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. He had terribly aggressive behavior and bit me frequently and hard enough to draw blood, which earned him the nickname, ”Ted the Terror.” On the advice of some shelter cat behaviorists, I tried a number of “traditional” remedies – shaking a can of pennies at him, yelling and stamping, and squirting him in the face with a water gun. I didn’t know a thing about training or behavior back then, but none of those methods worked. In fact, it soon became clear that his aggression was escalating.

I began researching cat behavior and came across a book called The Cat Who Cried For Help, by Dr. Nicholas Dodman, a veterinary behaviorist who teaches at Tufts University’s vet school. One of the chapters described a cat who sounded much like Ted. I emailed Dr. Dodman and learned about Tufts’ remote behavioral consultation service called PetFax. The Tufts team recommended clicker training Ted, learning his body language, and starting a “say please” program with him, in which he had to train for food, play, attention and affection.

Ted

I knew zilch about clicker training, but I looked it up on the web, learned about Karen Pryor – a pioneer of clicker training – and ordered a clicker and a book on training cats to do show tricks. Despite the many naysayers who warned me that a cat couldn’t be trained, I began to clicker train Ted every day. A quick student, he learned to sit, come when called, wave, rise on his hind legs, and a few other tricks. He loved training! He’d start purring as soon as he saw the clicker. (He still does that!)

Shortly after we started training, an amazing thing happened. Ted’s aggressive outbursts began to wane both in frequency and intensity — a result of the training, the “say please” program, and my growing understanding of his body language. I was much happier with him and he seemed happier and calmer in general.

Ted, my first training success story, is still my best feline friend. He continues to be a very interesting guy who definitely has his grumpy moments – and don’t we all? – but aggressive outbursts are very rare. Now that I’ve studied animal learning theory and applied behavioral analysis, and accumulated a great deal of training experience, it makes perfect sense that Ted’s aggression escalated when I was punishing him. The same thing happens with dogs when trained with punishment, pain and force.

I have Ted to thank for starting me on the road to becoming a professional dog trainer and a devout fan of clicker training. It’s in large part due to him that I became fascinated with and passionate about how animals learn and how to train them using positive reinforcement.

With that, I’m off to Clicker Expo! I’ll be soaking up as much knowledge as I can, and return, eager to share it with clients and with you.

Training and fun may not seem like obvious bedfellows. I suspect many folks think of training as a bore, drudgery. But not only can training be fun, training and fun should go hand-in-hand. Training with old-school methods – yelling, leash jerks, physical force, shock collars, pain and punishment – is no fun for the dog. Punishment-based training often makes the dog fear its guardian/trainer. Because punishment is hard to do correctly, the dog often has no clear understanding of what behavior is “wrong.” While punishment may teach a dog what not to do, it doesn’t teach the dog what behavior is acceptable. Punishment-based training also undermines confidence and causes fearful and aggressive behavior to worsen.

Positive reinforcement training however, is reward-based; it rewards dogs for behaviors that humans like and want to see more of. By definition, rewards are enjoyable; the dog getting the reward feels good. Given that, positive training done the right way can’t help but be fun. The trainer rewards the dog for desirable behavior with stuff the particular dog finds rewarding. Depending on the dog, the behavior being trained and the environment, rewards range from a variety of yummy food treats, to playtime or socializing with dogs, to a walk in the park, to fun and games with humans. The trainer works at the stage that’s right for the individual dog, a strategy that minimizes dog and human stress and frustration. Instead of shutting behavior down, positive training teaches dogs to do alternative acceptable behaviors that are incompatible with the undesirable behavior.

Dogs trained using positive methods develop a strong positive association to and eagerly anticipate training. Because training activities predict rewards for the dog, he’s happy to train. Training’s not work, it’s the “FUN-tastic Training Game!”

Whether you’re teaching your dog to take a bow or stay on a mat while you cook dinner, positive training done correctly should feel less like work and a lot more like play. If you’re not having fun training your dog probably isn’t either. Common causes of frustration around training include:

The training exercise is too hard for the dog. If the exercise is too difficult, dogs get frustrated and lose interest in training. Backpedal and make the exercise a little easier. Make the exercise harder only when the dog’s getting the behavior right at the current level at least 8/10 times.

The rewards aren’t rewarding to the dog. Dogs are individuals with unique personalities and tastes. Just because Rover likes sweet potato doesn’t mean Fido does too. Find and train with rewards that your dog really likes.

Rewards aren’t sufficiently rewarding to the dog. Vinnie really likes small hard biscuits and will do many tricks in a row at home for one. But when out romping off-leash around lovely distractions like gopher holes and other dogs, if I want him to leave all that alone and come to me, I reward him with something he loves to make it worth his while. Using rewards your dog really loves in more distracting contexts keeps him interested in the Training Game.

It’s time for a break. You and your dog may have been at it too long. Dogs have short attention spans. A few 3-5 minute training sessions scattered throughout your day are far more effective than one long marathon session. If you’re prepared with your training game plan, treats and training setups you need, you’ll get a lot of mileage out of a brief session.

If you and your dog are in the doldrums about training, take an informed break. Check out the resources at www.trainyourdogmonth.com. You’re sure to come away inspired and with practical easy-to-apply information for a new Training Game plan.

If you’ve never trained your dog, there’s no time like the present. If it’s been some time since you trained your dog, brush up on his manners, teach him a new trick, or sign up for a positive training class. Here are a couple of websites dedicated to positive dog training and with loads of free information to get you started:

• The Bay Area’s own www.dogstardaily.com
• Karen Pryor’s Clicker Training site at www.clickertraining.com

Have fun training!