I may have talked about this in passing before, maybe not, but a recent conversation spurred the thought…. your dogs behavior in the future is going to be greatly impacted by the environment they are raised in.
Your dogs recall and body awareness is going to greatly different living in a city than a rural setting. One dog will be on leash on flat surfaces more, one will be off leash and more likely to be tripping over things at an early age. Dogs mostly on leash tend to have a weaker recall because humans end up relying more on the physical restraint to direct their dog rather than body language. Dogs in cities get used to working around ample distraction, people, cars, store trips, etc, where dogs in rural settings don’t get the same exposure.
Now all this being said, one set is not better than the other and of course these exposures vary depending on the owner and the dogs lifestyle. This is just to make people aware of the most obvious impacts the environment makes in the dog. But there are little things too, things that each of us do differently that dogs in their adaptable wisdom get used to and what makes one thing easy for someone is hard for another. Some dogs are kenneled during chaos in the home, others only when left, and some not at all. The first group is more apt to being okay settling in a kennel in a chaotic environment elsewhere. These things, mostly unconscious, adapt our dogs to the primary environment in which they will inhabit.
But we can control our environment and go out of our way to make these little changes that will build a more successful dog. The next time your dog does a thing that isn’t your ideal look to the environment and determine if it is simply something external the dog isn’t used to. Is it something you overlooked in the past? Could this be changed or managed? But also look to your dogs strengths built from their environment and build on those to overcome any short comings.
Today I was getting home and I saw a man working on his dog heeling on the sidewalk. Being the creep I am I glanced over while getting my stuff and my child out, he was walking loose leash but the dog had a expression I’ve seen before. Distant, not engaged, looking at anything else but the owner.
On my way back inside I noticed him in the street sitting the dog, the dog looked over it’s shoulder and went to lay down. A sharp collar pop forced the dog back up. I went inside herding my child all the way trying not to drop my things, when I realized that this is a prime example of what happens when you don’t have engagement in training.
One of my boys engaged and ready to go.
I would bet that off leash this dog is somewhere else as fast as he can get, mentally and/or physically. If you are training your dog and your dog is that disengaged, please stop. All your doing is teaching your dog to comply with demands because they’re forced to not because they want to. Don’t get me wrong I use “force” in training but the kicker is I am not doing it while my dog is shut down. If my dog is that far away from me mentally it’s generally because the pressure is too much, they don’t have a relationship with me, and they surely don’t value my opinion.
Even more so that state mental state does not condone positive learning. When I say positive learning, I am referring to a dog eager to engage and learn about it’s environment. Again though, this is to say not every interaction is positive (if I chase you screaming as you chase some cows ) some can cause some shutdown but the dog is still actively listening. However in the instance of the cows, I will accept some of the backlash from that. Regardless of where you stand on the training methodology spectrum, it has been proven dogs learn best from rewards and positive associations. Teaching cannot happen when you are demanding, the two are conflicting.
And even more importantly, dogs needs to have a positive association to training, they have to want to learn. Without this, training is a all uphill battle where your constantly demanding things from your dog with the expectation “he should know this by now.” But he doesn’t because he is not engaged, he doesn’t enjoy training, and your not teaching anything.
And of course, to play devils advocate, sometimes we do demand things, we need to demand things, but if you have done the leg work and taught your dog before hand you’ll be more successful. You also won’t have the same backlash. But of course determining if your dog actually knows the behavior your asking is another topic…
This will always be the biggest hurdle in training, and in ownership. If you offer your dog his freedom, to make his own choices away from you. However there is power in an off leash walk, trainers from all views and methodologies find it. Casual owners find it too without even knowing. I have been rediscovering it again by owning a puppy.
Put your dog down and walk away, see who they are alone without any other dogs but you guiding. You passively offer assistance, changing direction and calling to them. Young puppies are glue, close by, relying on you to show them, maybe moving ahead just to come back. These passive moments are building the good habits, engaging and trusting your guidance out of their comfort zone.
This also offers insight, especially as they mature, into who they are. Are they confident? Do they learn quickly? Do they get distracted easily (more than a regular puppy)? There is no right answer here just insight into your dog.
So far I have come to learn Savvy is much more handler oriented than I expected, she loves to use her nose, and does have a strong desire to carry things. We have built a recall, name recognition, the ‘boundary zone’ they wander to, heel, and much greater deeper things.
