I have a about 1-1/2 old black lab. Her name is Dixie and she is a wonderful dog. im looking for training advice however. She is well a behaved, indoor dog who is extremely loving and doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. She gets along perfectly with the 3 cats we have as well. Now, the problem is when we have guests...,she literally goes apeshit. Again, she is a sweet dig and we encourage to be social whenever possible outside, but if we get a guest that comes inside she literally loses her mind. Not mean or aggressive, she goes hopping, jumping, yipping, accosting the guest with her body and piss.. I guess she gets so excited she pisses herself..... and she won’t leave them alone .... at all. It’s gotten to the poin5 that I have to put her downstairs Before letting in to the house. That said, she is great watchdog, because if she hears a some much car coming down the driveway, She’ll get up from a sound sleep to check it out. Should I do anything to correct her behavior or just keep putting her in the other room when people stop by? Thanks in advance for any advice.
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Advice on training my Lab
- Thread starter srtsam
- Start date
Labs need LOTS of physical activity. If they are Not getting it, they get over excited about just about anything And act the way you are describing. I have a chuck it and a bike and if nothing else is going on I at least wear them out doing one or the other. My male lab would literally drag me around the neighborhood for miles On my mountain bike. With a chuck it my arm would usually wear out first but you can launch a tennis ball a long way to wear them out enough.(water retrieval is the best if you have the ocean or lake near by) and they would go year round no problem winter or summer.
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I would agree with the above statement lots of exercise. Also supposedly labs can remember 100s of words so be really consistent with what commands you use. Definitely start with the basics. Best commands i taught my dog was no over here and over there. Build on that. Also using training treats might help break her attention and build good habits.
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Start with visitors not acknowledging her, and if she's obedience trained, on leash and sit or down before they come it. If she's food driven, use that to help keep her calm. If she's praise driven, much harder to over come and a wire crate may be the best option.
My experience comes with more than a few dogs that get excited when the doorbell rings because it meant friends where here. It was nuts when UPS used to ring the bell or the TV would have a doorbell. Took treats and a leash to train it out of them over a period of weeks. Submissive urination took even longer.
My experience comes with more than a few dogs that get excited when the doorbell rings because it meant friends where here. It was nuts when UPS used to ring the bell or the TV would have a doorbell. Took treats and a leash to train it out of them over a period of weeks. Submissive urination took even longer.
1) every dog must have safe place where nobody fucks with them You create this by first training your dog to kennel or go to a per determined spot the the command is ether "kennel "or "spot", one word no begging and no fucking cookies. Every command you give must have a release command your dog can not release itself (think for its self) the release command is " free " as in you are now free to move around, free to do what you want ect. 2) The second thing you train is the command " Whoa " one word Whoa. which means immediately freeze and make like a statue and do not move a inch until you " the Alpha Dog " gives permission to move with the release command " free ". With these two commands you have control of your dog. The doorbell rings command kennel or spot the dog go there until you release it, after a while you will not need to say the command the sound of the door bell becomes the command, but you must train / force the release command even with self compliance at the sound of the door bell. 3) You must absolutely train the humans not to interface with your dog this means everybody your wife, kids , mother, best buddy, and complete strangers ect. to not fuck with your dog, no bending over and petting, no nothing, completely ignoring it. A final word or so, all training is by force.( not food, not praise ect. you can not masturbate your dog into compliance ) Force of your will over the dog's will. If you are unwilling to punch your dog in the head or give a whipping with a belt you are mentally weak, not capable of training a dog and should get a cat. You must be totally committed and consistent under all conditions and circumstances once you give a command the dog must comply or be forced by you to do so. Some soft dogs are not capable of taking training, they have the make up of play-doh . always soft. Do not waste your time training or your money feeding them. Cull with a .22 short. You want a stubborn dog that is willful. Michael Angelo worked in granite for a reason. Once a hard dog is chiseled you have something. A tough dog can take a whipping and not carry a grudge or attitude, immediately after discipline wants to lick you in the face. You can throw a hard dog in truck of your car drive 100 miles, when you let it out, Wow! happy to see you, try that with your wife.
Lab energy is unlike anything you've ever seen.
However...that ultra happy social jumping hysteria is natural Labrador temperament and behavior. They just love people.
Still training our two 14 month old labs not to do what you're describing. Minus the peeing part. As someone already said you have to wear them out, then have people over regularly, and instruct your house guests to IGNORE the dog and she will get the message after a few session. Her behavior is not rewarded.
No eye contact, no petting, no acknowledgement whatsoever. Have them extend their knee out to block the jumping and your lab will get the picture quickly. Again, still working with ours but the improvement has been tremendous.
Edit: I have seen 8+ year old AKC champion female Labradors who still jump on house guests when someone comes over. The training never ends. Ever
However...that ultra happy social jumping hysteria is natural Labrador temperament and behavior. They just love people.
Still training our two 14 month old labs not to do what you're describing. Minus the peeing part. As someone already said you have to wear them out, then have people over regularly, and instruct your house guests to IGNORE the dog and she will get the message after a few session. Her behavior is not rewarded.
No eye contact, no petting, no acknowledgement whatsoever. Have them extend their knee out to block the jumping and your lab will get the picture quickly. Again, still working with ours but the improvement has been tremendous.
Edit: I have seen 8+ year old AKC champion female Labradors who still jump on house guests when someone comes over. The training never ends. Ever
I'm on my fifth labrador at the moment. Each has it's own temperament.
Nothing more than a rolled up newspaper, or fly swatter, soon all you have to do is show it to them.
And don't hit them with your hand.
And when they learn the word no that's all it takes.
People that resort to constant beating and (punching) WTF, thier dogs are just to stupid to have a good dog.
The lab I have now is a little stubborn I have had to pop his butt with a leash to get him settled down (cats, squirrels) while on leash a few times but not often and mostly now just a stern no takes care of it.
If you can't train a lab you need trained.
Nothing more than a rolled up newspaper, or fly swatter, soon all you have to do is show it to them.
And don't hit them with your hand.
And when they learn the word no that's all it takes.
People that resort to constant beating and (punching) WTF, thier dogs are just to stupid to have a good dog.
The lab I have now is a little stubborn I have had to pop his butt with a leash to get him settled down (cats, squirrels) while on leash a few times but not often and mostly now just a stern no takes care of it.
If you can't train a lab you need trained.
By the way a short walk on leash at heal calms a young labrador down for hours.
It's not like your wearing them out just a mental thing.
It's not like your wearing them out just a mental thing.
An inexpensive route is to get a pinch collar and short leash. When the dogs jumps up, give a sharp strong tug down and step on the back toes to discourage the behavior. This along with a sharp NO should work over time. Do the same thing when the dog does it on you or another family member. A sharp knee to the chest when they jump up is a good deterrent also, hard enough to knock them off their feet to the floor. Once they stop this behavior, the piddling should stop also. Enforce the proper behavior every time and don't let the dog get away with the bad behavior. Exercise is crucial as the information provided above about a "safe space". Kennel training is one of the most important aspects of training. My guess is that the dog has not been held accountable for other bad behavior in the past and pretty much does what it pleases. No quarter given.....always demand its best behavior and it will give it. Be consistent and firm always, but praise them when they do the right thing.
Amazing trainer. It’s a drive but it’s not horribly far from you.
kentuckycanine.com
he has an awesome YouTube channel as well.
Stonnie Dennis Dog Training & Boarding
Stonnie Dennis offers premium puppy, and adult dog training and boarding services for Lexington, Kentucky and the surrounding Central Kentucky Region. Stonnie Dennis is an industry leader in canine socialization, training, fitness, boarding and YouTube content creation.
kentuckycanine.com
he has an awesome YouTube channel as well.
Get a good trainer, thats an easy fix with proper training. Go to someone that will train based on your dogs specific temperament not a group class/petsmart type place. A pinch collar, E collar are training tools they are not magic and need to be used correctly based on your dogs specific temperament. I know people try to help based off of their own dogs even if they owned Labs and there may be some overall general good advice but again, if you want the best for the dog find a good reputable trainer that will train YOUR dog, not a cookie cutter program based off of someone elses dog. Yes tiring out any high energy level dog is good but “working” (training) your dog is as well, I cant tell you how many clients used to walk their dogs 3 hours a day and they still had no control, training makes the dog focus on you and is a different level of stimulating/exercise. Also a good trainer should educate you as well, teach you how to approach training with this dog and turn you into a solid handler. Good dog training is not just sit/stay, it is much more.
first thing is train sit. Sit means sit until I tell you to do something else. Not sit for a minute but as long as I want you to. You cannot teach her anything else until she can sit. If there running around they are not going to learn anything. Remember only sit not sit and then stay. Stay should not be used all she should know is I’m supposed to stay there until you tell me to do something else.
Good advice in here. Keeping them on a leash is an easy quick fix, but you should definitely spend time every day working on distractions. Have someone knock on the door, throw a ball, go in and out, while you do some commands or simply wait on a leash. Treats are excellent for this!
Labs are extremely easy to train compared to a lot of breeds. I wouldn't waste your time or money unless you have some real behavior/aggression concerns.
Labs are extremely easy to train compared to a lot of breeds. I wouldn't waste your time or money unless you have some real behavior/aggression concerns.
our golden retriever gets walked, off leash, 6+ miles each and every single day. people always remark how controlled and obedient he is. ditto for the two before him.
Check out Michael Ellis, he's got great training videos. I also like Cesar Millan's psychological approach to dog training--he is by his own admission not a trainer--so please don't go there.
I've told people, when I have a new dog, they must do the no look , no talk, no touch when they enter the house--they must acknowledge me first. This puts the dog in their rightful place, behind the humans. Once the dog has calmed down, affection can be given, but not until the dog calms first. This teaches the dog to naturally be in a calm state. IMO a dog should be calm submissive (Cesar Millan). If I have the ability to be pre-emptive when a visitor arrives, even better.
Start doing obedience training with the dog. This will get the dog engaged with you so you can keep its attention in chaotic environments or situations like a ringing doorbell. Before the person rings the doorbell, get the dog's attention with obedience training and continue that training and continue having the dog's attention as the person enters the house.
