“Lots of people talk to animals…. not very many listen though, and that’s the problem” – Benjamin Hoff 

“If you want the best seat in the house…Move the dog…”  Anonymous

“If you think dogs can’t count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two.” – Phil Pastoret

“Dogs are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole.”- Roger Caras

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” -Mark Twain

“If your dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise.” – Unknown

“Anybody who doesn’t know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.” – Franklin Jones

“The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.” -Andy Rooney

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”- Josh Billings

“There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.” -Ben Williams

“The reason a dog has so many friends it that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.” – Anonymous 

“Properly trained, a man can be dog’s best friend.” ~Corey Ford

“In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.” ~Edward Hoagland

“When a dog wants to hang out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, as all of us do now and then, he is regarded as a traitor to his species.” ~Ramona C. Albert

“Listen to your dog when he is whispering instead of waiting until he is shouting at you.” ~Robyn Hood (TTouch Instructor)

“Dogs aren’t into big agendas. They just want to know where & when it’s safe to pee.”
- Jean Donaldson

“GO WILD & FREEZE”

This is a GREAT game for energetic dogs that jump on people when overexcited.

This game teaches dogs to sit politely when asked to, even when very wound-up. Go Wild & Freeze becomes even more fun when children are included as players in the game because it teaches the kids a positive way to play with their puppy and manage his behavior.

What to do: First teach Fido to sit for a treat by holding one just above his nose then raising it slightly and moving it toward the back of his head. As the dog reaches upward for the treat, his rear will go to the floor in a sit. Click and give the treat.

Next, teach the kids and other players how to get the dog to sit for treats.  Now you’re ready to start the game!

Call “Go Wild!” and have everyone jump around, wiggle, wave arms, and make happy sounds. After a few seconds, call “Freeze!” and have everyone stop and stand tall. When the action stops, the player closest to the dog asks him to sit and rewards with a treat when he does.

Then start another round. Each time wait a little longer before calling “Freeze”… after a few rounds, Fido will automatically be sitting when the players stop and stand tall.

We all have our weaknesses: those soulful brown eyes pleading for just one morsel from your plate, the warm head on your lap while you tap away on computer, heavy with the weight of hope and expectation for a game of fetch or at the very least an ear scratch, or the more-empty-than-usual bed when a spouse is out of town that leads letting her sleep with you “just this once”.

Let’s face it, we love our dogs and sometimes that love, our need for connection, our and desire to give back some of the happiness they’ve given us causes us to cave in situations where we’d all be better served by sticking to our guns.

The thing is, dogs don’t do “exceptions”. Instead, they are constantly collecting and evaluating the feedback/consequences to their actions and if something they do works to get them something they really want, chances are they are going to try it again. Period.

If the “rules” you’ve outlined are occasionally (or routinely) broken, they really won’t be viewed as rules through a dog’s eyes. We may be able to comprehend the concept of special occasions but inconsistency in our responses causes confusion in a dog’s mind, sets them up to make mistakes, and causes us to become frustrated or angry because “he knows better”. Guess what? He doesn’t. He just knows that sometimes when he jumps up on the couch he gets to stay, and he hasn’t worked out quite yet why it’s okay with you sometimes and not others. And the occasional reprimand from you is worth it for even the possibility of one more evening curled up next to you in comfort rather than across the room on his bed.

So be clear and consistent when interacting with your dog, determine your house rules in advance, and then take the time to teach your dog what is expected of him rather than just punish him for mistakes (or for not following a rule he’s never been properly clued-in on in the first place).

Boundary training is an excellent place to start your new crystal clear communication. Not only does this make life easier when you are trying to come and go, but also it keeps dogs safe.

Teaching dogs to pause at thresholds rather than push past you and bum-rush the door is another great habit to teach your dog, and NOT because he may take over the world if he goes through the doorways before you. Rather, “Sit” as the default setting at doorways saves lives. It also gives you a marvelous opportunity to reinforce a polite sit and impulse control with a very powerful life reward – “let’s go for a walk”!

1. Puppies explore with their mouths just like babies explore with their hands.  Puppies have sharp teeth and weak jaws – so this is the time to teach them to bite gently – and then not at all – before they develop the strong jaws of an adolescent dog. It is important to teach your puppy to reduce both the force and frequency of his biting.

