T is for Treats

treats

As you’ve read, string cheese is the high-value training treat of choice around here, used to help Leo overcome his fear of bicycles and other fast-moving objects. With a reward-based counter-conditioning program, you’re supposed to use a treat that is special to that training, and it’s supposed to be extremely high value.

At first, I tried to stick to an ancestral diet by using cooked liver, which is odorific in preparation and leaves residue on the hands during training. For a variety of reasons, string cheese works best.

When we play nose work games in the garage, I’ve been using Zuke’s because they are very fragrant and easier to handle than cooked liver. They remind me of the Train-Me treats I described in Bark and Lunge:

These treats, about the size of a pencil eraser . . . tantalized me with their aroma. I gave up eating meat almost ten years earlier, but I loved sticking my nose in a freshly opened bag of bacon-flavored Train-Mes.

A general purpose treat around here, for example, to give the pups when they come back inside from the yard, is Merrick’s Texas Hold ‘Em dehydrated lamb lung. (Some of my dog-bloggy buddies recently were given some of Merrick’s BackCounty ancestral food to review. Hey, Merrick, put me on that list!) The dehydrated lung was recommended to us by an observer to a training class, who called it Doggie Crack.

Here you see the Mia and Leo tweaking out over it. (As I took these shots, I thought of all my dog-bloggy friends who do a really good job taking pics of their dogs for product reviews, and felt like inviting one of them over… or asking to go to their house, where I imagine the natural light is fantastic and the floors are perfectly clean.)

Something that was kind of fun for Easter, we did a little egg hunt with dollar-store plastic eggs and Zuke’s mini treats. Here’s a re-enactment.

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Read the story of how positive training helped my reactive dog Isis in my book, Bark and Lunge!

T

Join me for the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog.

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R is for Reward-Based

reward based
I give my dogs cheese in stressful situations to reward them for good behavior.

My relationship with my dogs is based on what’s often called “positive reinforcement.” This is a form of operant conditioning with the goal of increasing the likelihood a behavior will be repeated by reinforcing it with a positive stimulus.

Dog gets cookie when he sits on cue –> Dog likely to sit again when he hears the cue.

In the field of psychology, positive reinforcement is one of four quadrants, and as far as I can tell, the only one that laymen actually understand. Even I have to consult the chart to keep track of the others.

An even better way to describe my dog-training philosophy is “reward-based.” Some people hear that and think that means I give my dogs treats all the time to get them to do what I want. Which is kind of true, but there are other rewards you can use, like praise, playtime, or petting.

The best way to get a dog (or anyone) to do what you want is to reward them when they do it. Make it really easy for them by setting them up for success.

For more on reward-based training and how to set up a dog for success, check out this post from The Good Dog Blog.

reward
Sitting calmly at the Dog Days of Summer event last year.

 

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Read the story of how positive training helped my reactive dog Isis in my book, Bark and Lunge!

R

Q is for Quagmire

While many associate “quagmire” with Vietnam, I write of a literal quagmire: an area of soft, wet ground; soft miry land that yields under the foot.

Leo loves a quagmire

Continuing Saturday’s discussion of the Good, the Best, and the Other dog parks in our town… One of the features Leo enjoys most at the Other Dog Park is a muddy swamp shrouded in brambles. Last week, I took the dogs to the Other Park on my own, because I’d been sick with a cold for a few days, Rob was housesitting for his parents, and the pups were hungry for some stimulation. We went in with a Chuck-It and two balls, and came out with just the Chuck-It.

What happened was, Leo made friends with a smallish Husky who picked up his ball a couple of times. This is fine; I go to the dog park expecting to share our toys. Mia tends to hold onto hers, so that one seemed secure.

Because tennis balls are single-use items in Mia’s mouth, we have a variety pack of the rubber balls. This day, we were playing with a blue ball made of recycled materials containing flecks of orange, and the Best Ball… an orange ball that whistles when you throw it. Leo was carrying the orange ball when he strolled near the swamp. I encouraged him to leave the ball outside the swamp, so he dropped it. The little Husky swooped in, carried it into the swamp, and left it there.

His owner was apologetic, but I said, “These things happen at the dog park. It’s fine.”

After he left, I crawled through the brambles to look for it. The dogs followed me. I dragged the Chuck-It through the quagmire and found some tennis balls, some branches. The orange whistly ball, it seemed, had been gifted to the swamp. After a hearty search, I decided to call it … then noticed Mia beside me, mouth open.

“Mia! Where’s your ball?”