I've told people, when I have a new dog, they must do the no look , no talk, no touch when they enter the house--they must acknowledge me first. This puts the dog in their rightful place, behind the humans. Once the dog has calmed down, affection can be given, but not until the dog calms first. This teaches the dog to naturally be in a calm state. IMO a dog should be calm submissive (Cesar Millan). If I have the ability to be pre-emptive when a visitor arrives, even better.
Start doing obedience training with the dog. This will get the dog engaged with you so you can keep its attention in chaotic environments or situations like a ringing doorbell. Before the person rings the doorbell, get the dog's attention with obedience training and continue that training and continue having the dog's attention as the person enters the house.
It was 13 degrees Fahrenheit snow and blowing snow 20 mph winds gusting to 30.
Lab and I went out.
We walked till I pussed out, not long. This was his first real snow.
Scared at first then timmid, quickly changed to fun.
I brought him in and he wanted out in the back yard. He ran high speed laps around the yard for a while till I called him off.
People that mistreat dogs should be drowned in the toilet at birth.
Lab and I went out.
We walked till I pussed out, not long. This was his first real snow.
Scared at first then timmid, quickly changed to fun.
I brought him in and he wanted out in the back yard. He ran high speed laps around the yard for a while till I called him off.
People that mistreat dogs should be drowned in the toilet at birth.
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I would take the dog outside to greet the visitor in neutral territory on a leash. If your dog is still ape shi$ after a couple of minutes, and this is called over-arousal, then you need to socialize your dog. A good place to start is at a petsmart store that offers group training. The training may not be necessary but the socialization is. Usually over 6 weeks, we see a huge difference in puppies who are exposed to weekly training in their initial arousal state. You are a year and half behind the curve and it is probably going to take much more time, I'll guess 12 to 16 weeks, and a huge effort on your part to get your dog under control. The wife and I train dogs and when someone comes to us with a problem, it's usually too late to fix because the owner started out not spending enough time with the dog and the work required to fix the problem is 10x what they should have done in the beginning. Most owners, about 95%, aren't willing to commit the time and effort and money. You are probably in the 95% and I will offer this as the second best solution:
It's normal for a dog to be excited when a stranger or even a friend comes to the door, but they should quickly calm down. If they don't you need to crate the dog until they calm down or put them in another part of the house preferably before visitors arrive. Yelling at the dog and jerking it around won't help and will make it worse. The dog is in over-arousal and thinking in lizard brain (mostly fight flight). Reasonable thinking is impossible for the dog in this state of arousal. All the dog hears is Blah blah blah and being physically corrected/hurt by his owner whenever someone comes to the door. This compounds the problem (e.g. whenever someone comes to the door, my owner goes ape sh*t crazy on me-therefore all strangers require an extensive response).
Finally, it is normal for young dogs, especially females, to pee when they get extremely aroused if they have a near full bladder. We had a male who would pee all the way down the hall when we got home after an extended time away until he was 4 years old. His bladder would fill up and the excitement of us coming home, well, he left trails of pee down the hall.
It's normal for a dog to be excited when a stranger or even a friend comes to the door, but they should quickly calm down. If they don't you need to crate the dog until they calm down or put them in another part of the house preferably before visitors arrive. Yelling at the dog and jerking it around won't help and will make it worse. The dog is in over-arousal and thinking in lizard brain (mostly fight flight). Reasonable thinking is impossible for the dog in this state of arousal. All the dog hears is Blah blah blah and being physically corrected/hurt by his owner whenever someone comes to the door. This compounds the problem (e.g. whenever someone comes to the door, my owner goes ape sh*t crazy on me-therefore all strangers require an extensive response).
Finally, it is normal for young dogs, especially females, to pee when they get extremely aroused if they have a near full bladder. We had a male who would pee all the way down the hall when we got home after an extended time away until he was 4 years old. His bladder would fill up and the excitement of us coming home, well, he left trails of pee down the hall.
You are a fucking moron.
People that beat their dogs are garbage. You are mentally weak if this is how you train a dog.
I would like to see any top trainer that endorses "punching their dog in the head" or "wipping their dog with a belt".
Negative reinforcement is a real thing but it stops way short of what you suggested.
Oh by the way, you are a fucking moron
What a jackass. There are no bad dogs, only bad dog owners. This guy is the latter. Please don’t ever get another dog, actually let’s just cull you.
Moron.
triggered! There are absolutely Bad Dogs, if you buy a popular breed form a puppy mill, with poor genetics, hip dysplasia and other problems it is in fact a bad dog, (defective) no amount of love and training is going to make it a good dog. There are no bad dogs only bad dog owners make as much sense as there are no bad rifles only bad rifle owners. Some rifles no matter love you show them will not shoot. The emotional twist grow ass Men get their panties in over companion animals never ceases to amaze me. A man from a mere 75 years ago would not recognize what masquerades as a male today. God help us if we need to fight the type of war our forefathers did or get hit with a real food shortage and you have to eat your dog.
You were advocating abusing an animal for undesired behavior that can be treated with several different options. That says a lot about you. Mostly that you have serious character flaws.
If you have your black lab trained enough to walk on a leash, go for walks in places where other people will be encountered. You can communicate with the dog through the leash. At first, you may have to occasionally grab its collar to restrain it. Our dog just wants to play and doesn't have a mean bone in her, but other people don't know that. We walk on trails in a large rural area, and most of the people we run into want to interact with the dog. I make her calm down before she gets to play with someone. I've gotten her to the point where I can snap my fingers and hiss like the guy on TV to make her immediately stop and sit. That is all about posturing and body language. She still gets excited when I release her to play. We're still working on that (and probably will be forever).
Beside socializing her, 5 mile walks take the edge off (as numerous others have said). Except for a few weeks in the autumn, we may have 3 or 4 people encounters on our walks, so she gets plenty of "just being a dog" time.
An important element in training your dog is feeding time. Put the food in the dog's bowl, but make her wait for the command "take it" or whatever you like before she can eat it.
These are funny dogs. When our lab was younger, my GF was making a sandwich for lunch when a UPS truck came up our long driveway. The dog went to the door and started barking before my GF heard anything, and when she saw that the dog had started barking before the truck was in sight she praised her and gave her a piece of ham. To this day, the dog goes to the door and barks whenever anyone is making a sandwich.
The local sheriff has a canine unit, and they have a black lab who successfully went through all of the training and is a working dog. They let her roam about the office when her handler is there, and found that she is sneaky and steals lunches and snacks. She is all business when it's time to work though.
Beside socializing her, 5 mile walks take the edge off (as numerous others have said). Except for a few weeks in the autumn, we may have 3 or 4 people encounters on our walks, so she gets plenty of "just being a dog" time.
An important element in training your dog is feeding time. Put the food in the dog's bowl, but make her wait for the command "take it" or whatever you like before she can eat it.
These are funny dogs. When our lab was younger, my GF was making a sandwich for lunch when a UPS truck came up our long driveway. The dog went to the door and started barking before my GF heard anything, and when she saw that the dog had started barking before the truck was in sight she praised her and gave her a piece of ham. To this day, the dog goes to the door and barks whenever anyone is making a sandwich.
The local sheriff has a canine unit, and they have a black lab who successfully went through all of the training and is a working dog. They let her roam about the office when her handler is there, and found that she is sneaky and steals lunches and snacks. She is all business when it's time to work though.
To get the dog from jumping on the visitor, you're going to need a training partner. First and foremost, you must teach the dog to not jump. Do this by having your visitor come into the house and when the dog jumps, the visitor must forcefully thrust their knee outward hitting the dog so that it can't make contact with the person. While doing this, forcefully say NO. This will take some time but the important thing is that your visitor do the training. It won't help if you're yelling NO while the dog jumps on the visitor. The visitor cannot use their hands to push off the dog, because dogs usually associate the hands of a human as the human playing with it. A quick thrust of the knee a few times and the dog gets it.
I believe that once the dog understand that he can't jump, many of the other problems will go away.
Good Luck!
I believe that once the dog understand that he can't jump, many of the other problems will go away.
Good Luck!
You are a real piece of shit and don't deserve to have a dog at all.
I would enjoy setting my dashaund on you just for fun to watch you bleed.
The lab would be too quick to end your sorry ass.
i had no idea labs were so energetic. I thought they were all like yellow dog from the movie funny farm. Just lays around all day without a care in the world. Dixie, is a great dog, super friendly with people not just us. She loves running top speed outside. Though, she does this tucks her but and runs things but she thinks she is the fastest dog in the world. Lol anyway, I’m going to try a few things mentioned here. One thing we have been working is the no jumping. She not only jumps but hops. She loves wrestling with anybody who wants to. It starts off with her bringing a toy over, which I take, then she starts throwing haymakers at me. Lol, it’s funny till she rakes you with her claws. again, she is a pet and a very nice one at that. Just need to correct a couple things and we are golden. Thanks again
I have a shepherd lab mix. I have 3 throw toys for him. 20 minutes of fetch with the first one and he'll drop it so I switch to the next one for another 20 minutes then to the third for about 10 minutes. He has a knotted rope that he will play with for hours. He'll sling it and thrash it. It's quite entertaining to watch.
They are lazy bastards. But, they still need exercise. Mine will go from dead asleep snoring and drooling to where the fuck is that squirrel in microseconds.
Consider yourself lucky we don't cull psychopath human shit with .22's... I'm surprised one of your dogs hasn't done it yet, I'm sure it's coming. I've seen it too many times. You fucking dog "experts" with beatings and hangings and shit, wow.
This shit head is giving you amazing advice on how to ruin a good bird dog. Obviously knows fuck all about dogs. I'm sure he has a couple that'll do everything he says out of pure fear though, if you want a dog that shakes and pisses itself everytime you walk in the room, PM this fucker for more advice.
A good bird dog will respond much better to positive training. They literally LIVE to make you happy, sometimes they just need guidance on that. When they figure it out though, that action makes you happy, they're yours.
Not all dogs are cut out for X lifestyle. There's a good documentary on seeing eye dogs, they follow a litter from the start. Some of the dogs were just not cut out for it, some were, one was stellar. None were bad dogs, they were just all suited for different lives. Unfortunately when we get dogs we typically get one we're stuck with for 15 years and if it can hunt, it can hunt and if it can't, it can't.
