Mannerly Mutts Making Dog and Owner Dreams Come True in York Maine - Blog

Treat Training and Luring Insights

5/24/2020

Today I am going to go over the very commonly used practices of treat training used with luring to train your dog.   Most of this training falls under the category of positive reinforcement. That is the practice of adding something to increase the likely hood of a behavior.   In this case, we are talking about food rewards.

CONSIDERATIONS WHEN TRAINING WITH FOOD:

Most puppy training starts with food training.   Puppies are maturing, and do not have the focus of an adult dog.   They are discovering the world with their paws, nose, eyes, and mouth. Therefore, humans need a good reward method to catch their attention for any period of time.

Adult dogs will have more maturity and focus (usually). Therefore, the first section does not necessarily apply to them.   Although, these are things you may want to consider, especially if your adult dog seems at all flat when training.   Both young and old dogs need a distraction free place to start learning at first.

Building blocks of dog training

5/18/2020

Most dog owners, especially first time dog owners, do not have a real understanding of what dog training is. How could they? This is not something taught to us in most schools, and dogs are a totally different species than we are. The building blocks of dog training are very important, and it is the understanding of these and why they are used that confuse most dog owners.

The first thing you should know is dog training is a process. There are many steps, and if you don't step off on the right foot in the first place, you will make your self a lot of unnecessary work later or just give up in frustration at a point where you could have excelled. This blog seeks to give you some insights to understand the bones of the process in hopes that when you start training you will continue on to a very enjoyable life for you and your dog with a fabulous working relationship.

Four Steps of The Dog Training Process

5/17/2020

I don't know if most of the dog owning public is aware of the levels that we pass through when teaching a dog a certain command. Here are the four levels that I usually think of:

1) Demonstrate to the dog what you want him to do.You can do this by positioning or luring your dog into position. Dogs need to be shown what to do, because they don’t naturally know the things we take for granted that older dogs have already been taught. Obviously they don't understand our verbal cues, and need to be shown what they will correspond to in the future. In the Demonstration phase, the command is verbalized in conjunction with the luring or placing the dog into correct position.

So you have found a great adult dog to add to your family, now what?

5/9/2020

Harley the Great Dane and one of his many friends.

A decision has been made! You have decided to take in a new adult dog into your family. Before this action was taken:

You have already looked deep into whether you were ready for any dog.
Your lifestyle was analyzed so as to list the qualities in a dog that would fit well within your every day activities.
Breeders, Rescues, and ads to re-home adult dogs were looked at very carefully and vetted.

Now your new family member has arrived or will be arriving shortly. The next two or three weeks are for your new adult dog family member to learn they are in a safe and predictable environment. What are the immediate actions you can take to let that happen without the common pitfalls of many new dog owners or dog owners that have had no experience with a brand new adult dog. That is what we will be talking about in this blog.

Crate Training Tips

5/8/2020

Objectives: Using a crate is important for many reasons. House training, boarding, possible veterinarian visits where they are staying hours or overnight, safety in the house (puppies will try and chew wires and all sorts of things left to their own devices), just having a shower without worrying about what puppy is getting into, and separating out from company that may be afraid of dogs, in general. The objective is to create a peaceful place where your puppy or dog knows they are safe and comfortable to rest and relax.

Equipment: Crate, flat collar on dog (so you have some hold on him putting him in or out), toys placed in the crate already, and a lot of patience. You don't want your puppy to see you getting frustrated. This is all a learning experience for them.

Trick Tuesday-Spin or Follow The Hand

4/21/2020

This is just the beginning of the spin trick. There are more steps later on to have the puppy or dog doing this on their own for the verbal only or signal only command.

Equipment needed: dog or puppy, six foot leash, flat collar that does not come off of head, treats, place to sit or kneel down (can be done standing too, but usually you need to start lower down. NOTE: TREATS SHOULD BE SMALL FOR PUPPIES AND NOT THAT BIG FOR DOGS EITHER. THEIR KIBBLE CAN BE USED FOR THIS.