2.  To do this, play with your puppy.  Sit on the floor and purposely put your hands near your puppy’s mouth.  If you feel a hard bite, say Ouch! And stop playing. If your puppy stops biting, lure him into a sit and reward and start playing again. If your puppy ignores the ‘ouch’, and continues to bite, say OOOWWW and leave the room.  Come back after a 20 second time out and do a little sit/down training before starting to play again.

3. An excellent way to practice this is to tether your puppy in an area where he can’t have any fun except with you.  Sit on the floor and play with your puppy and when you feel hard bite, say Ouch! Then get up and leave the area for 20 seconds.  Repeat this 10 times in a row twice a day.  You should be able to play longer and longer between hard bites. Then start reacting to the softer bites as well.  If you have children, each person should practice this exercise separately, starting with the adults.

4. Another way to teach your puppy to have a ‘gentle mouth’ is to hand feed him.  Your puppy only gets the food when being gentle – and not grabby. If your puppy likes to bite and grab pant legs, stop moving immediately and interrupt him.  Call his name and then ask him to do something else such as Sit.

5. Be aware that when your puppy is excited, he’ll be more mouthy and bitey.  So first practice when he’s calm.  When he is calm, you can do a lot of gentle petting and give him a nice belly rub.  If he bites, then all petting stops for 20 seconds.  Another consequence to biting is 30 second time out in his crate.  Don’t do this in anger – it’s just a neutral consequence to his biting – “Oops – time out – in your crate.”

If you don’t see an improvement in reduced biting, consult a Certified Professional Dog Trainer in your area.

As your dog enters adolescence, you may find that he stops listening to you.  Here are some tips to get your relationship back on track:

• - List everything your dog likes and use these as rewards
• - Use verbal language and emotional language (smiling, petting) to communicate with your dog

Work on the relationship:

• - Control with a leash in the house
• - Control resting areas
• - Control feeding with Sit/Wait –use leash if needed
• - Ask for Sit and Wait at doorways
• - Spend time grooming – tether dog and praise while grooming
  • -  Take for a walk as reward for grooming or feed dinner
• - Play with your dog and control the play
  • -  Teach sharing with retrieve, Play Tug and make it fun
• - Stay in control of your attention – give attention when the dog is doing what you want

Charging the Clicker

By pairing the ‘click’ marker signal with a reward (small food treats), the dog learns that the sound predicts a treat.  This process is called charging the clicker.  You click and immediately give the dog a small treat.  Repeat 20 times.  At this stage we don’t care what your dog is doing; they just have to learn that the click predicts a treat.  After one or two sessions your dog will learn to associate the click sound with a treat.

How Does the Clicker Help Me Train My Dog?

When your dog does something you like, you mark it with a click and give the dog a treat.  Rewarded behaviors will be repeated so the dog will continue to do things that earned him a click in the past.  The clicker communicates the following information:

• - I like the behavior you just did
• - You have earned a reward for that behavior
• - That behavior is now over

For example:

The dog starts to go into a sit position.  The dog hears the click as he is sitting and gets a treat.  You can either repeat that cycle or move onto a new behavior.  If you accidentally click, just feed the dog and start again.

Getting the Behavior to Happen

We use 3 primary methods to get desired behaviors.

• Luring
• Capture
• Shaping

 Luring: Holding a food lure in your hand you motion the dog into a position such as sit or down.  Luring techniques are useful when first teaching a behavior but they must be faded quickly in order for the dog to truly learn.

Capture: Good trainers are observant. By observing the desired behaviors as they naturally occur and click/treating them, they will occur more often.  An example would be clicking as you notice your dog going into a down and then rewarding him.

Shaping: By shaping you would click and treat small portions of the desired final behavior.  For example if you were shaping a sit you would click/treat any small movement starting with the dog’s head coming up and the butt heading towards the floor.  Finally you get the complete sit behavior and click and treat for that.

Naming the Behavior

With new behaviors that the dog does not know well, we train the behavior first before we call it anything.  Naming the behavior (putting the behavior on Cue) is the last piece of the puzzle.  Dogs are not verbal and do not understand English!  So be patient and get the behavior to happen reliably before giving it a name.