The dog ain't broke. Like everything else on this planet that's fucked up, it all seems to start with the humans. Stop blaming the dog.
If you need a good bird dog, you can't do better than a Llewellyn Setter. But don't ever try what fuckstick here is recommending with one of those, you'll absolutely ruin the pup and it won't do shit for you but hide when it sees you coming.
Nothing more disgusting than an animal abuser except one that thinks he's a proper trainer and doing it for the greater good.
Michael Ellis is great. We worked with his breeding partner, Lisa, with one of our dogs. Sadly, Lisa has passed, as she was amazing at training an all around dog. Cesar Millan is kind of an idiot, IMO, but he gets results.
Best advice Lisa ever gave us was that everything with training a dog needs to be 90% want to, 10% have to. By that she meant that the dog can only take responsibility to what it knows, so don't go kneeing it in the head if it jumps, if you haven't taught it the right behaviors and rewarded those. Once you reinforce good behavior, then you can make the dog responsible for it. Again, though. Not kneeing your dog, or hitting it, but use a leash, a collar, your voice. Most dogs are not assholes, they get it quickly. Also, rewards usually mean food at first, but they can just as well mean play.
Diverdon's idea is the right one. Use dog friendly friends to teach the behavior, and reward it by allowing your dog to play ball with them for good greetings. In the long run, it is much better to live with a dog who does things because he wants to, rather than because he has to. Sure, there are going to be mistakes, and no dog has a perfect threshold, but who the fuck wants to spend their life beating their dog, or have a dog that thinks you are an asshole.
Also, labs are not that high energy that they need to be assholes. Try living with kelpies and heelers through a week long snow storm.
First of all give her a hug and tell she’s a good girl and rejoice you’re a good boy, not some asswipe who beats his dog.
Then give her bacon.
And more hugs!
That’s all I got.
Chocolate lab owner/lover here. Until they are about 3 YO they have puppy brain and very high energy. Lots of brain stimulation and physical activity is needed. Can't leave them alone all day and then expect them to be calm and smart....mine could play ball in the living room for hours when it was to cold or hot to get outside. I used to sit on the couch with a tennis ball and we'd play catch. He could literally toss the ball back.
Smartest most lovable Animal I ever new....calm and strong but as an 18 month old he ended up in pound before we took him home. The people who have him up said he was too wild and tore up everything. He never ever did that with us but he was a cherished family member and treated as such. Everybody loved Kody. 2 years gone and still we mourn.
VooDoo
Smartest most lovable Animal I ever new....calm and strong but as an 18 month old he ended up in pound before we took him home. The people who have him up said he was too wild and tore up everything. He never ever did that with us but he was a cherished family member and treated as such. Everybody loved Kody. 2 years gone and still we mourn.
VooDoo
we have a mixed breed rescue that is high energy. only problem is my wife lets him do whatever. He's her alpha. He's about 2 now and still has a ways to go but im slowly getting him to where he doesnt molest house guest. he just loves everybody but hes a spaz.
Most of the best information about dogs is that they don't actually follow a strict pack structure. That is to say, the concept of Alpha doesn't really apply. Rather, they are opportunistic social climbers, more like siblings than wolves. Additionally this has been seen in that packs of wild dogs, which were always assumed to follow wolf structure, don't. Rather they will have different leaders for different activities. One might be the best hunter and lead in that scenario, but another might take the front if the pack threatened and again another might have dibs when it comes to scavenging. Also, play behavior in dog groups doesn't look like it would in a strict pack.
That is all to say that you can scare your dog into respecting you, and you can teach him to be subservient, but you are doing it based on a human conception, and not necessarily one that is bred in through millennia. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that dog social behavior more mimics human than wolf, since they have been living with humans forever. Remember, wolves don't retrieve game and give it to others, they don't herd animals without killing them, they don't kill vermin without eating them etc. Dogs are not wolves.
That is all to say that you can scare your dog into respecting you, and you can teach him to be subservient, but you are doing it based on a human conception, and not necessarily one that is bred in through millennia. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense that dog social behavior more mimics human than wolf, since they have been living with humans forever. Remember, wolves don't retrieve game and give it to others, they don't herd animals without killing them, they don't kill vermin without eating them etc. Dogs are not wolves.
Sorry to hear about Lisa. I've heard ME mention her in his videos many times.
FWIW, I can't imagine going into any dog training situation without the knowledge I gained from Cesar Millan. He is by no means a dog trainer, but damn if he doesn't understand dogs on a primal level. He lays out for the human how they are supposed to act around a dog to naturally simulate a dog's pack in the wild. While this type of thinking is not for everyone, it does get results, immediately and without any harm to the dog. My sister's/BIL's lab acts completely different around me than anyone else, because I've demanded of her to be calm and submissive--which is really easy--just don't give affection until she calms down--that give all the hugs and bacon one can. This way you are rewarding the the calm state, not punishing the excited state.
I'm going to attach my notes from his DVD's for people to read, because there are just too many fine points to cover. I hope it helps someone.
Cesar Millan’s Mastering Leadership Series
Volume One: People Training for Dogs
- Dogs live in the moment. They don’t live in the past or in the future.
- Dogs are not more or less than humans. They are a different species with different needs.
- To be balanced and centered dogs must have their needs met.
- Dogs are Animal first, Species, Breed, and lastly Personality
- Show calm assertive energy when meeting a dog for the first time. Don’t approach or reach out, let the dog come to you and inform you he is ready to be given affection by rubbing himself against you or nudging you with his head.
- Dogs in natural habitat must find their place, this place, not their name, becomes their identity within the pack.
- Pack leaders don’t project nervousness, panic, tension, or anger. They assert calm and assertive energy 100% of the time. This is the rule of the animal kingdom and all animals except humans follow it.
- Animals follow and respect calm/assertive energy.
- Dogs know you as the energy you project. Your name or position in the family doesn’t matter to them. Your energy and actives are how they know you.
- A dog’s first experience of calm/assertive energy comes from its mother during birth.
- A pack leader in nature would never show love to or reward another dog the way humans show love to dogs. Love is a gift.
- Dogs need to be told what to do everyday. Leadership and love are forever. Don’t get lazy and only show love. This will create imbalance in your dog and lead to behavior problems.
- Behavior problems can be prevented through leadership and fulfilling a dog’s natural needs.
- Dogs must be calm/submissive before getting love/affection/rewards.
- Energy comes before behavior. Pack leader is energy.
- Work with mother nature, not against it.
- Waiting for dogs is important. In the wild, dogs must wait for food and water.
- When little dogs work for food by waiting. Dog in wild has to wait for mother.
- Feeding is a ritual. Walk before feeding. Only feed when the mind is calm/submissive. Don’t feed when dog is excited, aggressive, dominant, nervous, or tense.
- Don’t react dramatically if dog gets hurt or something happens. This can and will create issues for the dog. We tell them through our calm/assertive energy that everything is ok. If we say, “it’s ok baby” and make a big deal about something, it will become a big deal to the dog. Example is fireworks.
- Don’t give affection if dog is in misbehaving, this will only reward and encourage the bad behavior, nurturing instability. Long-term the dog will not be balanced and centered.
- Nose is born open. Eyes open 15 days after birth. Ears open 21 days after birth. This is the order dogs learn about, experience, and connect to the world.
- Rules, Boundaries, and Limitations are needed from puppyhood day one until forever. If you, the owner, don’t establish Rules Boundaries and Limitations for the dog, the dog will establish Rules Boundaries and Limitations for you.
- Respect from the dog is earned through Rules Boundaries and Limitations.
- Breed is just the skills a dog possesses.
- Frustration + Dominance = Red-Zone Danger
- Frustration comes from a lack of exercise and dominance comes from controlling the human
- In order to speak to a Red-Zone Danger dog’s mind, you must first remove the energy from the body through exercise.
- Pack Leader must be pack leader 100% of the time. Pack leader decides when to eat, sleep, travel, hunt, potty, etc. This is how dogs in nature work, there is no debate.
- Dogs demonstrate dominance over humans in the following ways; jumping on them, walking in front, or any time the dog makes you do something.
- If we don’t run their lives, they will run our lives.
- Dogs require a pack leader and will assume the role if a human doesn’t.
- Excessive barking can be a sign of frustration through lack of exercise. Barking is a way for the dog to release pent-up energy. Exercise is the healthy solution to releasing a dog’s energy.
- Frustrated dogs will become excited, anxious, neurotic dogs. When dogs can’t release their energy, they become frustrated and destructive. The more this occurs the more normal the behavior becomes for the dog.
- Start good habits early.
- Match your energy to your dog’s energy level.
- The four levels of energy are Very High, High, Medium, and Low
- Very high and high can be pack leaders and dominant but can also be submissive. A submissive dog with high energy levels would be described as a happy-go-lucky dog.
- Medium and Low levels are usually followers.
- Dogs will respond to every situation in one of four ways; fight, flight, ignore, or submission.
- We want dogs to show submission to us. We want dogs to be calm/submissive.
- Examples of fighting are struggling when a leash or collar is applied, attacking other dogs, or snapping at their owners
- Other dogs will show flight responses by running away and others will ignore their owners. Both are undesirable
- Walking is how dogs earn food/water and how they learn about the world. Learning comes first from scent, then sight, then sound.
- Walking in front of the dog allows you to be seen as pack leader.
- Walks allow humans and dogs to relate on a primal level
- Big backyards are just big kennels to dogs. They need to go for actual walks.
- Dogs would rather walk than almost anything else. Very primal for dogs to walk.
- Walks give you access to control over any breed
- Dogs are not human and do not have personalities. Dog personalities is something we create for our dogs.
- Treating dogs like they are human is unhealthy for dogs and will leave them unbalanced and uncentered.
- In dog packs, there are no personalities, only one pack leader and the rest are followers. This is what dogs know.
- In order to have a balanced and centered dog, their needs must be met. Meeting dogs needs consists of; Exercise, discipline, and then affection, in that order.
- Exercise allows the dog to work for food/water. Discipline isn’t punishment, it’s controlling the dog’s mind with calm/assertive energy and training. Affection is Love.
