Oh Behave!

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.

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.