Training a Simple Behavior – “Touch”

Charge up your clicker and then hold your non-clicker hand with a flat palm facing your dog, holding your target hand close to their nose. As they touch their nose to your target hand, C/T.  Using the concept of shaping, you may need to start by clicking and rewarding for just initial interest in the target hand, or just turning towards it.  Be patient. Eventually your dog will move his nose to your open palm.  Once they are freely touching the target hand, only click for actual touches.  Repeat 10 times, moving your hand slightly to the left and right and gradually further away by taking a couple of steps.  Keep repeating the variations.

Your dog is learning that it’s their actions that are causing you to C/T and the desired action is the nose to palm touch.  Your dog has now learned their first clicker behavior and you have had a chance to practice your clicker timing and treat delivery.  Once the dog can do several touches with you moving your target hand you can add the verbal cue “Touch” to the behavior.  Only say the cur once as the dog is in the process of touching the target hand.

The use of marker signals, like clickers, to train animals has been in use for over 60 years so it’s hardly a new concept.  However if you haven’t clicker trained an animal before, it’s brand new to you, so here’s how you can comfortable using a clicker to train your dog.

If you have ever seen the animal acts at places like Sea World and Marine Land, you have seen how effective this sort o training can be.  Clicker training has its roots in the science of classical conditioning – think Pavlov’s Dogs.  Because it’s based in science, you will find it a fast, effective and efficient method training.  While dogs of different breeds can behave differently, no dog is immune to the principles of learning theory and it is using those principles, that we will train our dogs.

Clickers are not ‘magic’ – they are just simple tools.  Their main advantage is that they are cheap, easy to carry and use, and they produce a unique sound that can be used as a marker signal.  Owners of deaf dogs will often use a small flashlight as a marker signal and marine mammal trainers use whistles.  All these markers perform the same task; they provide the animal being trained with information.  In order to be an effective training tool, your maker signal needs to meet certain requirements.

Unique:  It’s unique signal sounds stands out from the everyday background sounds like human speech.

Consistent: It sounds the same no matter who is training the dog.

Immediate: It needs to pinpoint the exact behavior at the precise moment the dog does it.  Mechanical markers are more precise than verbal ones when you want to pinpoint a behavior.

Clicker Training

Clicker training is an excellent way to teach your dog new behaviors and a great way for kids to get involved in training.  Here is some basic information.

What is clicker training? 

A positive reinforcement training technique using a primary and secondary reinforcer that includes shaping so the dog takes an active role in the training process.  Primary reinforcer is the treat.  Secondary reinforcer is the click.

Advantages of clicker training:

Clicker training provides clear concise information for the dog.  It has a unique sound that stands out to the dog.  Timing is easier than voice for most students and lessens unneeded chatter at the dog.

Clicker training creates an enthusiastic working dog.  The dog learns quickly because he is an active participant in the learning process through the use of shaping and high rate of reinforcement. 

This is an excellent technique for team training that gets more of the family involved.  It’s a technique that is easily transferable from person to person.  It does not rely on social status, strength or intimidation, like some other techniques.

Clicker training is fun.  Students quickly start to focus on their dog’s brilliance.  They learn they have a ‘smart’ dog.  Classes tend to be quieter so there is less noise and a nicer training environment.

Facts and myths about clicker training:

It is more difficult for pet owners to learn.  Not true!  If the curriculum and classes are properly designed and organized, beginners do as well at learning to use the clicker as with other techniques.  Once people try it, they are hooked.  The instructor’s commitment and presentation make all the difference!

You need the clicker forever – Not true!  You wean away once your dog has learned the behavior.  You can fall back on the clicker for refresher training any time.

We all want wonderfully behaved dogs, but it doesn’t happen on its own just because we wish it.  It takes time and effort to create the kind of dog and relationship you want. Here are some basic principles that can help you have a better behaved dog.