- Dogs don’t need constant rewards. A calm submissive dog can go anywhere and behave without constant gratification. How can a blind or deaf person have a perfectly behaved dog but a lawyer or accountant can’t? Answer=Exercise, discipline, then affection. Make them earn the affection
- Humans and dogs both have needs, they are different and both need fulfilled.
- Animal, Dog, Breed need exercise and discipline. Name needs affection.
- Providing exercise and discipline will gain you respect from your dog because you are respecting who they are fulfilling what they need. You are respecting them as a physical and psychological being.
- Exercise = Body, Discipline = Mind, Affection = Heart
- Start your day with calm/assertive energy
- Rules Boundaries & Limitations are important to a dog’s state of mind.
- Dogs will follow the pack leader. They don’t run from him/her.
- Feed dogs when they are calm/submissive. It is good to feed dogs close to each other, but make sure they respect each other’s space and not go after another’s food/water. Rules Boundaries & Limitations need to be respected.
- Stay calm when feeding, don’t create excitement.
Volume Two: Becoming a Pack Leader
- Don’t treat your dog like its a human. Result will be an unstable dog exhibiting undesirable and possible dangerous tendencies.
- Must see dog as dog to become pack leader. This is the first step in correcting bad behavior
- Look at dogs as being
1. Animal
2. Species
3. Breed
4. Name
- Many people have problems when they see their dog as only a name and personality
THREE CASE STUDIES
All three cases are different but share one common theme; none of these owners are their dog’s pack leader. You become your dog’s pack leader using calm assertive energy, strong body language, set rules boundaries limitations, and visualize the outcome you desire
Case #1 Harley the GSD
- Harley has no leadership. When confronted with a decision of FIGHT, FLIGHT, IGNORE, or SUBMIT, he chooses flight and runs away from his owners.
- He barks like crazy and scares everybody
- He pulls hard on his leash and his owners have no control over him. He runs the house!
Case #2 Sadie the Wheaton Terrier
- She runs out the front door away from her owner, completely ignoring her commands.
- Eats left out food and chews owner’s personal items.
- Won’t allow owner to groom.
- No Boundaries!
Case #3 Dixie the Jack Russel Terrier
- Badly behaved on leash.
- Pulls, barks, circles owner, gets aggressive around other dogs, very high energy.
- Impossible to control on walks.
- Doesn’t listen to owner
- Jumps on visitors
Harley: By creating tension on the leash, letting the dog lead the humans, and visualizing negative outcomes, the dog is responding by barking excessively at Cesar when he enters the house. Owner has dog in front with a tight leash, human is uncertain & timid, and dog is leaping and jumping uncontrollably.
Cesar gives avoidance to the dog. This means no look, no talk, no touch. Do not make eye contact with a dog when meeting it for the first time.
Without leadership, the dog might trust you, but it won’t respect you.
Harley displays bad behavior when Cesar comes to the house. To fix this, it stars with approaching the door. Owner needs to be calm & assertive with dog on a loose and short leash right next to or behind handler—dog can’t be in front—that is reserved for the pack leader. Next to is follower, front is leader. If you don’t lead the dog, the dog will lead you.
EXCITEMENT + TERRITORIAL BEHAVIOR = AGGRESSION
Owner should walk towards the door (when visitor is outside waiting) with the dog in a follower position and displaying calm assertive energy and on a loose leash.
Have dog sit at the door, handler opens door, invites person inside, person enters. Meanwhile the dog should remain at the person’s side sitting unless the handler is moving.
Dog can’t be allowed to make a dash for the door to exit or rush the person. We want the dog to think of the door being open as normal. Door Open = Relaxation.
In a pack of dogs, calm assertive energy controls.
It’s important to create a scenario of the dog’s desired behavior in your mind before moving ahead with the actual actions. In other words, visualize your desired outcome.
Your energy and body language are controlling the dog’s mind. Doesn’t matter which breed.
EARS BACK AND HEAD LOW = CALM SUBMISSIVE
Use a short, relaxed leash and dog should move when you move.
You claim your house by allowing someone inside. This shows the dog it is your house and prevents them prom claiming it themselves.
In a pack of wild dogs, the pack leader enforces when they travel, hunt, eat, and rest, including puppies.
Dogs run away from home when not properly exercised or when owner isn’t setting rules boundaries limitations. Followers never run away from the pack or pack leader.
Sadie: Dogs won’t jump on the pack leader. Dogs know you are an authority figure by your energy and body language.
To fix the dog running out the front door you must create a consequence for the action. Keep the dog in a certain space within a room. This is NOT a timeout. You are addressing the dog as the pack leader. Not a harsh punishment, a communication that you are unhappy with her behavior (running away). Running Away = Consequence in Dog’s Mind
Brushing Sadie in front of the door with the door open and not allowing her to dash out creates rules boundaries and limitations and conditions her to have the door open. RBL needs to be set by the pack leader.
Dixie: Goes bananas on leash, Yikes! Constantly hunting, always looking for rabbits, squirrels, pets, etc. Barking at neighborhood dogs.
Owner has negative body language. Hunched shoulders, looking down, and is constantly pulling and correcting leash and shushing dog.
Dog is in total control
Lifting a dog in distress or under stress will only intensify or nurture that behavior.
Need to set rules on walk. Leash should be at the top of the dog’s neck, not at the bottom. This gives you the most control.
When trying to break a dog’s bad behavior, you must first slow the dog’s mind. The bad behavior will take time to disappear. It won’t happen all at once.
Better, not Perfect is the goal but don’t let bad behavior escalate too much, STAY CALM!
When Cesar is walking Dixie through the neighborhood of barking dogs, he gives a correction as soon as the bad behavior starts, stopping it from getting worse.
Fight, Flight, Avoidance, Submission. We are asking Dixie to avoid the neighborhood dogs, instead of fight them (barking at them).
Leash needs to be a positive experience for dog. This is accomplished by controlling the dog’s state of mind while on the leash. Dog must be calm submissive.
Exploring is good. Fine for our dogs to explore by looking or smelling other barking dogs, but don’t allow staring and don’t allow your dog to leave its calm state-of-mind.
Since dogs are natural hunters, they want to chase and hunt. But we don’t want our domesticated dogs to chase squirrels or the neighbor cats so we must redirect the mind to correct the behavior. Small redirect with food, quick snap of leash to redirect mind not to punish, or motion of hand to regain attention. Use your body language and energy to communicate with dog. Yelling is counterproductive as noise creates excitement.
Don’t shout “no” at the dog. It will just continue to excite the dog. Use calm energy. Energy can be your best tool or worst tool. Your dog will respond to the energy you present. Calm assertive energy will being to establish you as the pack leader. Weak or bad energy will never establish you as your dog’s pack leader.
Can’t have tense, fearful, tired, or frustrated energy…Must have calm assertive energy. Never come at dogs with angry, fearful, or frustrated energy, they will never surrender.
Sitting is the first step to surrendering. Most people would then say “good boy” but a pack leader just walks away. Ears back and head down is a sign of submission.
Dixie, turning her back to and ignoring the neighborhood barking dogs, shows them she intends them no harm.
There are four levels of energy in dogs
- Very High—more likely to be dominant
- High
- Medium
- Low—more likely to be a follower, less dominant
Need to have a dog with matching or less energy than owner and other dogs in family. If owner has less energy than the dog, he must make that up through additional exercise and assertiveness. No passive energy, dog will take advantage.
Slumped over body and weak energy shows weakness to dog. Walk like you own the place or imagine you are your favorite super-hero. Walk like bullets are bouncing off your chest. Your dog will begin to respond, but it takes time for the dog to begin to trust. So be the pack leader 100% of the time. Dogs will pick up on your energy, positive or negative.
Don’t reward dog for what they are supposed to do. “Good Boy” is for training and tricks.
Failure is not an option! It can’t be in your mind at all. Visualize your desired outcome. Don’t live in the past (your dog’s past bad behavior).
When dog surrenders, trust can begin to be built and dog will behave better.
You must know in your mind that your dog trusts and respects you.
Affection must be given at the correct time. Affection is also play time, parks, walks, bones, etc. Can give affection for dog being in calm state of mind, but don’t give affection to try to get a dog into a calm state; you are only rewarding the bad behavior you don’t desire.
Don’t give affection when the dog’s mind is excited, it will only intensify the behavior.
- ★Be your dog’s pack leader everyday, 100%
- ★Set Rules Boundaries and Limitations
- ★Project Calm Assertive energy
- ★Begin and end activities as pack leader, very important
- ★Walk for at least 45 minutes every day. Walk in front of your dog.
- ★Feed after exercise, not before
Volume Three: Your New Dog First Day and Beyond
SHELTER
- When adopting a dog from a shelter: It is a mistake to adopt a dog you feel sorry for or one that has the wrong type of energy. Your negativity will breed instability in the dog.
- Be honest with yourself about why you are bringing a new dog home. Replace another dog? Just getting over a bad relationship? Etc
- You must have strong energy at the shelter. The dog will pick up on your weak energy and will quickly become pack leader. Be your best calm assertive energy.
- Before the human can meet the dog, the animal in you must meet the animal in the dog. You must have calm assertive energy, no weakness, no pity, etc.
- Animal, Species (dog & human), Race, Name
- To become pack leader, your animal’s calm assertive energy must make the dog’s animal calm submissive.
- When first meeting dog at kennel: kneel down 90º away from facing the dog in a non-confrontational way. Let the dog meet you through your scent and energy.
- Red Flags are hyperactivity and dominant tendencies.
- You want a dog that is not jumping, anxious, sad, nervous, and with calm submissive energy.
- Panting can be an example of low-level anxiety as can pacing.
- A dog wanting to smell you is a good sign. Demonstrates the dog is interested. Don’t want a dog that avoids you or wants to fight you.
- People often feel sorry for the dog laying in the corner, but that dog is showing avoidance, which is not desirable.
- ➡ When dogs meet for the fist time, it is the human’s responsibility to maintain balance
Yeah, he gets results, which is what matters. What I think of him doesn't really matter at all. That isn't sarcastic, it is true.
