some other behaviour you are ready to begin to add the verbal cue.

Whenever teaching a new cue for a behaviour the order is new cue, pause, old cue.  In this case the verbal "sit", pause, then the hand signal you have created. You repeat this enough times and your dog starts to anticipate the hand signal and sits as soon as you give the verbal.  I also incorporate the verbal "sit" in any situation that I can predict my dog will sit, such as at meals and at the door.

The worst thing you can do to this brand new cue is to say it when you are not sure the dog will do it.  You first have to grow the strength of the cue until you are confident the dog understand it.  The best way to know this is to test it.  Do a number of repetitions of sit with you standing in front of him how you originally taught him.  This will bring the "sit" cue into the front of his brain.  Now go sit in a chair and give the "sit" cue.  Chances are your dog will sit since you just did a bunch of repetitions and you have just built a lot of value for sitting.  Now you have started to clarify when I say "sit" even if I am sitting in a chair you are expected to sit.

One important note to keep in mind.  I will allow my dog to fail no more than three times int his situation or any training.  You want to try not to change anything and allow him to fail.  Failing is good it explains to the dog what will not be rewarded and your dog is brilliant about working for rewards.  After three failures I have to reassess; is my dog to stimulated by the environment or was whatever I tried too hard and he wasn't as knowledgeable as I expected.

What Every Dog Should Know

I started a new Basic Manners class last night.  I always love the first night because I never know what is going to arrive.  There is always a large variety of breed, ages and owners.  All with different expectations of what they hope to get our of this class.  My job is to help them achieve ...

In my opinion the least your dog needs is to come when called, walk well on leash and allow you to catch them when you need to (of course you don't need this skill as much when they come when called :)).  The other skill your dog needs is self control, in other words not to lose their minds anytime they see _____.

Recalls (coming when called) are the easiest thing and the hardest thing to teach.  It's all about value for you as opposed to value for the environment.  Every now and then you meet a dog who just doesn't care about anything but their owner and they tend to have great recalls.  That is not the norm, the norm is everything is wonderful and your the crazy person who is always yelling.  Starting with something as simple as rewarding every time you call your dog for the next two weeks will alone make a humongous difference.

Walking on leash is in my opinion the hardest thing in the world to teach your dog.  It's like driving your car without a speedometer, nothing to slow you down.  Add that to the fact that most dogs get heavily rewarded every time they pull towards something and it is a monolithic task.  Again it's all about value just starting rewarding the dog for walking beside you and preventing the dog from walking anywhere else will go a long way into shifting the value for walking with you.  Remember it took a while to train your dog to pull this well don't expect huge changes overnight, but if you are patient you will start to see changes over time.

The last needed skill is your dog letting you catch him.  The first step never, ever scare or intimidate your dog when you have his collar, this is a sure fire way to prevent him from ever letting you catch him.  Start out on leash, grab your dogs collar and reward.  Do this a lot, usually I use their dinner so you can get a huge amount of repetitions in.  What I am looking for is when you reach for your dog he moves towards you not away.

So there you have it, these are the skills you need for a great dog.  Really it's not asking a whole lot of work on your part and it will provide you years of living with a dog who everyone want to have.

The Excitement of the First Time

Yesterday Iggy and I went to K9 Cup.  K9 Cup is an agility event hosted by ADSC, very much like an agility trial except designed for dogs getting ready to compete in agility.  This is probably my eight time but I haven't been in a number of years and I had forgotten what a good time it was.

It was wonderful seeing all these dogs with their owners trying out something that for a lot of them was the first time.  It is great to know that a lot of these people bought a dog did the usual obedience training and then thought it would be fun to try some agility.  A couple of years later here they are competing off leash.  The dogs are so happy that mom or dad took an hour a week to train and spend time with them.  It made their lives much happier and therefore much better behaved.

Sometimes I watch people with their dogs and I am sad when I realize how little time and training could make everyone's lives so much better.  Training your dog in agility may not seem that it will teach your dog how to be better behaved but that hour a week starts to create that relationship and bond that is the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

The Privilege of Dog Ownership

Today you get to hear me rant.  There is nothing that gets me more upset than a dog owner who is so disrespectful of those around them that they give a bad name to dogs anywhere.  I feel every dog owner should be responsible for their dogs actions and never allow the dog to behave in such a way that it gives a bad name to dogs.

Yesterday my mother-in-law went for her daily bike ride and got a pretty serious bite on the leg.  There is no excuse for that to ever happen.  This was an adult dog, I have a very hard time believing that this dog has not displayed any aggressive or chase behaviour before.  It was therefore very irresponsible for the owner to allow it to be loose.  How could someone be so irresponsible to put someone else at risk of serious injury  I don't understand.

A few days ago a dog was left to die in a parked car while the owners went shopping.  Did the people not think that maybe the car would get too hot.  These people where on their way home from Woofstock a big dog event in Toronto, maybe thinking that they were caring dog owners is incorrect.  From what I understand people saw the dog, then security was called, then the police where called and then the fire department came.  How long did this take?  Did people actually watch the dog die?  Why didn't someone immediately break the window?

There is no surprise when events like this happen on a regular basis that there is a large part of the population that wants nothing to do with dogs.  They don't want them living on their street, or playing near their children, or at public events.  A few dog owners give dogs a bad name and ruin it for the rest of us.  I personally was in a building in a line up with two of my dogs sitting quietly next to me, the little girl in front of us turned and started talking to the dogs, the lady behind the desk started screaming at all of us and freaked the little girl out.  What horrible experience has this women had that left her that fearful of dogs.

As dog owners it is our responsibility to protect our dogs and people we expose our dogs to.  To train our dogs so when people meet them the get a better impression of dogs not worse.  

The Perfect Dog

There is nothing like a new puppy.  They have their own special smell that you just can’t get enough of.  They are perfect and innocent.  The dreams of the perfect puppy and the perfect dog that they will grow make you smile.  You have just spent a pile of money getting the perfect leash and collar, dog beds, toys, food, crate, etc.  Hopefully the training of the puppy is also a priority.

Iggy at 6 weeks

The easiest situation to train a dog is when there is no competing behaviour to deal with.  Your puppy comes home with no habits good or bad and it is your job to mold this puppy into the dog you are picturing in your head.  Yes there are the lucky few who don’t really do a lot of training and end up with the perfect dog but they are not the norm.

If you spend the time during the first six months to a year of the puppy’s life with you, training, you will then get to spend the rest of your dog’s life with a dog who you enjoy living with and makes life less stressful, not more.  This does not require harshness, or being the boss, it just requires consistency and a clear picture in your head of what that perfect dog is to you.

When working with some of my clients I regularly hear in sheepish tone “my dog does this ______” insert sleep on the bed, get on the couch, eat human food, etc.  I always answer with a smile, “That is great”.  The perfect dog for you is not the one that behaves the way your neighbour or the book says it should behave; the perfect dog is the one that does what you want.  As long as you want him on the bed or couch than that is fine.  There is nothing more rewarding for the owner than sitting on the couch cuddling your dog.

This being said, every behaviour you allow will have consequences.  You have to be aware of what these consequences are and are you willing to live with them.  For example; if you just got a puppy that could grow to around 100lbs and you are allowing him to jump on your you kids, that will probably be a behaviour you regret allowing, when your dog reaches full weight in a few months’ time.  On the other hand you have a 10lb dog who jumps you might decide that isn’t worth the effort to try and change since most people who greet little dogs regularly pet the dog for jumping on them because they don't want to bend that far.

Enjoy your puppy and train it to be the best dog you have ever had.