Also sacrificed to the quagmire.

But wait! There’s a happy ending! I brought Rob* to the swamp on Saturday to document it for this very post (careful to keep an eye on the blue ball Mia carried this time) and I found the orange ball! While the blue and orange-flecked ball is still enjoying a soak in the quagmire, we did come away with a red rubber Kong ball. A fair trade, I’d say.

We went in with one ball (two leashes, a PoopPac, and a Chuck-It), and came out with three.

*Special thanks to Rob for entering the quagmire with me. Your devotion has been noted.

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Read the story of how positive reinforcement helped my reactive dog Isis in my book, Bark and Lunge!

Q

Thanks to Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, and My Brown Newfies for hosting the Monday Mischief Blog Hop!

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P is for Park

pups park
Chilling at The Best Dog Park

I’ve written before about the two dog parks in town, but due to my self-inflicted rules for this All-Positive A to Z Challenge, I can repeat the name of only one of them: The Good Dog Park. (You can probably guess the name of the other.)

Now there’s a third, henceforth to be called The Best Dog Park.

“Have you been to the new dog park?” My hairdresser asked me last week.

“There’s a new dog park???”

I consider myself pretty locked in to the dog news around here, so I’m going to assume that I heard this first from my hairdresser because my dog training buddies have better pro-social activities for their dogs than the Wild West of off-leash parks.

We work hard to make our occasional dog park visits positive, even if that means leaving when the party is just getting started. Our visit last week to the Other Dog Park got really exciting when a year-old German shepherd zoomie-galloped into the fray, and Leo chased after him. I thought, Oh, good, Leo can wear himself out with this guy. But when the young dog slowed down, Leo mounted and humped him.

This has become our signal that it’s time to leave. While humping is a perfectly normal thing for a dog to do (Fern Camacho can tell you more), we keep things polite at the park. We used to have a three-strikes policy, but once Leo fixates on a dog, he keeps going back, so now we pack it up after the first mount.

Which is also what we did for our first visit to the Best Dog Park. While it’s farther from our house than the other two dog parks, it’s worth the drive. We’re still in the honeymoon phase, but it’s amazing! The ground is fully covered in bark, and there are some nice logs for people to sit on and dogs to jump over. More importantly, the people there were more attentive to their dogs than the folks tend to be at the Other Dog Park.

Somehow the dogs even seem better. This all might be because it’s new, but we’ll take it!

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Find out how positive reinforcement training helped my dog in my book, Bark and Lunge!

P

O is for Old

mature mia

I confess that when I first saw Mia’s gray face, I thought, “Oh, she’s too old.” (Who knows what I thought she was too old for.)

I’ll also admit to asking other dog owners how old their dogs are, because I want to know how long I can expect to have these guys around.

So I know it’s just out of curiosity that people are always asking us how old Mia is. Still, I’m insulted on her behalf. Recently, Rob was walking Mia at his work and ran into a grandmotherly sort who asked Mia’s age. Rob wondered if that made it appropriate for him to ask the woman how old she was.

Since our vet estimated Mia’s age at 7 when we first got her, I usually say, “We think she’s about 10.” And after June 4 (the anniversary of the day we got her), I’ll say, “We think she’s 11.”

Mia’s grayness and agedness came up in a piece I wrote for The Crossing Guide about a fun trip we took to San Juan Island.

Mia reminded me again last week how young at heart she is. We took the kids to a new park and she raced around so fast, just like she did on San Juan Island. This must be a “new place” phenomenon. Or maybe just a sign that her arthritis meds are working.

The last time someone asked me how old she is, I said, “We think she’s almost 11, and she’s in great health!”

sunshiney mia

Mia gets all the balls
Mia gets all the balls

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Read about how I discovered positive reinforcement training in my book, Bark and Lunge!

o

fitDogFridayThe FitDog Friday Blog Hop is brought to you by SlimDoggy, To Dog with Love, and My GBGV Life. Join the Hop or just visit the links below – lots of fun fitness tips and advice!

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N is for Normal

 

“I just wish I had a normal dog!”

I’m told that dog trainers hear that a lot when they take on new clients.

Funny thing – people’s complaints, which also wind up being the reasons they give when surrendering dogs to a shelter, are examples of dogs behaving normally:

  • Digging
  • Chewing
  • Barking
  • Marking
  • Nipping
  • Jumping
  • Escaping the yard
  • Herding family members

These habits are in dogs’ DNA. When we bring them into our homes, it’s our job to teach them what the new normal is.