Lisa was great, and she is missed by all. Her dogs were the most amazing animals I've ever been around. They literally acted perfectly in all situations, except her little terrier who was so cute she just got away with everything. I was lucky enough to know Feist, who, if you have watched the Ellis videos, was the father to ME's dog Pi. Feist would tug so hard you would feel like your shoulders were going to be ripped out, and then the next minute a puppy would take his ball and he wouldn't even growl. Next he would be holding a pail, going up to people for donations for the local shelter. Just an amazing dog.
Michael is a really, really nice guy. Unlike most dog trainers, he has a really good way with people. I only met him a couple of times, when he and Lisa would trade dogs for something or other, but he is kind of a cool, hippy dude. What is interesting for both of them is that though they are willing to use force with dogs, collar corrections, e collar etc, they are such good trainers that when I knew Lisa, her one year old dog Hottie had never been corrected for anything, and while Lisa did not see her as perfect, or finished, anybody else would have seen her as a dog that needed no additional training.
Here are some Michael Ellis DVD notes as well.
THE POWER OF TRAINING DOGS WITH FOOD
Michael Ellis
TERMINOLOGY
Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Learning—Operant Conditioning governs the associations dog makes with their behaviors and outcomes. They choose to do certain behaviors based on their previous experience with the outcome, cause and effect.
Four quadrants are based on the words; positive, negative, reinforcement, punishment. There is no judgement, positive does not mean good and negative does not mean bad. Positive means we are adding something to the equation, negative means we remove something. Reinforcement means the dog is more likely to perform the behavior in the future, and punishment means they are less likely to perform it in the future.
Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning:
2. Conditional Reinforcer: Using a reward or Primary Reinforcer, the neutral stimuli (conditioned reinforcer) takes on the same meaning as the reward (primary reinforcer). Usually a sound. “YES”!
3. Marker: System that communicates right and wrong to the dog. Marker is synonymous with conditioned reinforcer. Also called a bridge.
4. Engagement: Term for sustained focus motivation. Before training dogs, we want to make sure they pay attention to us. Engagement is a prerequisite for all Michael Ellis training.
5. Luring: Physical tool used to manipulate dogs when teaching new behaviors. A dog following my hand with a piece of food in it. We want the dog putting pressure on our hand when luring.
6. Spatial Pressure: Another physical tool used to manipulate dog’s behavior. Using my body or body part to push or pull dog.
7. Shaping and Successive Approximation: Shaping is simply the creation of a behavior, some behaviors are only one step, while other behaviors require multiple steps taught individually and then brought together at the end for a completed behavior. Each step is called successive approximation.
8. Fading: The elimination of help in our training. As the dog becomes fluent in the behavior we need to begin to eliminate helping signals or rewards. An example is eliminating physical prompts to using only verbal commands.
9. Hunger Drive: A dog’s natural motivation for food and eating. A high hunger-drive makes training easier.
10. Prey Drive: Your dog’s natural desire to chase and grab things with its mouth. We manipulate a dog’s prey drive to teach it how to play or to motivate it. It can be a reward system in our training.
11. Acquisition Based Behaviors: They types of behaviors dogs find reinforcing in trying to acquire a reward, such as searching or chasing.
12. Reinforcer vs Reward: Similar and often used interchangeably.
13. Reward Event: Rewarding the dog in an interactive and exciting way. This rewards the dog’s behavior and also has the benefit of bonding the dog to me and generating more of the dog’s interest in me.
14. Verbal Cue: a verbal command to prompt a dog to do a behavior.
15. Physical Cue: a physical command to prompt a dog to do a behavior.
16. Reinforcement Schedule: How often we reward a dog for a specific behavior. Start out giving dogs rewards on a continuous reinforcement schedule. Over time, we want to transition dogs to a variable/random reinforcement schedule; start giving treats fewer and less often.
17. Arousal: A dog’s excitement level. We manipulate a dog’s level of excitement depending on the type of training. High arousal for certain things, low for others.
18. Overshadowing: When giving a dog multiple commands or input/prompts at the same time, the dog will respond to the more relevant one. If giving a verbal cue and physical cue at the same time, the dog will consider the physical cue more relevant and ignore the verbal cue. Physical prompts overshadow verbal prompts.
19. Motivation: A dog’s desire for an activity or item.
Chapter 2: Marker Training Revisited (21:23)
There is an entire DVD on this entitled, “the power of training dogs with markers”
There are three basic markers:
Holding and Delivering Food Rewards: Hold food between middle finger and pointer finger at the second joint from the bottom. Then use the end of your thumb to support it, then cup your hand like you are trying to hold water.
I want the nose/mouth pushing against my hand before giving the dog the treat. When I want to give the dog the treat, I just roll my thumb away and let the dog have the treat.
Don’t cover food with thumb. Support from the side.
Don’t pinch food.
Don’t want dog trying to get to the food from the side, this is partially why placement is so important.
Chapter 3: Food vs Toy—Why? (33:00)
Chapter 4: Choosing the Right Food (37:40)
PRINCIPLES OF ENGAGEMENT
1. Movement is motivating.
2. Vary duration of rewards. Instead of always giving one piece, vary the number given each time, one, three, five, two, etc. This causes the dog to focus on us longer because the reward could be much greater that just one piece, think economics. Even six pieces is fine. Vary the amount of time it takes to give multiple rewards. If giving five pieces, vary how long it takes to give each one. Sometimes quickly, and sometimes take more time and go slower. This builds focus in the dog. Post-Reinforcement Pause: When the dog looses focus and checks-out after a reward because we are too predictable. But if the dog doesn’t know how many rewards are coming, they are willing to stay focused longer to get a better treat.
3. Don’t chase the dog. Always move away. Moving away brings them towards you. Moving toward them pushes them away.
4. Contrast. Difference between what was happening before the reward event and the reward event itself. The bigger the contrast, the more motivating it is to the dog. Still…YES!
5. Quality of the Reward. Dogs will likely be more engaged if you give them good treats. Crappy Treats = less engaged. Making the dog move to get the reward is also a good thing, more engagement.
ENGAGEMENT IS A PREREQUISITE FOR TEACHING. Don’t try to teach a dog something if you don’t have their attention.
Moving on Yes, instigates a Prey-Drive in dogs which they find motivating and is thus a bigger reward.
Every training session should start with engagement.
If you are moving a lot and the dog is chasing you, then you stop, and the dog also stops with you, be sure to reward this desirable behavior.
CHAPTER 6 LURING (57:00)
CHAPTER 7 SPATIAL PRESSURE (1:05:57)
CHAPTER 8 SHAPING BEHAVIORS (1:09:13)
6. PRE-HEELING (1:38:54)
CHAPTER 9 PUTTING BEHAVIORS ON CUE (1:51:16)
Give new verbal prompt before established physical prompt
1. Verbal
2. Physical
3. Mark and Reward
“Sit”, then lure into position, mark and reward
Start luring slowly, then get quicker with your actions, to make dog learn quicker, and also to sit quicker.
Overshadowing: When dogs are confronted with two commands/inputs/prompts at the same time, they will choose the more relevant.
Tips to Putting Behaviors on Cue
Fading
CHAPTER 10 REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES (2:02:35)
THE POWER OF TRAINING DOGS WITH FOOD
Michael Ellis
TERMINOLOGY
- Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s dog. Bell dings, food gets dispensed, dogs ate. Dogs began to expect the food when they heard the bell and began to salivate.
- The bell (neutral stimuli) needs to occur before the reward. Will not work if the reward and neutral stimuli (bell) occur at the same time. Also won’t work if the neutral stimuli is present while the dog is eating.
- The dog needs to be able to predict what is going to happen.
- After time, the dog’s response to classical conditioning becomes involuntary.
Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Learning—Operant Conditioning governs the associations dog makes with their behaviors and outcomes. They choose to do certain behaviors based on their previous experience with the outcome, cause and effect.
Four quadrants are based on the words; positive, negative, reinforcement, punishment. There is no judgement, positive does not mean good and negative does not mean bad. Positive means we are adding something to the equation, negative means we remove something. Reinforcement means the dog is more likely to perform the behavior in the future, and punishment means they are less likely to perform it in the future.
Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning:
- Positive Reinforcement—Classical give your dog a reward when he sits. The food, the primary reinforcer is being added to the equation. The sitting behavior is more likely to happen in the future.
- Negative Reinforcement—Not a correction. The dog stops something unpleasant from happening with their behavior. Example, the old way of teaching the sit by pulling up on the dog’s collar until they sat is a form of negative reinforcement. The negative part is I remove the pulling on the leash and whatever behavior the dog did to make the unpleasantness stop is more likely to happen again in the future. The dog’s behavior that stops the discomfort is more likely to happen again.
- Positive Punishment—Traditional consequence, example my dog jumps and gets a knee, or my dog jumps on the counter and I yell no. The positive portion is me adding the yelling to the equation and the behavior is less likely to occur in the future.
- Negative Punishment—Withholding something from the dog. Example if I am luring my dog and she jumps, I remove the food. The negative portion is removing the food and the behavior that prompted the removal has been punished and is less likely to happen again in the future.
2. Conditional Reinforcer: Using a reward or Primary Reinforcer, the neutral stimuli (conditioned reinforcer) takes on the same meaning as the reward (primary reinforcer). Usually a sound. “YES”!
3. Marker: System that communicates right and wrong to the dog. Marker is synonymous with conditioned reinforcer. Also called a bridge.
4. Engagement: Term for sustained focus motivation. Before training dogs, we want to make sure they pay attention to us. Engagement is a prerequisite for all Michael Ellis training.
5. Luring: Physical tool used to manipulate dogs when teaching new behaviors. A dog following my hand with a piece of food in it. We want the dog putting pressure on our hand when luring.
6. Spatial Pressure: Another physical tool used to manipulate dog’s behavior. Using my body or body part to push or pull dog.
7. Shaping and Successive Approximation: Shaping is simply the creation of a behavior, some behaviors are only one step, while other behaviors require multiple steps taught individually and then brought together at the end for a completed behavior. Each step is called successive approximation.
8. Fading: The elimination of help in our training. As the dog becomes fluent in the behavior we need to begin to eliminate helping signals or rewards. An example is eliminating physical prompts to using only verbal commands.
9. Hunger Drive: A dog’s natural motivation for food and eating. A high hunger-drive makes training easier.
10. Prey Drive: Your dog’s natural desire to chase and grab things with its mouth. We manipulate a dog’s prey drive to teach it how to play or to motivate it. It can be a reward system in our training.