Still though I have people afraid to ever take their dog off leash. I get it. They could leave, they could get hurt, or worse. Even more so older dogs, but to remove the physical restraint, to trust your training, to trust your dog… they sense this. But if you’ve done the work please consider this a necessary evil. Way out from the hustle of needing to exercise the dog, out of cell service, and away from the dangers of roads, give it a chance.
I could go on about training and methodologies but I will leave that up to y’all.
I have been struggling with some computer troubles so I have been delayed making puppy posts. Savvy has been making great leaps and bounds in learning to be a basic dog and I hopefully can cover some of it in this post. I never really deal with puppies, if y’all know me you know I hate raising puppies. I didn’t really take on training puppies because it seems almost like they should be self training, and in a way they are. Puppies pick up on behaviors incredibly fast as they are trying to figure out how to be successful in the world. However there are some things that I and Savvy have been working on and I hope I can pass along for other people to reflect upon. These behaviors aren’t tricks but life lessons that I have come to see in successful dogs and places that had been failed to worked on in dogs who struggle.
Dealing with Failure One of the biggest issues I see in adult dogs is they don’t know how to cope with failure. This is a double-edged sword and I want my dogs to recover from external environmental failures and try again but I also want my dogs to understand corrections and NOT try it again. Training comes into play where rewarding for the proper behavior after a correction is key to keep the dog ‘playing the game’. Your dogs natural temperament is also going to play a big role in how much of a support role your going to be playing. Gus I spent a lot of time reinforcing situational acceptance. Any time something potentially ‘traumatic’ could come by I immediately was there pushing the treats and praise. With Savvy anytime that same something comes by, which for her is ‘exciting’ I am right there reinforcing the engagement on me. How your dog deals with failure is going to be how much outside work you’ve done on these ‘lower class’ moments. If your dog fails to jump over a log are they going to sit down and cry for help, try to find another way, or keep at the same method. I reward multiple attempts, adding praise and when needed support so the dog doesn’t learn to quit.
I want dogs who learn to keep trying regardless of their natural temperament. To have a dog that keeps pushing environmental failures is to produce a dog that won’t shut down when your training a hard command and they fail.
No one wants a sad baby but teaching them to deal with failure is an important life skill
Dealing with Corrections This is tied to the failure statements above but these are all failures that come from you. Your dog will fail at some point regardless of your chosen method and despite your best efforts you WILL end up correcting your dog. Whether is it is a NRM ( no reward marker), a pinch collar, an e collar to everything in between. Eventually ( if I pressure myself enough) I will give you an overview of my collar pressure work I do with puppies, where if they release the pressure they get rewarded. It isn’t more complicated than adding a slight pressure to the leash and collar and them getting a treat for moving into it. If you do it enough it is the foundation of my leash work. However it will teach a valuable lesson on human pressure is something that can be rewarding to give into.
Savvy left with trusted dog-women
Dealing with Chaos The unknown is inherently scary but the unknown needs to be normal. No matter what you do your puppy will not experience everything adult life with throw at them. Unfortunately dogs are really good at scenarios and not generalizing. I make it a point to take Savvy to the grooming salon to be around chaos of other dogs barking and screaming so she can learn to relax in that enviroment. If you live in the outskirts of town don’t wait till your dog is 6 months old to make a trip to town. Make a point to drag them in, even if they will only be in town a few times a year. Many pet dogs don’t handle the chaos of grooming, vet trips, or boarding because this was missed in puppyhood. Random things happen there, loud noises to spook them, children, yelling, etc. I don’t mind if puppies acknowledge these things ( as noted above in the failure section) with treats as support but I especially want to reward and teach them to not really mind it.
Of course all these things come with them learning the basics. Savvy and I attended a training class, learning to work with other dogs. We have spent a ton of time just running around building the coordination needed to work the field along with birds and bumpers. One last thing to note of course, again, is to be aware of fear periods of your puppy and be sure to reinforce all potentially scary situations. Help them through these and the impression will last a lifetime.
Hopefully I will be able to update again soon!
Till then,
~Happy Tails~
Hey there everyone! Last week I drove to Texas and back to add a new partner to my pack. This gives me a great opprotunity to walk y’all through my puppy raising protocol. Now remember what I may do for my dog may not be what you do. Savvy is a very courageous, confident pup the exact opposite of what Gus was so how I treat her isn’t exactly how I treated Gus.