How natural is it, from a dog’s point of view, to walk on a leash? To be expected to know which household items are appropriate to chew. To know which places are appropriate to relieve oneself.

I like what trainer and podcaster Fern Camacho says of his dog, Hayley, “On her best day, she’s still a dog.” Keep that in mind when you find yourself wishing your dog were more “normal.”

I know that Leo’s leash reactivity falls outside the scope of what is considered appropriate, and certainly, Isis’s reactivity did as well. But these are German shepherds; it’s normal for them to bark at things they consider threatening. And when they’re on leash, it’s natural for them to lunge as well.

The German shepherds in the world who can tell the difference between a threat and a bicycle – they’re normal too! They’ve just learned to distinguish these things better than Leo did. My job now is to keep Leo safe from the world, and the world safe from Leo, by teaching him what is expected of him.

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Find out how I discovered the benefits of positive reinforcement training in my book, Bark and Lunge!

N

And join me for the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop, hosted by 2 Brown Dawgs and Heart Like a Dog.

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L is for Lucky

Do you hear me, I’m talking to you
Across the water across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky, oh my, baby I’m trying

Boy, I hear you in my dreams
I feel your whisper across the sea
I keep you with me in my heart
You make it easier when life gets hard

Lucky

Lucky is a pit bull mix who has been at the Humane Society of Skagit Valley for a few months now. He showers me with kisses every time I walk him, and he would be a great addition to any home.

Luck has a lot to do with pet adoption. Which shelter a dog winds up in. What color his fur is. What breed he is.

Lucky is more brown than black, but his pit bull appearance may have slowed his adoption chances. Looking at the markings on his face, seeing the lighter brown circle around his mouth… might he be part rottweiler? Might that improve his chance of adoption?

It should be enough that he’s lovable, well-mannered and knows how to walk on a leash. Tell your friends about Lucky and let’s find him a home.

L

The Tuesday’s Tails blog hop is hosted by Dogs N Pawz and Talking Dogs. This blog hop features shelter pets. Find a pet at your local animal shelter or rescue and join us!

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K is for Knock! Knock!

Who’s there? (The K is silent.)

isis smiley

One of my favorite successes in treating Isis’s reactivity was getting her to lie on a mat when someone came to the door. Before I implemented the following reward-based training technique, a knock at the door was greeted with an intimidating German shepherd bark that made me want to hold Isis back when a new person entered our home.

Holding a dog back creates barrier frustration and makes her bark louder and scarier. Better to train a dog that visitors mean good things will happen.

Here’s how we did it:

At the sound of the knock, Isis barked. That’s allowed; that’s what dogs do. I’d say, “Isis, on your bed.” We kept her bed on the floor outside the guest bathroom, in view of our small foyer, but with a substantial buffer. I walked with her to the bed and pointed. Executed perfectly, Isis would lie on her bed and wait.

I kept a jar of Milk-Bones by the front door. I’d invite the guest in and ask him to stand in the foyer. Walking back to Isis, I’d hand her a cookie and say “Good girl. Wait,” then walk back to the guest and hand him a cookie. When I cued, “Okay Isis, say hello,” she could run up to the guest and get the cookie.

Isis associates the new person with a cookie. New person sees Isis as the adorable, friendly, smart dog she is. Everybody’s happy.

Now, some dogs learn to go to their mat at the sound of the knock, and wait there patiently. Isis had to be instructed a few times.

Perfection is overrated. We achieved our goal of having Isis greet guests politely, although it usually looked like this:

I’d say “Isis, on your bed,” and she’d run over to the bed, letting out a few excited barks. “Sit.” She might sit, or lie down, but then bark a few more times, maybe stand up. I’d wait for her to settle before proceeding. On my way to the door, she might get up and take a few steps toward the door. I’d ask her to lie on her bed again. Sometimes I’d have to walk back there with her and point.

A few times she’d get up after I opened the door. More than once I shoved my visitor back outside until Isis settled on her bed again. (This is why you should practice with understanding volunteers. I suggest other strategies for answering the door for the UPS guy.)

This training culminated in a get-together where we had about a dozen friends over and Isis waited on her bed to greet each of them. The best part – it turned her scary alert bark into one of high-pitched excitement as she waited eagerly to meet new people.

For the A to Z Challenge, I’m using all positive language in my posts. Read the rest of Isis’s story and what we learned about positive reinforcement training in my book, Bark and Lunge!

K

Thanks to Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, and My Brown Newfies for hosting the Monday Mischief Blog Hop!

Monday Mischief

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