11. Acquisition Based Behaviors: They types of behaviors dogs find reinforcing in trying to acquire a reward, such as searching or chasing.
12. Reinforcer vs Reward: Similar and often used interchangeably.
13. Reward Event: Rewarding the dog in an interactive and exciting way. This rewards the dog’s behavior and also has the benefit of bonding the dog to me and generating more of the dog’s interest in me.
14. Verbal Cue: a verbal command to prompt a dog to do a behavior.
15. Physical Cue: a physical command to prompt a dog to do a behavior.
16. Reinforcement Schedule: How often we reward a dog for a specific behavior. Start out giving dogs rewards on a continuous reinforcement schedule. Over time, we want to transition dogs to a variable/random reinforcement schedule; start giving treats fewer and less often.
17. Arousal: A dog’s excitement level. We manipulate a dog’s level of excitement depending on the type of training. High arousal for certain things, low for others.
18. Overshadowing: When giving a dog multiple commands or input/prompts at the same time, the dog will respond to the more relevant one. If giving a verbal cue and physical cue at the same time, the dog will consider the physical cue more relevant and ignore the verbal cue. Physical prompts overshadow verbal prompts.
19. Motivation: A dog’s desire for an activity or item.
Chapter 2: Marker Training Revisited (21:23)
There is an entire DVD on this entitled, “the power of training dogs with markers”
There are three basic markers:
- Yes-this releases the dog from the behavior
- Good-dog continues behavior, keep going, keep doing what you are doing.
- No-punishment marker. Remove something. Example, if dog jumps on me, I say “no” and take treats away, he sits, I say “yes” or “good” and reward.
- We are using classical conditioning to condition our dogs to these markers.
- Timing of markers is crucial.
- We use these commands to communicate to dogs when they are right and wrong in teaching phases.
- Chasing the Marker:
- Yes = Dog comes to the reward
- Good = Deliver reward to the dog
- Over time the dog will learn to move when she hears “yes” and continue the behavior when she hears “good”.
Holding and Delivering Food Rewards: Hold food between middle finger and pointer finger at the second joint from the bottom. Then use the end of your thumb to support it, then cup your hand like you are trying to hold water.
I want the nose/mouth pushing against my hand before giving the dog the treat. When I want to give the dog the treat, I just roll my thumb away and let the dog have the treat.
Don’t cover food with thumb. Support from the side.
Don’t pinch food.
Don’t want dog trying to get to the food from the side, this is partially why placement is so important.
Chapter 3: Food vs Toy—Why? (33:00)
- Dogs are easier to manipulate with food than with toys. The repetitions are faster, which means the dog learns faster because she can get in more reps in the same amount of time. Food is less-stimulating which is helpful especially in fine-tuning behaviors. Toys wear-out both the dog and trainer faster which means shorter training sessions and less learning.
- Food allows you to start training at an earlier age, 7-8 weeks. Since pups this young haven’t really learned the rules to play yet, food is a more productive training tool.
- For toys to be effective, the dog must understand the rules of play including letting go and impulse control.
Chapter 4: Choosing the Right Food (37:40)
- Choose something that tastes good, is relatively nutritious, and is size appropriate. Approximately 1/4 - 1/2 inch across is ideal. We want our training to continue moving, so we don’t want anything too big that requires the dog to spend a lot of time chewing.
- There is a hierarchy of treats. They range from low-value to high-value. You cannot go from high-value to low-value and expect the dog to perform with the same enthusiasm or drive, there just isn’t as much incentive. Because of this, it is important to not mix treats. Use one type at a time.
- Engagement: A dog that is focused on you for a sustained period of time and wants something form you. This is a prerequisite for all Michael Ellis training. You cannot teach a dog whose attention you do not have.
- We want to build engagement early on. We care much more about building engagement early on than we do about the dog’s specific behaviors. Engagement first then training.
PRINCIPLES OF ENGAGEMENT
1. Movement is motivating.
2. Vary duration of rewards. Instead of always giving one piece, vary the number given each time, one, three, five, two, etc. This causes the dog to focus on us longer because the reward could be much greater that just one piece, think economics. Even six pieces is fine. Vary the amount of time it takes to give multiple rewards. If giving five pieces, vary how long it takes to give each one. Sometimes quickly, and sometimes take more time and go slower. This builds focus in the dog. Post-Reinforcement Pause: When the dog looses focus and checks-out after a reward because we are too predictable. But if the dog doesn’t know how many rewards are coming, they are willing to stay focused longer to get a better treat.
3. Don’t chase the dog. Always move away. Moving away brings them towards you. Moving toward them pushes them away.
4. Contrast. Difference between what was happening before the reward event and the reward event itself. The bigger the contrast, the more motivating it is to the dog. Still…YES!
5. Quality of the Reward. Dogs will likely be more engaged if you give them good treats. Crappy Treats = less engaged. Making the dog move to get the reward is also a good thing, more engagement.
ENGAGEMENT IS A PREREQUISITE FOR TEACHING. Don’t try to teach a dog something if you don’t have their attention.
Moving on Yes, instigates a Prey-Drive in dogs which they find motivating and is thus a bigger reward.
Every training session should start with engagement.
If you are moving a lot and the dog is chasing you, then you stop, and the dog also stops with you, be sure to reward this desirable behavior.
CHAPTER 6 LURING (57:00)
- Luring is a physical manipulation tool.
- Put food in hand, when dog is pressing against hand, release food, and say “YES”!
- My body movements are important.
- Lure in straight lines, at least initially
- Control the dog’s head. Whatever the nose does, the butt does the opposite.
- Don’t let hands lure dog upwards. Lure in straight lines to make the dog go in a forward motion.
- Reward when the dog is pushing against the hand. We want the dog pushing on our hand.
- We want the dog’s head straight when luring.
- Luring can be used to turn the dog 180º after they start to get the hang of it.
CHAPTER 7 SPATIAL PRESSURE (1:05:57)
- Another physical tool to manipulate movement
- Spatial pressure is using pressure on my dog to make her move; if I push she moves
- Luring and Spatial Pressure may be used together in training
- Hands need to be right in front of nose, too high and the dog will want to sit
- Stay steady, it’s not your hands pushing into the dog, it’s your body pressure and movement pushing into the dog. Legs move, upper-body is more still
- Keep your feet wide so you don’t step on your dogs feet
- Spatial Pressure is used to train the stand and down
CHAPTER 8 SHAPING BEHAVIORS (1:09:13)
- Touch or Foot Targeting: This is teaching the dog to stand on an elevated platform such as a cattle feed bowl.
- Set-out elevated foot-target
- Lure dog onto platform so both feet are on the platform/foot-target
- Mark with “YES” and reward. Release dog and repeat
- Also use the “good” command to keep the dog on the foot-target
- We can also begin to pivot with the dog once they begin to understand the foot-target. Have the dog pivot on the platform as we walk around.
- This is a muscle-memory drill. Pivots are used for focus heeling.
- Platforms are used for many training exercises including the stay
- TO ADD PIVOTS:
- With the dog on the foot target, stand in front of them, and lure their head to either the right or left, swinging the dog’s rear to the side, keeping their bodies mostly straight
- When the dog’s rear correctly moves with the pivot, mark and reward.
- Start off with only one step, then two, three, etc
- Also remember to use varying amounts of treats to keep the dog engaged. See previous notes on engagement, applies to all training
- Hands should be tougher with teats right in front of your body. Arms should be one unit, think putting
- Hands need to be at her height, if it is too high the dog with have a tendency to sit, we want a pivot.
- Go one direction a couple times, then the opposite direction
- Goal is to have the dog’s body remain mostly straight and for their paws to remain on the foot-target while its rear moves.
- This is an unnatural movement for the dog, to move sideways, so it will take some time to teach.
- This pivoting drill can turn into a heeling drill by re-positioning yourself with the dog to your side and walk around the foot-target having the dog “heel” by your side.
- SIT
- Stick the food in front of the dog’s face
- Move away from the dog (lure)
- Lift up and away from the dog with our hands
- When the dog sits, mark (yes) and reward
- Release the dog forward, that’s initially important. This isolates the sitting behavior and makes the dog sit more upright . Rewarding in there sit in place can inadvertently put spatial pressure on the dog, moving her backwards.
- Keep arms extended, at least initially, to lure dog in, move hands up-and-away, dog sits, mark “YES”, and then I release dog forward by moving myself backwards, lower hands, give treat. Repeat
- DOWN (1:23:58)
- Don’t start from the sit position. Initially release dog each time to build motivation.
- Use a combination of luring and spatial pressure
- Use luring with our hands to control the dog’s head and use spatial pressure pushing toward the dog to keep the dog from creeping forward as they learn to down
- Release forward on “YES”. Less motivated dogs need more releases, more motivated dogs can do more stays in place; ie “good”
- If dog’s butt stays up, raise your hands again
- Start by holding food in front of dog’s nose
- Spatial Pressure in on the dog’s nose with your hands, but remember to not press with your hands, the pressure should come from your legs and body, not hands. In on the dog’s nose, then
- Move your hands straight down, but keep them at nose height to end. You don’t want your dog’s head/chin on the ground. Their head should be at a normal height
- Dog lays down
- Mark and Reward
- STAND
- Taught through a combination of luring and spatial pressure
- Start with dog in the sit position
- Push towards dog, the pressure is what makes the dog stand
- Dog stands up
- Mark and reward
- Hands should be right about at the collar, just under the chin, like you are feeding a second mouth right under the real mouth. Right about even with the tops of their shoulders
- You can help the dog stand by tucking the food under their chin, this will cause the nose/head to go down, bringing their butt upwards
- PLACE
- Taught through luring
- It might take a few tries to get dog into the correct position between our legs. Not a natural place for the dog to be, so they need to get used to it. The pup will likely need a few treats to get her all the way around your legs.
