Oh Behave!

I should have known better.

Yesterday was Vinnie’s and my first public freestyle performance. We danced in a group routine at a dog festival in a park, with a large audience of dogs and their people, including my husband a.k.a, Vinnie’s “Papa.” (Very corny, I know. But c’mon, I have a hunch you’ve dished up some corny talk to your dog.)

Back to the festival. As soon as we arrived, a little voice in my head said, Uh oh. Vinnie was very excited. He wanted to play off-leash with other dogs, to inhale the scent of grilling meat wafting about and hunt for dropped tidbits. He saw kids playing soccer and wanted to nab their ball. And he was hell-bent on keeping his group – me, him and his Papa – together. Rounding us up is something my dear Kelpie mix has always done, and more intently in new environments.

I’d agreed at the last minute to dance in the routine, and Vin and I’d been practicing our parts diligently. But that was mostly indoor practice at home, a familiar relatively distraction-free location. I’d come to the park ready with a large bag of chicken, which had never failed to help Vin’s focus and for which he’d danced eagerly the day before in the same park. But that was without barbecues, human food galore, scores of other dogs in the vicinity, and Papa at the ringside.

When it was our turn in the ring Vinnie’s performance fell apart. Instead of heeling and spinning next to me across the stage, he took off towards the gate, his eyes darting around for any sign of my husband. I quickly got Vin’s attention and he did most of his routine after that only to lose it again during his solo finale. Instead of trotting towards me and taking a bow, he spotted my husband and ran to the side of the ring to greet him.

Like I said, I of all people should have known there’s just no short cutting the training process. One essential key to effective training is to train gradually, making tasks more challenging for your dog one step at a time. It’s like training for a marathon; you don’t vault from jogging a mile a day to being able to run a 26-mile race.

It’s not surprising that Vinnie didn’t perform well. I rushed his training and neglected to set him up for success in several ways.

For one thing, dogs don’t generalize easily. It you want them to apply learning acquired in one context to another, you have to help them get there. If you only train “sits” in the kitchen, it will take a bit more training for the dog to learn that “sit” means the same thing in the living room, a yard, at the beach and on the sidewalk. Even though Vinnie had nailed the routine again and again at home, he’d only had one practice at the park and another in someone’s back yard. That wasn’t nearly enough to bet on a solid performance on the day of the show amidst a sea of distractions.

The world is a mighty distracting place!

For another thing, dogs are notoriously distractible. To get behavior around distractions, increase distraction levels incrementally. A dog who responds reliably to, “Let’s heel,” in your hallway may look as if he’s never heard the words the first several times you try heeling at the beach. Other dogs, new people, food, new smells and sounds are just some things most dogs find pretty darn enticing. Poor Vin was faced with multiple high level distractions at the same time. That together with insufficient practice to generalize was enough to doom his performance.

On top of all tha, Vin was grappling with a strong competing motivator. Most dogs love food and are very motivated to do stuff, training included, to get it. But a treat that keeps a dog’s attention on training when there’s nothing else going on may very likely pale in comparison to a chance for a squirrel chase, to romp with other dogs, or in Vinnie’s case, to round up his humans. On show day, Vinnie was highly motivated to keep his group together. While he was motivated at times to score chicken by doing parts of his routine, at other times the desire to find his dad won out.

Thankfully, the performance was just for fun. We all laughed about it. No harm was done except for a little bruise on my ego. And I’ll make sure not to repeat the same mistakes as we prepare for our next performance. Next time, we’ll both be ready!

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.

As you can see from my scant February blog posts, last month was a whirlwind for me. I’ve had zero time to write and have really missed blogging. This post is a quick one but a good one.

When it comes to training dogs, it seems like everyone’s got an opinion about how to do it the right way. Visit a dog park and mention a dog training or behavior issue and it won’t be long before someone’s giving you advice. Google “dog training tips” and in milliseconds you’ll get over 15 million results that are just a few mouse clicks away.

But whose advice should you follow? What tips are worthwhile?

As is the case with much of the data on the web, it can be daunting to parse out what’s the best most accurate information about dog training and what isn’t. Instead of spending your time plowing through website after website, here’s a tip on finding trustworthy positive reinforcement training information:

One of my favorite web-based resources for excellent information about puppy raising, dog training and dog behavior is www.DogStarDaily.com. And guess what? It’s free.

At the risk of sounding like a commercial, I must give Dog Star Daily it’s due. Whether you’re looking for the lowdown on exactly what’s involved in raising a puppy, or what to expect from your adolescent dog, or how to potty train a pup using positive reinforcment, Dog Star Daily has answers. The site’s “Training Textbook” covers scores of useful topics such as what you need to know before you adopt a puppy, how to puppy-proof your home, how to train your adolescent dog, how to train basic manners, and common behavior issues and what to do about them. Dog Star Daily’s information is spot-on and presented in a clear easy-to-follow format.

Dog Star Daily is one of the resources I recommend regularly to clients and students in group dog training classes. Check it out today.