Oh Behave!

January is almost over but for me, a couple of exciting things are about to start. First, I’m about to begin teaching a second round of Teaching Love and Compassion (TLC), a wonderful humane education program offered by the East Bay SPCA. My class will be made up of fourteen seventh grade students from a public school in Oakland, and seven East Bay SPCA shelter dogs. I’m very much looking forward to getting to know this group of young people, and teaching them how to clicker train their assigned shelter dogs. The last TLC class amazed me with their appetites for training and in our six weeks together, the kids taught the dogs far more than I ever thought they would or could. As I’ve written in an earlier post, the dogs helped the kids learn about compassion, kindness, empathy, and non-violence towards all living creatures.

The second thing that’s about to start is Clicker Expo in Portland, Oregon. Yes, it’s an entire conference devoted to clicker training!

I love training dogs and I especially love clicker training. My introduction to clicker training was – yikes! – twelve years ago when I adopted my kitten Ted from the City shelter. Continue Reading

One of the most frequent concerns among dog guardians is how to stop unwanted behavior. As Jean Donaldson explains in her phenomenal book, The Culture Clash, much of natural dog behavior is at odds with what humans find acceptable.

Dogs however, need appropriate outlets for their energies, which are usually significantly higher than ours. Without legal channels for behavior and energy, dogs become frustrated, bored, and stressed. In that unfortunate condition, it’s just a matter of time before dogs find other ways to vent. Behavior borne of frustration and boredom is often even worse and less acceptable to humans than the original unwanted behavior. Excessive barking, destructive chewing, fence fighting, and digging are just some of the behaviors in which frustrated and bored will engage. Besides all that, it’s not fair or humane to consign any animal to a life of chronic boredom, frustration or stress.

Enter, “Instead Of Thinking.” It’s not enough to find ways to shut down undesirable behavior. A far more effective strategy is to train your dog to do alternative behaviors that are acceptable and incompatible with the undesired behavior.

Let’s use jumping up as an example. Jumping up is a natural normal dog behavior. Dogs do it to greet us by getting closer to our faces. But most people don’t like it when Rover jumps on them. This is a classic instance of the clash between behavior that humans deem acceptable and that which is acceptable and common among dogs.

Well hello!

Typically humans think in terms of, How can I get Rover to stop jumping up? “Instead Of Thinking” asks a different question: What would I like Rover to do instead of jumping up?

Instead Of Thinking solves two problems at once: it stops the unwanted behavior while providing Rover with an acceptable alternative.

Sitting to greet people is an alternative behavior that’s acceptable and incompatible with jumping up. If Rover is sitting to say hello to people, he isn’t jumping on them. The training plan would be two-fold. You’d stop rewarding Rover altogether for jumping up, teach him to sit to say hello, and reward him with attention and lovies when he sits.

With consistent positive training, voila! Rover will learn that jumping up never works to get human attention but sitting does. If everyone who meets Rover follows the same plan, his jumping should decrease substantially and eventually stop. Instead of jumping on folks he’ll do lovely sits to say hello, and he gets a legal outlet for his exuberant greeting energy. Doing a short down stay or hand-targeting are two other examples of alternative behaviors that are incompatible with jumping up.

Rover won’t learn these things overnight, especially if he has a long history of jumping up and being rewarded with some kind of attention when he does that. Patient consistent practice will pay off so hang in there with your training plan.

The next time you find yourself wondering how to stop Rover from doing X, put on your Instead Of Thinking cap. Ask yourself, What would I like Rover to do instead of X? Then start training Rover to do the alternative behavior, reward him handsomely when he does it and stop rewarding him for doing X.

Rewarding Rover for desirable alternative behavior is a powerful tool in your training kit, and means he’ll do more of that behavior in the future.

Happy Training!

Scruffy, sit, sit, sit, SIT! . . . Sound familiar?

Training words is often cause for much human frustration. Dogs attend to and learn our physical gestures and body language easily. Dogs notice facial expressions, small gestures and tones of voice that often we aren’t even aware of. Learning words is another matter. Unlike humans, dogs aren’t verbal. They communicate with one another and us using a wide range of physical gestures and vocalizations, not words.

If we want dogs to respond to words, it’s up to us to take the time to teach dogs what certain words mean. Keep in mind that it’s much easier for dogs to learn physical cues for a behavior — such as a hand signal that means “sit,” — than it is for dogs to learn what specific words mean.

Fortunately, with lots of consistent practice you can teach your dog words or “verbal cues” by following this simple three-step mantra:

SAY IT. SHOW IT. PAY IT.

Let’s break it down using “sit” as an example. You’ve taught Scruffy to sit using a food lure, and you’ve been training Scruffy to sit in response to a specific empty hand signal. By “empty,” I mean you are no longer holding food in your hand to lure Scruffy into position.

When Scruffy sits eight out of ten times in response to your empty hand signal, it’s time to start teaching her that the word “sit” means the same thing as the hand signal. Here’s how:

SAY IT: First say, “Scruffy sit.” Say the word one time only in an upbeat tone. Articulate clearly. Repeating the word doesn’t make Scruffy learn faster. In fact, repeating the word will most likely land it squarely in the meaningless blah-blah-blah category from Scruffy’s standpoint, or she might learn to sit only after you’ve said the word several times in a row.

SHOW IT: After you’ve asked Scruffy to sit once, show her the empty hand signal for sit. Don’t say the word and do the hand signal at the same time. If you do that, Scruffy will pay attention to the hand signal and ignore the word. If you tend to say the word and do the hand signal simultaneously, it helps to say the word, take a breath, then do the hand signal.

Saying the word once, then doing the hand signal teaches Scruffy that the word means the same thing as the gesture.

PAY IT: After Scruffy sits, click and reward her with a treat and tell her what an awesome dog she is.

Stick to the mantra, practice regularly, and one day Scruffy will surprise you. You’ll know she’s started to connect the dots when she sits after you’ve said the word, but before you’ve shown the hand signal.

To take word training to the next level, wait until Scruffy’s sitting in response to the verbal cue at least 8 out of 10 times. When she’s at that point, modify the reward scheme. Reward her with a yummy treat for sitting in response to the word. If she doesn’t sit in response to the verbal cue, show her the hand signal, and reward her with praise for sitting. This teaches her that sitting in response to the word alone earns a better reward than sitting in response to the word plus hand signal, and should motivate her to sit more reliably when you say the word.

Keep training sessions brief (3-5 minutes at a time) and expectations realistic. It takes most dogs many many repetitions of SAY IT, SHOW IT, PAY IT to learn words. Try to put yourself in their paws. They’re learning a completely foreign language, a task that must be as challenging for them as it would be for us to learn to “speak dog.”

Patient positive practice pays off. Happy training!