- Once in position use a combination of “YES” and “good”
- When releasing, use a lure and release forward
- Start with treats in both hands
- Left hand in front ready to bring pup into final position
- Right hand lures the dog around the right leg, give treat
- Left hand lures pup into position right between your legs, sitting
- Mark and Reward
- Release forward with a lure
6. PRE-HEELING (1:38:54)
- Goal is to teach dog to walk with her head up
- Taught with luring
- Use a wall or barrier to help keep dog in position
- This is a muscle memory drill that prepares the dog for formal heeling
- Keep hand at an appropriate level. If your hand is too high the dog will undesirably jump for it. Dogs should be able to push against your hand at the correct height
- Don’t start walking until dog’s head is in position
- Don’t crowd the dog against the wall, it is only there to act as a guide
- Start with the dog between me and the wall
- Hold a piece of food above the dog’s head
- Dog’s head lift so chin is perpendicular to the ground
- Walk forward, luring dog in this position
- Reward when dog is in the act of walking and following my hand with her head up. Mark “YES” and reward. Reset and repeat
- RECALL (1:44:50)
- Taught using restrained recalls, no luring or spatial pressure used
- Helper holds dog. Handler runs away, getting dog excited, handler calls dog, helper releases dog, dog runs to handler, mark right before dog gets to you, “YES” now dog is right at you, reward
- As dog moves towards us, it is important to back up to absorb the dog’s energy and motion
- Don’t want dog running past you, so back up
- Some dogs are sensitive about a helper holding them
- Helper can restrain dog by either holding their body or using a harness
- Handler brings dog back on leash and exercise is repeated
- STAY-DURATION
- Taught while dog is on the foot target
- Prompt dog onto foot target, “good” reward
- Give the prompt “Stay” or whatever term you choose
- Lean away from dog
- If dog tries to follow, say “no” and place back on foot-target, prompt with “Stay”, lean away from dog
- If dog stays, as we lean away say “good” and go back to dog and reward
- Gradually increase the distance you move away from dog and also the duration
- Finally release with “YES” and reward
- Repeat
- Duration is more important than distance to begin with. The further away you get the more difficult it is to correct, so start with close proximity and go for duration first, then increase the distance once the dog understands what stay is all about. The dog will learn faster this way.
CHAPTER 9 PUTTING BEHAVIORS ON CUE (1:51:16)
Give new verbal prompt before established physical prompt
1. Verbal
2. Physical
3. Mark and Reward
“Sit”, then lure into position, mark and reward
Start luring slowly, then get quicker with your actions, to make dog learn quicker, and also to sit quicker.
Overshadowing: When dogs are confronted with two commands/inputs/prompts at the same time, they will choose the more relevant.
- Don’t give the verbal and physical commands at the same time. If you do this the physical prompt will overshadow the verbal prompt and the dog will only respond to the physical input.
- Verbal first, then physical
- Eventually get rid of the physical prompt so the dog responds to the verbal command alone
- Start slow so the dog can follow, but eventually increase speed
Tips to Putting Behaviors on Cue
- To assist in fading-away the physical prompt, it helps to speed-up and abbreviate our physical commands. Slowly erase them
- We want our physical prompt to be as close to the verbal command as possible with being at the same time. Too much time between the verbal command and the physical help and the dog can’t make the connection.
Fading
- Speed-up and abbreviate physical help/prompts until all you are doing is giving the verbal command
- You can also speed-up and abbreviate physical prompts before introducing verbal commands. This helps fading when verbal prompts are added
- The longer and slower our physical prompts, the more difficult they are to fade
CHAPTER 10 REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES (2:02:35)
- Reinforcement Schedule is how often I reward the dog for a given behavior. Our goal is the gradual reduction of food/treats/rewards in response to desired behavior. We are fading the dog off treats for the behavior. Fewer treats and less often is the direction we want to go.
- Initially we start the dogs out on a continuous reinforcement schedule . However, if we were to one day just stop rewarding on a continuous reinforcement schedule, the dog would pretty quickly stop doing the behavior. So we transition to a variable-reinforcement schedule to maintain the behavior without always having to reward.
- Don’t do too soon, there is a balancing act between CRS and VRS. Too quickly and the dog can loose motivation. Might need to go back and forth a little
- A dog properly transitioned from CRS to VRS will retain the behavior longer than a dog only on CRS
- We want the dog to not know on which repetition she will get the treat.
- A VRS looks something like; reward one, skip one, reward three, skip one, reward two, skip two, reward three, skip two, reward one, skip one, etc or similar.
This is a great book as well
Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training: Karen Pryor: 9780553380392: Amazon.com: Books
Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training [Karen Pryor] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training
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Raising Your Puppy
Michael Ellis
Bringing Your Puppy Home
Equipment
X-Pens:
Setting-up your House:
Have an outside area where dog can be free. Multiple crates and x-pens help a lot. Keep treats and toys everywhere. Put crate somewhere close to a door for potty breaks. Puppy-proof house. No cords or breakable figurines on tables, no poisons, check plants, rocks, etc.
Redirection from bad actions to good activities
If dog picks up and starts chewing on something I don't want, redirect her with a chew toy or something that will get the dog's attention.
So, hold the item you want back, give dog the treat, she releases, I take item, and give dog the treat. Not that thing this thing.
If dog is biting my pant leg or teething my hands. Redirect their energy onto a toy. If dog starts barking at another dog in public, redirect her energy into something else. Ideally, be pre-emptive. if you see a dog coming, channel the dog's energy before she sees the dog, reward the dog for ignoring the dog. Puppies on a harness are more difficult to redirect.
Name Recognition
Say name and feed dog. Say name and feed dog. Fido...feed. Fido...feed, etc. Movement is interesting and motivating to dogs. We can feed a couple times before starting so puppy knows we have food.
After doing this a hundred times or so, take the dog into a distraction free environment and start walking with them. When the pup gets out in front of you or is just not paying attention to you, say her same, hopefully she will whip around and come to you looking for food. Back up quickly and give treat. The quicker my first step, the more contrast there is, the more motivating it is to the dog to come to me.
We want the dog to be a little focused on something else when we call her, if she is already focused on me, the drill is not as strong.
Next, we teach a physical signal. Dogs pay attention to physical signals more than verbal signals. Michael Ellis pokes the dog in the butt as a physical signal to come. The steps are to let the dog get out in front of you, poke their butt, say their name, dog spins around, I back up and feed dog. This way if the dog doesn’t come on the verbal command, you have a backup physical command as well.
From there, start adding distractions. Start with a friend walking their dog on a leash coming towards you, from a pretty far distance. You walk your dog towards them. When your dog sees the other dog, redirect them back into you using the verbal command. If she doesn’t listen, use the butt poke to bring her back.
Some dogs will be harder to redirect, so in real world situations, sometimes we just have to get ourselves out of the situation.
Be pre-emptive, the longer you wait to redirect the harder it becomes.
Self-Reinforcing Behaviors:
Are behaviors that value within itself, it has inherent value. Often these behaviors have a chemical reward in the brain; such as chasing, jumping, chewing, playing rough, barking, etc. These behaviors do not need to be rewarded by us for the dog to maintain them.
Many problems in dogs come from self-reinforcing-behaviors. For example, if your nervous dog gets to the end of their leash and starts barking at strange dogs, this become self-reinforcing. The nervous dog feels better when she barks, and also the embarrassed owner usually takes the dog away from the situation, so the dog is rewarded through barking and they have taken themselves out of the situation they didn’t want to be in.
So over time, they dog learns to deal with anxiety by barking and pulling. We do not want them to do this, so we prevent them from practicing these unwanted behaviors. If a dog starts to get interested in another dog, bring them back in and have them focus on me or something else. If dog is allowed to rehearse this behavior it can be much harder to break her of it than if I just prevented it from the beginning. Use redirections and pay attention to your environment.
If dog is not responding to your redirections, you need to keep the dog out of those situations until you have built enough motivation that you can redirect them.
Drills: See Name Recognition
#1: Say their name and feed it. Don’t have to mark, but can say yes
#2. Walking…say name and feed if dog comes to you
#3. Butt tap
#4. Add Distractions
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s dog. Bell dings, food gets dispensed, dogs ate. Dogs began to expect the food when they heard the bell and began to salivate.
Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Learning—Operant Conditioning governs the associations dog makes with their behaviors and outcomes. They choose to do certain behaviors based on their previous experience with the outcome, this is the cause and effect part of dog-training.
Four quadrants are based on the combination of the words; positive, negative, reinforcement, punishment. There is no judgement, positive does not mean good and negative does not mean bad.
Positive means we are adding something to the equation,
negative means we remove something.
Reinforcement means the dog is more likely to perform the behavior in the future, and punishment means they are less likely to perform it in the future.
Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning:
Holding and Delivering Food Rewards:
Hold food between middle finger and pointer finger at the second joint from the bottom. Then use the end of your thumb to support it, then cup your hand like you are trying to hold water.
I want the nose/mouth pushing against my hand before giving the dog the treat. When I want to give the dog the treat, I just roll my thumb away and let the dog have the treat.
Don’t cover food with thumb. Support from the side.
Don’t pinch food.
Don’t want dog trying to get to the food from the side, this is partially why placement is so important.
Communication System (2:58:30)
There is an entire DVD on this entitled, “the power of training dogs with markers”
There are three basic markers we use in classical conditioning: We are wanting to communicate to the dog when they are correct and when they are wrong.
Yes and Good should be trained in separate training sessions.
Engagement Game that trains the markers:
Good is done the same way, but trainer does not take a step away, trainer stays in place and continues to feed the dog; “good” then feed.
Your markers should sound different than the way you would say them in everyday conversation.
A clicker also works, but takes up a hand that is sometimes needed for other things, your voice doesn’t need to be carried or held. They have advantages such as always having the exact same sound; this is nice in case you are frustrated or angry, those emotions won’t come through in a clicker like they will from your voice.
Verbal markers need to sound the same each time, an angry “yes” sounds different than a happy “yes”. Our marker sounds need to have a special sound, one different than everyday speech.
With puppies, we can’t force this training. We have to adapt to their bio-rhythms and train when they have energy. Puppies 8-9 weeks old or so, will have peaks of highs and lows.
Chewing, biting, pulling behaviors 4-6 months
Small amounts of encouraging prey-based behavior during critical periods makes it much easier to play with the dog later on. If you neglect it, it is much more difficult.