Poodle puppies are the cutest ever! We are going to have so many adventures ❤
Let me first introduce the idea that it isn’t all in how you raise them. All dogs have a genetic code inclining them to certain behaviors or personalities. You can shift this a little bit with training and exposure but it won’t make a terrier any more inclined to herd than a shepherd to be everyone’s friend. Savvy comes from first and second generational retrievers, so hopefully she has the potential to develop these skills to a high degree as well.
Most puppies are sent home around 8 weeks (and depending on the puppies maybe toward 12 weeks) so they can allow puppies adequate exposure in an environment they’re already comfortable with. As reported by the AVMA, puppies benefit starting socialization and puppy training before 12 weeks. Even with the potential risk of disease exposure, they strongly encourage this exposure to combat potential behavioral issues later. At 14 weeks most dogs have entered a fearful period, in which they will no longer take new things as passively as they once did. I will probably cover this more as Savvy ages and we go through these phases ourselves.
Second day in the crate in the car
Now that you’ve had a moment to think all that over I would like to get into the first week home. Hopefully you have already developed a routine the puppy can fall into. Now if you haven’t already I strongly encourage you to do so before the puppy comes because starting a new routine with a baby dog isn’t fun. Some breeders have already crate trained their puppies ( bless them) others have not but have worked them on outside pottying etc. Figure out what your breeders routine is and perhaps think about adjusting your own. Now Savvy didn’t have any crate training but seeing as she was an 8 week old dog with no real ideas about anything she took to it really well. I introduced my regular routine which is up every 4 hrs so 9pm, 1am, 4am, just to see how she would do. She came home Aug 1st I have increased her to every 6 hrs now, so 10pm (yeah I end up staying up late) 4am. Within a few weeks she should sleep in till 6am.
When it comes to the obedience there is real no serious training. We will be starting a puppy class as soon as one is available, not because I couldn’t do it alone but because giving her a chance to learn to work around other dogs is important. We do basic leash pressure work, and introduce the sit, stand for exam etc.
Overall the first week is about setting the routine that we will use to expand upon later. Puppies and dogs thrive on routine and structure, having a set time for learning, sleep and play, sets you up for success and a lot less struggle. I hope y’all enjoy watching little Savvy grow with me and watch how we do as a team.
There is something that isn’t often talked about and that is building drive for rewards. Not all rewards are ‘built in’ to dogs, and a lot of desire can be built around novel rewards if proper care is taken. One of my first hand experiences with my own dogs was Gus. Originally he had zero desire to retrieve anything but now he lives for it. I do think much of it is genetic ( the desire to chase and carry) but he could have lived his whole life not touching a bird. This leads me into the cause for this post; I was discussing recall with a client.
She was complaining that her dog had no motivation for treats or toys so teaching his recall had been difficult. I have run into this more than once and usually my response is something along the lines of “Well what have you done to motivate the dog to have the desire for the reward?” See rewards are not innately motivating on their own and desire can be built on just about any reward. When we are looking for a high level ‘jackpot’ reward but our dog just doesn’t have one what are we to do?
A common occurrence in dog training for a non-food motivated dog is to limit food they have available to them. Many trainers suggest removing food or kibble all together and make the dog work for every piece. This is just one example of building drive for a reward. The food becomes more motivating because it is a limited resource. Treats work for a similar reason that they are a limited resource and more novel than the kibble. I have always been a big fan of tug for a high level reward for my dogs. One, because it is easy to teach a dog, and two, because it is almost always accessible. Now if I offer my dogs a chance to play they will do anything for it, it is more limited than treats and obviously more so than kibble.
To the original client I suggested only playing with the dog with a tug involved, and only allow the dog the reward when she was involved. Allow a little bit of over exuberance is the play reward and build an intense desire to play. Her ‘ah ha’ moment was realizing that she had to train in her rewards and the intensity of the response they created. Gus loves birds because they are a limited resource (they’re bloody expensive by the way), and as a pup I wasn’t to strict with them the same way I was about bumpers and other toys. This built a strong love and desire to ‘play’ with the bird, play the game right and the game continues. This love created the self-fulfilling game of fetch where the reward is to do the behavior itself.
I encourage people to think about their rewards and the drive they’re creating (and in some cases diluting and destroying) as they train. I have spoken about this a few times before when I talk about making yourself and your affection the most limited resource and this plays a part in that. To the client I told her that she needed to make the opportunity to play with her the most limited of the games. Where she makes the call to start and stop it, leaving the dog always wanting more. There are so many components to engagement (that with a quick search you will find I talk about non stop) however this is one approach I don’t think I have touched on yet.
Hope this gave you some ideas and thoughts about how you handle rewards or at least how to approach it when suddenly the rewards didn’t mean what they used to.
Till next time.
Doodles after his recent surgery. Everyone is always curious to see a Russell with the desire to please.
A few years ago I was presented with the idea of keeping a training journal for my dogs. First assumptions is that this is for the serious dog handlers, people who actually HAD things to record daily. For me, the weekend trainer this didn’t seem a necessity although I recently realized it was, and probably should be for most people.
As humans we tend to forget things that aren’t immediately ‘visible’ as a cause. Things can easily be forgotten over the course of the day or week (or till the next time you see your trainer). All these things can paint a bigger picture for your future self and what may be a root of some issue or the next baby step.
Gus’s first year, I wish I had bothered to record the finer details like water temp and his attitude towards the concepts (not to mention the concepts)
Remember your 5 W’s? Keep a record of: -Who was involved -What you did/What happened -Where you were working -Why you think the situation did x or y? -How you are planning for the future
These concepts are more powerful coupled with goals. Making some sort of game plan from getting to point a to b, will make the steps you take more deliberate. We all know training rarely goes as planned, but that doesn’t mean that free form is the best way to complete a goal. Often the power is in the plan but to create a solid plan you must have a solid understanding of your goals and failings.
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” Vince Lombardi Jr.
It has been said many times before and from others who are not me, but success for dogs is built on a series of more often than not, little victories.
Of all the dogs I have owned and work with Gus is probably the worst when it comes to his inner confidence. He is a pessimist in a sport where uncertainty is the end of you. It is the reason I would ever consider sending him away, positive exposure. Over and over with every possible scenario, five, ten, a hundred times. Well in fact I am sending him away, to give him the exposure that I cannot give him.
But today I wanted to share a little success we had over something I didn’t think was an issue. One of the things you realize working with dogs is how to pick your battles. Do you have enough time to successfully fight and work through this? One of the things I picked up working with horses was to put the phone away, to not wear a watch, and not care how long it took. Once you start that battle you finish it. When working with a pessimist of a dog you better finish successfully. It is paramount to the dog to be successful or they won’t trust you next time you ask them to do something that is new.
You might be wondering at this point what this great thing was I asked him to do. I asked him to walk over some ice. I had one of his bumpers and I threw it, he ran up to the edge of a frozen puddle in the park and stopped dead. He started doing that thing where he checks in, crying and barking. Well my little old man in all his life experience ran out there picked it up and came back. I let him do that three or so times, just letting the other dog do it. He was thoroughly frustrated and I leashed up Doodles and let him have at it. He ran out, stopped and cried, we waited. He paced and cried, looked at me, looked back. He finally took one step out, then the other, then quickly returned to the grass. I let Doodles go. Doodles ran out there skidded past it, walked back and picked it up to return. Gus was frustrated barking and jumping. I did it again, let him have at it alone. That was good enough. He tested the ground, one paw, two paw, awkward step step of the back feet, once they were all on ice he froze, slowly though he started tip-toeing forward. And he did it. He got it and brought it back. But that wasn’t the end, no, I wanted to solidify the experience. Threw it again and again. Then he started crossing smaller patches instead of jumping them. A good sign he was comfortable enough to not deviate his path.
We did this for as long as it took, till I felt sure he had learned something and it wasn’t so much about the ice as it was that he could do it. These are the deeper reasons for training, not the behavior directly, but the mutual trust.
I guess one of the oddest things that has come from the ‘pet revolution’ has been that rehoming a dog is now one of the most taboo things one can do. It is still fairly normal to see people rehome other pets they may not fit into their lifestyle or that they simply were unprepared for. While the later is generally frowned upon you will see no greater shaming than those who try to simply rehome a dog.
This is one of the first photos I ever took of Winnie, I had planned to keep her forever….
In a perfect world every dog will have a home, simple yes? Well the fact is there isn’t enough dogs to supply the demand even if every shelter dog had a home (don’t believe me do some googling on the statistics). One of the hallmarks people stamp “good” breeders with is their ability to take back any dog that they produce, ensuring that the dog never has to enter the shelter system. But not all breeders care. The people who pick up the free dog from the side of the road have invested very little into trying to “make it work.” There is story after story of people trying to work with dogs that are wrong for their lifestyle, I could probably write a series on dogs that are with the wrong people but I digress, not every dog is right for every family.
In a world where ‘any dog will do’ we end up taking on a dog with less than ideal characteristics and background. I have spoken before about the error of not doing any research into a new partner and it comes to a head when we introduce the shame culture of rehoming a dog.
Where am I going with this? Well maybe you know, maybe you don’t, but I finally found a home for Winnie. She has been with them the past few months and it looks like the match stuck. She had a very low adoption fee but I was extremely particular about her new home. Why? Because after working with this dog and learning about her past I wanted to be her forever home. I cannot emphasize enough how badly I wanted to keep her. Her personality was one of the best I have ever gotten to work with. And although she was a lemon dog and become ‘worthless’ she had the makings of an amazing performance partner. But because she could no longer do the large excursions that I prefer to take, she physically could no longer be my dog. Could I have left her home? Yes. But to me it wasn’t fair to do that to a dog that bonds tightly to her humans.
It took a long time to find the right home for her as I wanted someone who would treat her, maybe not exactly the same as me, but knew her worth the same as I did. I spayed her and tacked her stomach, I posted her on many many sites and groups to put her face out there. While they didn’t hit all the marks I wanted they hit the most important ones, the ones that mattered. Her new home will treat her right.
This is what rehoming a dog should be like. It isn’t a dump, it is the owner caring enough about a dog without any monetary value to place them with someone who can give them what they can’t. You cannot force just any dog and person together, believe me I’ve seen people try. I wish I could council them before they ‘deal with it’ and wait till it becomes a larger issue. Intervention, generally of the training kind, gives people a perspective. It is usually after I start training that people question keeping a dog, if they can ‘really do this.’ Well yes, anyone can, but is it fair to you and the dog to drag out the inevitable?
I want to put common sense back into rehoming dogs. The stigma that surrounds placing a dog that isn’t right for you is frankly nauseating. I personally was never attacked for my choices, but probably because I surround myself with like minded people, and very few people can form an argument that what I did was wrong (because it isn’t). But I have seen people beat down before for saying that a dog isn’t right for them, that they can’t or won’t do the training. In these times we need to have minds like the ‘good breeders’, think of the dogs, and just get the dog to where it needs to be instead of fighting to fit a square peg in a round hole.
This is one of the last photos I took of Winnie a week or so before she met her new family ❤
I came across that idea a while ago and have been digesting it since. The better a trainer you are the less force you end up using.
Now on the outside layer I tend to agree, in the beginning people over do the amount of work they need to put in to a given command regardless of method. This can manifest as yelling a command, rapid fire treat tossing and repeating, using leash pressure more than needed. My rules have always been to use what ever pressure is needed, no more, no less, and to be fair to the dog. The better you are, i.e. the more clear directions you give to a dog, the less force you need. Makes sense.
I think this attaches well to another concept I hear which is that if you fully understand dog behavior you end up not using punishment. In my oh so frank opinion, if you understood human behavior you would understand why people want to use punishment. People want behaviors to stop, punishment stops behavior. That’s it, the end.
Well not quite because if you stop behaviors you need to create other behaviors, that’s your job. An unfair correction is to me when someone corrects a dog for something they never showed them how to do in the first place. Dogs do not innately know what we want from them, however most are biddable creatures and desire for everyone to get along. Notice I said most, and this is where those broad generalizations fall apart for me. There are many independent dogs, beyond the scope of regular independence, who for what ever reason end up needing more ‘no’. More pressure, more correction, more exemplified rewarding. Dog’s who haven’t for whatever reason been motivated (yet) to work with their human counterparts.
These dogs are tough dogs, and when an owner gets a dog like this generally I sigh first and let them know that this will get ugly. That there will probably be tears and stress and feelings of failure, and at the end of it you come out better for it. A great handler can take any dog and make it look “easy,” except it isn’t. We have just mastered the craft of being subtle and using as little pressure as possible, positive trainers do this too.
The next time you go to work your dog I want you to think about this, how much are you using and how little do you actually need? My tagline is always start soft and get harder as needed, roughly translating to the amount of force and pressure people use. If you want a dog that reads subtle cues, well you have to be subtle.
Just food for thought this Sunday morning,
Till next time,
Happy Tails
Strange Encounters of the Dog Kind 