• - Have realistic expectations about your dog. No matter how good your dog is, things will get peed on, chewed or scratched/dug up. Barking / meowing, door dashing and/or pulling on the leash can happen with even the best animal.  Accept the fact that dogs are living beings and not china dolls to sit in the corner.  If you have a dog, some time during his/her life, you will loose something of value. 
• - To change behavior you have to be patient and persistent.  Change will not happen over night.  Sometimes it can take weeks or months to change behavior.  The more time you spend and the more often you work with your dog the quicker the change. Despite what some books say, most puppies can’t be housetrained in 7 days.
• - Recognize and meet your dog’s behavioral needs.  Dogs have needs for exercise, social contact with people and other animals and mental stimulation. Problem-solving toys, can provide mental stimulation. Games such as ‘find the hidden object’ and events such as agility can provide all three. 
• - Make it easy for your dog to do the right thing.  Arrange the environment so that the behavior you want is easily produced. The more often desirable behavior happens the stronger it becomes. For example, minimize distractions when you’re trying to teach your dog something new. Put scratching posts where they are easy for your cat to find and use. 
• - Make it difficult for your dog to do the wrong thing.  Arrange the environment so it is hard for your dog to make mistakes.  The more often unwanted behavior happens the harder it is to change.  Close the blinds to keep your dog from barking at those that pass by.  Scoop out your cats’ litter boxes every day.

Realize that animals don’t do things out of spite, for revenge or just to make your life miserable. They do what works – that is, what meets their behavioral needs, gets them rewards or allows them to escape or avoid bad things. They sometimes do some things because they are ill.  Dogs counter surf because they occasionally hit the jackpot of a sandwich or chicken leg.

People will often lament that their dog is not “into” toys. Some dogs will not innately want to play with toys but you can create the desire within them with a little work on your part. If your dog is really motivated by food and has never shown any interest in toys, an option available to you is to take the motivating toy you have chosen to work with and simmer it in a pot of liver, or chicken broth to make it more attractive to your finicky hound. BE LEERY–if you choose to go this route, be very careful your dog is never given an opportunity to be alone with this wonderful smelling toy or THEY MAY EAT IT. The key to training old Rover to play with you and your toy is that you are SINCERELY interested in playing with your dog. If you are truly not having fun, your dog will quickly realize this and will be even more reluctant to join in. So be sure that you are both enjoying yourselves.

• - Choose a throwable toy–i.e. one that you can toss, but won’t roll too much, like a tug rope, or a ball in a sock or a stuffed animal.
• - Attach this toy to a light line, string that is about 5 feet long.
• - Put the toy in a drawer in of your living area–example, in the kitchen or somewhere else that is easily accessible at all times.
• - Before each meal start to act a bit loony. While saying really fun things to your dog (like “oh no”, “what is it”, “do you want this”, “where’s your toy”, etc.) walk, dance, skip…basically act goofy while you make your way over to the special drawer.
• - S-l-o-w-l-y open up the drawer while continuing to say nutty things to your dog.
• - Stop talking momentarily (a pause for effect) and then pull the toy out of the drawer, like you just unexpectedly came across a $50 bill and run with it into the next room.
• - Swing the toy above the ground while acting nutty to show the dog what a great time you are having with this fun toy.
• - Dance around for a few more seconds and then toss the toy out like a lure on the end of a fishing pole.
• - Drag it around but BE SURE THE DOG DOES NOT GET HIS MOUTH ON IT.
• - This whole process should only take 1-2 minutes the first time you do it.
• - End your fun game, which didn’t include your poor dog, by running back to the drawer, your toy in tow snatching it up and quickly putting it back in the drawer with a phrase like “oh no, it’s gone”.
• - Then proceed about your regular routine as if nothing out of the ordinary just happened.
• - Re-enact this bizarre performance 2-3 times a day. After the second day, allow the dog to get his mouth on the toy if he is really interested–but only for a few seconds. Pull on the line to try and steal it from him. Once you get it away (be sure you are taking it from him in a very informal, fun way), play with it a little more by yourself before quickly putting the toy away.
• - Gradually progress, letting him play with you and the toy (tog of war style) a little more each time until you have a dog who loves to see the toy come out.
• - Do not allow him to play with this toy at any other time except during this routine.
• - Ideally, you should remove any other toys that are lying around the house during this time. Leave out only things your dog can lie down and chew on by himself, such as his chew bones.
• - Before you know it you will have a dog who is as nutty about this toy as you apparently have been!
• - This method works particularly well on new puppies.