STEP 1: Hold handle of leash in one hand.
STEP 2: Put treat in the other hand.
STEP 3: Make sure you have the puppy fairly close to you on the leash.
STEP 4: Place the treat close to or right on the puppies nose if needed in a closed hand.
STEP 5: Then lure with your hand so the puppy's head turns to start. Don't expect more than a head turn at first. If they do go all around with their body at first, then great! The second time they may not. Just be patient with the puppy or dog at first, as they do not understand exactly what we want yet. This is the teaching or showing phase of training.
STEP 6: When they turn their head, say "good boy" or "good girl" (notice we are not giving a command at this point), and then open your hand so they can take the food.
STEP 7: Repeat for about 15 repetitions. Young puppies should only be trained for a short period of time, and ideally you want them wanting more at the end.

NOTE: If they start moving their body with the food on the first session, that is great but it might not happen. Do not push the puppy (or dog) too fast. Stay slow and steady and the exercise will perform better in the long run. In the next session, you may want the dog to do a complete spin before getting the treat. When that starts happening consistently, then you can use the command "spin" or "good spin" (if you are using a marker system) when the dog or puppy completes the spin.

So you have a new puppy what training to start with right away-Pandemic Series Day 28 of Social Distancing

4/7/2020

Sally Wally Woo as she is known here.

Puppies can do more than human babies can do, but do remember that these are babies. Everything is new to them. In this article, I am going to attach some basic puppy links of the things that you might not know about puppies, how they develop and how they mature. The real purpose of this article is how you go about training a puppy the right way, and with the knowledge that these are babies.

Growth Stages in Puppies (Many people consider a dog mature at 2 years, but with our breed, the Doberman, it seems like three years in when they get there)
Critical Periods in Puppy Development
Incomplete listing of things that are poison to your puppy
House Training Tips
Crate Training (be sure to scroll all the way down, they have specific instructions on this article)
A listing of all sorts of link in regards to puppies
Socialization strategies
Tips about your new puppy

Glossary of Dog Training Terms

4/3/2020

Did you know that dog trainers can use the same term, but the terms means something completely different to another individual trainer ? It is true, and it makes communicating in dog training terms very difficult and sometime unnecessarily hostile.

The reasons for this are many. There are scientific terms and definitions, there are method terms and definitions, and there are words that are very general and encompass a broad spectrum of possibilities.

Early on, I made myself a glossary of dog training terms that are the meanings as I understand them to be per my prior experience and training. It does not mean someone else's other definition is wrong! It is just nice to understand what each other's definition is, and what your own personal definition is. Sometimes two people are saying the same thing, but arguing about it due to the misunderstanding of what each person is actually trying to say. I give to you my personal glossary of dog training terms:

Shana Training Log March 1st to March 31st

3/31/2020

Sunday March 1st 2020:

DAY OFF

Monday March 2nd 2020 (hard day for Shana as her arch nemesis is here):

First long down until 10 minutes in a row Monday, March 2⋅9:00 – 9:15am---no equipment---in master bedroom while Shana knows Lucy is on the dog side (15 min)
Place no equipment until 30 minutes Monday, March 2⋅9:30 – 10:10am---in master bedroom (40 min)
Second long down until 10 minutes in a row Monday, March 2⋅11:00 – 11:15am---no equipment---in masterbedroom (15 min)
3rd long ten minute down in a row but in kitchen while Lucy is in the mudroom which she can both smell and hear---no equipment (20 minutes)
Short tug session Monday, March 2⋅11:35 – 11:50am---no equipment---in living room next to kitchen (15 minutes)
ACTIVITY NOT TRAINING PER SAY Robert brought out to play frisbee and ball games with her brothers (1 hour)
4th long 10 minute in a row down later in the evening (20 minutes)

Have you decided you want a dog or puppy? Now what? Day 18 of the Pandemic and we are starting to approach the bunny slope of dog training.

3/28/2020

Baby B or Our Boris

Some of you already have a dog or puppy that you would like to be working with. I hope that I have some readers that have not yet selected their dog or puppy. This is truly the beginning of where you would ideally like to start. As with life, things very rarely go as we expect. However, we can try to stack the odds in our favor. It is not a perfect science by any means.

We have done a fair number of articles in the past on considerations when selecting your new dog or your additional dog that is new to a pack. Here are the links to those articles below: