Thursday, August 16, 2018

Thursday training tips: Are we setting our dogs up to fail?


I admit it. I sometimes read through the hundreds of Facebook comments in response to someone’s question about how to handle an issue with their dog. When it’s a medical issue, I usually just want to scream “TAKE YOUR DOG TO THE VET!” Facebook discussions about behavior problems can also send my blood pressure soaring, like it did earlier this week. A terrier owner was asking for advice on what to do to prevent her new puppy from chewing electrical cords, and one group member advised “Command him sternly to “leave it!” Sure, like a new puppy knows what those words mean… Following that advice, the owner would be setting her puppy up for failure, which can lead to frustration for the owner and the dog. In this case, it could also lead to a fried dog, literally.

Our goal should be to aim for the highest quality connection between our mind and and our dog’s mind. There are a lot of factors that go into that, but one of the most important is to be thoughtful about our commands. That begins with one of the most commands: Come!

Being thoughtful has helped me with 7-month-old Peaches. For instance, since I’m not yet confident that she will respond to my “come!” if she is observing a butterfly on the other side of the yard, I try to make sure that I always have her attention before I call her to me.


Trainers Patricia McConnell and Brenda Scidmore are quite explicit about this in their book, The Puppy Primer:

“Be thoughtful about when you call your dog to come… Avoid calling your dog to come if he’s intensely focused on something else. Your goal is to create a foundation of coming every time he’s called, so don’t set your dog up to fail (and to learn to ignore you when he feels like it).” 

So what do you do if your dog ignores you? Do you shake a can full of pennies in her face, or spray her with water from a squirt gun? Well, you know those aren’t appropriate responses, don’t you?

I was discussing this issue with some lovely friends who share my belief in positive training. 

Gail G. tells me that one of Maryland’s best trainers, Cindy Knowlton, explained that “if you ask your dog three times to do a known behavior and he doesn’t do it, assume that he can’t do it.” 

Was she referring to a behavior that was known to the dog? Like asking him to sit (when he's done it all his life) and he doesn't do it?  

“Yes, a well known behavior,” Gail confirmed. “The environment might be too stressful, the dog’s behavior might not be as well-learned as you thought, or maybe sitting is painful -- or something else.” 

So I guess that means we shouldn’t keep screaming at a dog to “come” when he’s having a meltdown. It also means that a trip to the vet may be necessary. Or, as another friend pointed out, we need to “remember that we often think a behavior is ‘known’  when it isn’t -- or at least not known in the way we think it is.”

Nan M. used one of her dogs as an example. 

“Maybe you think you know which cue will trigger the behavior you’re asking for, but you can be wrong,” Nan said. “I knew my labrador was at great risk for blindness, so I thought I had taught her every behavior carefully using verbal commands. When she became blind it turned out I was mostly right; she could do all sorts of complex behaviors and even competed in freestyle. But she couldn’t do one fairly simple ‘known’ behavior. So I had myself video taped. When I said that word, my right hand moved slightly at my side. It turns out, she knew the hand twitch cue, not the word I was so sure she knew.”

Eileen B. added an important reminder. “My dog’s trainer told me that dogs often forget a learned behavior the first year after you think they’ve nailed it,” she said. “He told me to reinforce training regularly.”

Following all of this great advice, Peaches and I are having fun learning the basics, and I have no doubt it is setting us up to succeed.





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