Oh Behave!

In an old Destiny’s Child song a woman singer, suspicious that her boyfriend is cheating on her, asks him on the telephone to say her name. If he says it, it will mean one thing – no other woman’s with him to give him grief about talking to the singer/girlfriend. If he won’t say the singer’s name, it means something else. Without much thought we understand implicitly the context of the singer’s request and that the boyfriend’s utterance of her name or not is loaded with meaning. As members of a verbal species, such is the power of language among us.

All of this nuance, context and meaning would be completely lost on dogs.

In training classes and the real world, I frequently hear folks saying their dogs’ names in a disapproving tone when the dogs are doing something the people don’t like. Someone says the dog’s name and only the name without saying a verbal cue, and becomes perplexed and aggravated when the dog doesn’t comply.

Here’s a typical scenario:

Sadie the yellow lab mix is jumping on a visitor. Mary, Sadie’s person says, Sayyyy–deeee, in a long drawn out way. Sadie continues to jump.

Mary (to the visitor): I’m sorry, she knows she knows she’s not supposed to do this.

Mary (again in a long drawn out way): Sayyy-deeee.

Sadie, unphased, keeps jumping.

Now Mary’s frustrated. Sadie, she says, raising her voice. No effect.

Mary’s very annoyed. In an angry sharp voice she shouts, SADIE!

We know what Mary’s tone of voice means. Stop jumping. I don’t like it when you do that. We’re human. Speech and tones of voice are two of our primary means of communication.

But Sadie’s a dog. All she hears is Mary repeating her name in different ways. Mary hasn’t given Sadie any guidance about what to do. Mary hasn’t asked her to sit, lie down, or do anything else.

Sadie, like most dogs, probably does pick up on tones of voice. While she may be aware at some point that Mary is upset, Sadie probably doesn’t know why. It’s a good bet that Sadie doesn’t know what Mary wants her to do or not do. These situations must be awfully confusing to dogs.

Unless you’ve trained your dog to do something in particular when you say her name, your dog’s name by itself isn’t a cue or request to do something. Saying your dog’s name doesn’t communicate anything to your dog. It doesn’t mean sit, or stay, or stop jumping.

Dogs aren’t mind readers. If you’d like your dog to do something particular, give her clear unambiguous cues for behvaiors you’ve trained her to do. Instead of just saying your dog’s name and expecting her to know what you want her to do, say her name and then say the word for a behavior you’ve trained her to do. In Sadie’s case, Mary might say, Sadie sit, or, Sadie go to your mat.

Communicating clearly with your dog will save you a lot of time, avoid frustration on your part and confusion on your dog’s part. You’ll both be a lot happier if you spell things out in a way that the dog can understand.

(Training your dog to look at you when when you say her name is a great foundational behavior. I’ll write soon on the hows and whys of doing that in another post called, “What’s in a Name?”)

Sometimes in the midst of group training classes, I wonder if anyone’s taking in anything that I’m saying. It’s been a welcome surprise to learn that in the Teaching Love & Compassion (TLC) program – an anti-violence humane education class in which I teach kids to train shelter dogs – the kids really have been paying attention to the stuff I say in training class.

Here are a few sound training tips my TLC students have shared with reporters and one another:

Work at the dog’s pace. Like us, dogs learn at different rates. Just because Max learns to lie down in response to a hand signal in one class session doesn’t mean Muffy will or should. A soild training plan is also a realistic one. It increases the difficulty of an exercise only when the particular dog is ready to go to the next level. Another way of saying this borrowed from my instructors at the SF SPCA’s Academy for Dog Trainers is, “Train the dog in front of you,”. . . not the dog as you think he ought to be, or the neighbor’s seemingly perfect dog.

If your dog isn’t getting it [i.e., the full behavior], do baby steps. Sometimes a dog won’t do a full new behavior right off the bat. This happens often when training a dog to lie down as well as to do more complex behaviors. If that’s the case, break the behavior into small incremental steps and train one step at a time. If Max won’t lie down in response to your well-positioned food lure, you may need to click and treat for lowering his nose to the floor; then nose to the floor with a slight bend in the front elbows; then nose to the floor with progressively deeper elbow bends; then chest lowered to the floor and so on. Training in this way takes time and patience but with a consistent, careful training plan, Max should eventually learn to do the full behavior.

If your dog is tired of training, stop and spend cuddle time with him. Just because you want to train for 20 minutes doesn’t mean Max can last that long. In fact, it’s far more effective to keep training sessions short — anywhere from 3-10 minutes at a time depending on the individual dog and what you’re working on. As for the reference to “cuddle time,” I plan quite a bit of that in TLC classes. Why? I’ll segue to the words of another student:

Dogs need love and affection. Indeed! Dogs are highly social animals. They need companionship, touch, affection and attention. Dogs are not furry robots on the end of the leash, stuffed animals or rugs. Cuddling with your dog deepens the trust you share, feels good to the dog, and does wonders for you such as lowering stress, anxiety and blood pressure.

There’s no point in yelling, cussing at or hitting your dog. That won’t teach him what you want him to do. A long time ago, someone who was trying to teach me to drive shouted at and berated me whenever I made a mistake, and was clearly angry and frustrated with me throughout the lesson. I was miserable, unable to focus on what I was supposed to be doing, terrified of making a mistake, and began to think driving wasn’t for me. I dreaded lessons with that person and eventually enrolled in a driving instruction class, which was a far more positive experience. (If you”re wondering, I became a very good driver!)

Similarly, getting angry at a dog, intimidating, scaring or hurting him are good ways to ensure that he doesn’t learn or doesn’t learn quickly or well. These tactics will likely cause the dog to fear the trainer, drive down the dog’s confidence, can cause behavior to worsen, and create a very negative association with training. Simply put, the dog won’t want to train.

In the TLC program I teach the kids to train the dogs using positive training, which rewards dogs for behaviors we like and want to see more of. It’s effective and fun for everyone involved and results in dogs who are eager and happy to train, and TLC students who as they put it, “had a blast” training their dogs.