Category: Obedience Training

What is your dog's bliss? How can finding their bliss help?

10/13/2020

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Leon loved fetching as a wee young thing. We both learned about this skill together, and had a lot of fun doing it.

What do I mean by your dog's "bliss"?

The activity or item that eventually or immediately drives your dog to do it more or want to engage with you more.
This is something the dog is going to eventually be clear about. You can experiment with to find it and start the process, but ultimately you need to pay attention to whether it is truly motivating your dog OR do you just expect it would motivate your dog.

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Engagement and Motivation

10/5/2020

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Engagement in dog training is the ability to create a relationship with your dog where you are the reward. Engagement done well will have your dog insisting on continuing the activity with their owner. In other methods of training, there are some elements of this as well, but the engagement that I am talking about is much more. Engagement in dog training is more about play with their owner or handler to create that very strong bond and work ethic. As with anything, it can have it's pluses and minuses. I really enjoy this method, because I get to play with my dog and train. The thing that motivates me in this method, is seeing my dog have fun while we are doing it. Why do I also use other methods other than Engagement and Motivational methods? One reason is this is a bit slower process than some other methods in the shorter term. Sometimes if you really need to stop your dog from jumping on your elderly relatives, while including them in your family activities, you might want to take a faster course of action. Of course there are ways to control what you dog does by confining them more, but I like my dogs to have certain freedoms during the day, where this perhaps might not happen if I was only using this method. It takes longer not in time per day, but the progress to build to a goal in general will take more time. There are reasons to want to spend a longer period if time in training your dog. I will go over that at a later date.

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Four Steps of The Dog Training Process

9/10/2020

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A common question that I get asked as a dog trainer is "How long will it take to get my dog trained to do XYZ?" That question does not have any concrete answer, and of course it depends on a variety of factors. Age, temperament, owner commitment, behavioral challenges, and increasing distractions all change this answer. When I am training a dog here, I feel that I need at least 21 days of consistently working the dog on training commands and behavioral exercises to get a dog owner on their way to picking up where I left off easily (or easier). Training does not just happen in one day or in one environment. Dog training, as dog trainers understand it, when you have reliability of a command (and very dependent on whether you are talking about an adult dog or a puppy) without the need of going through much effort other than the verbal command at least four out of five times in various environments and distractions. That actually takes much more than three weeks if you want a full set of commands that can be worked in that way. It also depends on if this is a family's needs for their family dog, if this is a working dog, or if this is a sports and competing dog.

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.

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Give Feedback to Your Dog by Using Markers or Clickers

8/31/2020

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Typical Shana face when she hears the verbal marker "good".

Feedback is information that lets your dog know whether they are on the right track or not, depending on what you are doing with them. It is important that feedback is given at a well timed point to let them know in that moment if they are performing or working in the direction or task that you want. Ideally you want this feedback to be able to be given with some space in between you once you get going. Rewards and corrections are a type of feedback that is close up. Instead in this article, I am going to talk about equipment, the clicker, and verbal, your voice.

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Building blocks of dog training

5/18/2020

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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.

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Trick Tuesday-Spin or Follow The Hand

4/21/2020

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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.

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Start on the bunny slope of dog training or Pandemic Day 17 what else do you have to do?

3/26/2020

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Baby Fergus is your bunny slope model for today.

In the past (before I knew how to train my dogs and before I even had an inkling of dog training), down hill skiing on vacation was the most relaxing thing for me. This was true even though I was a $hit skier, and had to take lessons every time to improve myself. I feel like it is the same reason that training dogs (and just hanging with them too) relaxes me. FIRST of all you have a goal to reach. SECOND to reach the goal you need skills and a plan to obtain those skills and THIRD if you don't concentrate on that, you are going to fall off the mountain! 😂 Okay, maybe it is just that you don't get down the mountain the way you wanted OR you get hurt on the way there (by your own self).

So the first time I went skiing with my husband on vacation, I took for granted that you put on the skis and magically down the mountain you went. I mean I had skated when I was thirteen, right? Thankfully, we did have a ski instructor who came with us (and somehow ignored all the obvious signs that I had no idea what I was doing----which included riding up in sub zero weather holding onto my gloves instead of having them on---sliding backwards on my skis before getting onto the lift). Long story short, we got down several hours later, by the instructor (from the top of the mountain mind you), skiing backwards while I held onto his ski poles in front of him. Clearly mad skills HE had and strength. I needed to start on the bunny hill first, and then the advanced bunny hill, and so on before you even think of starting at the top of the mountain.

Pandemic Day 17's dog training tip: Bring you and your dog to the bunny slopes first. More of that soon, since I have some time on my hands.

Follow Mannerly Mutts Dog Training's Facebook page for tips on how to handle the bunny slope.

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Future Uses for Retrieve and Fetch: Picking Up Items for Owners

1/7/2020

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Wonder how to start fetch and retrieve with your dog? Here is the first step.

1/6/2020

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Equipment: 15' long line
Training Collar
Chuck-it type ball (easier for puppies) OR other favorite toy

STEP 1: Have your puppy near you on the long line. You can have the line short at this point to keep them near you.
STEP 2: Throw the ball as you say "get it".
STEP 3: (Super important for the bringing back) Wait until your puppy latches onto the ball before saying "let's go". DO NOT say "good boy" or "let's go" until they have a grip on the ball.

NOTE: If they don't go after the ball, first make sure you have not picked out a time the puppy is tired or has already trained enough. Remember you want to do this when the puppy is fresh and ready to go. If they are, but something has just distracted them or inhibited them, go towards the ball yourself with the puppy. They will normally go and grip it after this.

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Dog owner question: What do I do about my technology obsessed dog?

7/24/2017

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Question from a pet dog owner and training client: 
Since you asked for questions, here is one that may not be common. Sally is obsessed with animals she sees on tv. She will charge the screen and bark. I'm afraid she will knock it over! She wears the ecollar and I stim her and say, "No" or "Get Away".
She sits in place and stares at the screen. I stim her again and she either scooches backward toward me or comes and sits on my feet. I want her to learn to ignore the tv and to do something like "place" on the couch. We used to enjoy Animal Planet, Westerns, hunting shows, lol! Now it is the Dreaded Toyota Dog Days commercial! She has memorized the music and comes running after two notes!
Thanks,

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