Puppy Mouthing
...is normal. Don't discourage, instead redirect into something they can chew. Discouraging this behavior can have adverse affects later on when trying to teach the dog a skill that require the behavior you discouraged...bite work, retrieving, etc.
Teething 4-6 months
During teething, stop all tug behaviors and play. They can still play with tug toys, just don't pull. Dogs teeth can be very sensitive and we don't want to risk them having a bad experience. Bad experiences can damage motivation.
Puppy Games:
Recall Game with Treats: Throw a treat, dog goes after it, then we hold another treat and call the dog back, dog gets treat. Straight out and straight back to me.
Back up when dog is coming at you, incorporates chase and makes it easier for you to feed treat.
Grass doesn't work, must be a surface the dog can easily see the treat. This is not a scent-tracking game.
This game helps when training the retrieve for balls, toys, etc.
2nd Game: Food Chase--instead of throwing food, we run with the food in our hand. With food in our hand, we run away from the dog, our hand at the height of their nose. When they get to us, dog touches our hand and gets reward.
Then move in the other direction and repeat. This creates more interaction between us and the dog, which is engagement. It's important to move in a straight line, this allows the dog to trust in you, where the target is going to be, this makes it easier for your dog to predict where toys will be later on and will avoid bites.
Keep treats in both hands and have a treat pouch on you for fast reloads. Slightly larger pieces of food work better than smaller ones, but we don't want them so big it interferes with the flow of the game.
Food Throw Game
Engage puppy with a treat. Throw a treat out in front of the puppy, puppy goes and gets the treat, we start moving away from the pup and also simultaneously start calling for her with another treat in our hand, dog touches hand, dog gets treat. Repeat.
Food Chase Game
Always move in a straight predictable line for the dog. With treats in both hands and more on reserve, hold treat in one hand and hold hand like a runner ready to accept a baton, keep hand at dog's head height, run away from dog, dog touches hand, dog gets treat. Run in other direction in a straight line and repeat.
Teaching your dog to play is a process
Toy-based training doesn't start until dog is 9-12 months old. The dog needs to understand all the rules first before you can use toys formally.
Little puppies would have their play-drive destroyed if they were forced to learn all the rules right away.
With puppies, there are no rules, you can chase it, bite it, tug, yay you win! We want to encourage play impulses in puppies through games and play. We first create good play behavior then begin to add the rules over time.
Toy Play
Why Play? Play can be a reinforcement for behavior. It also exercises our dogs in an interactive way that builds our relationship with the dog. Also, we can teach the dog to listen to us in a highly-aroused state. Often dogs will listen when calm, but not when aroused. This helps.
Tug Play
Why would a dog want to bring something back if we are going to take it form her? Playing tug creates value. We can back-chain retrieving behavior using the reward of tugging. The dog likes to tug, so she wants to bring stuff back so she can play tug.
The younger the puppy the softer and easier to bite the item will have to be. Start tug-play with young puppies with a rag, fleece toy, car shami, etc. Its a good idea to put the toy on a string so the puppy doesn't go after your hand. Strings allow you to stay still while moving the toy. Puppies often focus on what is moving. We can also use the string to keep a little tension in the toy. You can simulate a live animal, move it, let it go still, move a little, etc. Some dogs will prefer tug or retrieving better, some like both.
Crate Game:
As the puppy gets better with this game, you can leave her in the crate longer and longer by tossing in more treats. Eventually start closing the door. Feed puppy when she is in the crate to promote the crate as a positive place. Let the pup settle-in and get comfortable before letting her out.
Puppies can chew on pig's ears, bully sticks, marrow bones, etc. Feed puppy a lot while in crate. Short durations, like 5 minutes at a time and then build on that. A little whining is ok, but a major tantrum is not helping and the dog should be let out. In this case you need to go wear-out the pup and start crate-training again. Different people should feed dog and let it out of the crate. DON'T just throw dog in the crate and wait the three or so days until the dog stops whining. The dog might stop whining but it won't be a place of peace for him, so introduce slowly and monitor. Make the crate a positive place for the dog.
Always take puppy out to go potty immediately after leaving crate, every time!
Introducing Puppy to other dogs:
Don’t allow dogs to run loose together in the home. Inside is for relaxation. Outside is for play and stimulation.
Upon introduction pay attention to the older dog’s body language, how is she responding? Adjust pup’s behavior based on how the older dog responds, If the older dog is stiff and uncomfortable, then the puppy needs to leave its space.
We want the dog to spend more time with us than the other dogs in the household. This insure they bond with us and prevents them from spending too much time with other dogs and picking up any of their bad behaviors.
Arousal Zones: (41:00)
Dog Food vs Training Treats:
Treats should be a reward, so there needs to be a contrast between the food the dog eats the the treats they are rewarded with. The treats need to taste better and be of a higher-value to the dog if we are to keep them interested. Dogs are less-likely to work for food if they are already getting it as a regular part of their normal diet.
Management is all the things you do with our dog to live with them while they’re being trained and how we institute manners without damaging the dog’s motivation. We are setting ourselves up for success.
Engagement:
Pre-teething puppies use food for engagement. Pup needs to be hungry to want treats. If pup isn’t interested in what you’re giving her, use something better.
Always have treats on you and reward your pup every time she comes to you. Never call your puppy unless you are sure they will come, otherwise you teach them it is ok to ignore the recall command. See Training the Recall DVD for more information.
Early stages of engagement should be done in a distraction-free environment.
Use contrast of movement to promote interest, but always move away. Dogs are intrigued by stuff happening, so if I stand still, then make a dramatic quick first step, the pup will be more likely to follow. If pup goes off to sniff, don’t run after it, get the pup to come to you. Otherwise, the pup will begin to think you are chasing them.
Initially we move to get the pup’s attention to making the dog make us move as part of the reward.
As the dog begins to focus on us more, and begins to look up at me, I mark yes, and then move and have puppy follow. Pup will become more engaged on me.
Handing a piece of food to a dog is less motivating than standing there saying yes and making a quick step and then rewarding. Just be sure to mark and reward when dog focuses on you, mark and move.
The reward event should be erratic, not predictable. Predictability kills focus with dogs. We want the dog to not know when the reward event is over.
If struggling with engagement, map out your puppies energy levels, often first thing in the morning and night pups have high levels of energy. Often afternoon is not a good time. Manage your dogs energy level regarding play and exercise. The more energy and hungrier the pup is the more they will respond to food and engagement drills. Training journal helps here.
Restrained Recalls:
First step in recall progression. This is how to teach the pup to come to their name. Restraint builds frustration. Frustration builds motivation to get to the handler. RR are a good way to start a training session with a puppy.
With young puppies start by just holding the front of their body for restrained recalls, but eventually we want to use harnesses. Don’t leave harnesses on dogs unattended.
In order to habituate the puppy to the harness, we should be doing food work while it is on, otherwise they will be too pre-occupied with the harness to do restrained recalls without habituation
Start by putting harness on dog and doing food work. Then progress to adding a leash and let the pup pull the leash around. We want to do RR with a harness and a leash attached.
It is a good idea to incorporate a few restrained recalls into an engagement session. Make sure pup is familiar with person holding her. Can use food treats to familiarize pup to a new person. Give pup treats when person holds them or start with simple touching.
When assistant is approaching the puppy to hold her, handler should be giving dogs treats to keep pup’s focus. Handler should dog’s attention as assistant approaches. Assistant should touch the pup, then handler rewards, touch…reward a couple times before assistant actually holds pup.
Keep feeding as assistant is holding. We don’t want the dog to become weird about someone holding her.
As soon as assistant is holding pup, handler backs up…calls for dog…assistant releases puppy…handler continues backing up as dog approaches…moving backwards, the handler marks yes and rewards…assistant comes to dog and handler.
We don’t want the pup and handler to have to move back to the assistant. Since we are practicing engagement at the end of a RR, we want the pup to stay focused on us, not on running back to the assistant.
Then when the dog is used to RR’s, we can pick up the leash and put tension it. Pull backwards lightly, and hold a treat in front of the dog’s face, make them pull their way into the treat. We wan the dog to know it is ok to pull on the harness. We are basically luring the dog. Mark yes and reward.
If puppy begins to spin as assistant is holding, the assistant can let the pup inch forward.
Call-Aways:
You can increase the difficulty by the assistant not closing hand and after teething, adding toys.
Corrections: Dog needs to clearly understand why they are being punished and also need to clearly understand how to shut-off the correction with their behavior. The pup needs to have control over the correction. This will actually create less stress for the dog. Most aversive can be prevented through better preparation and planning. Puppies should redirected most of the time, too many corrections will damage our relationship and will create an unbalanced, fearful dog.
Michael Ellis
- Treat your dog like she is the greatest dog ever!
- The most successful dogs start training early in life. The more you put in the more you get out.
- Genetics matters about 30% and training matters about 70%. Genetics matter but the dog’s potential can only be truly brought-out through training.
- Planning is a huge part of success. Seek out distraction-free zones to train the dog. Each dog will have their own threshold of distractions. Some puppies will be distracted by everything like leaves, the winds, etc. Others won’t be distracted by much at all.
- Don’t force puppies, you will cause them to “turn-off”. We want puppies to love training.
- Each puppy has her own timeline of progression. Don’t make comparisons. If things aren’t going well, it is ok to stop and come back later. We want to set our dogs up to succeed.
- Use the puppies natural energies at each time of the day to plan your training sessions. Best to train the crate when the pup is naturally tired opposed to when she is naturally wired. Active sessions should be when the pup is naturally more energized.
- 3/4 of your life, lol, is spent redirecting and managing puppies.
Bringing Your Puppy Home
- Bringing your puppy home starts before you get the dog. The dog will need areas of inclusion, isolation, crates, chews, toys, leashes, collars & harnesses. You will need to puppy-proof the house by removing breakables and tip-able items from tables and displays, remove cables and wires, remove poisons including plants.
- You will need to decide where the puppy will go potty.
- Did the breeder begin crate-training?
- No formal training for the first week or so. This includes but is not limited to foot-markers, luring, and marker training (yes, no, good).
- We want the puppy to spend that first week adjusting to their new home and new parents and form a bond with us.
- We should spend this time doing relationship building exercises like letting them eat from our hands.
- Contact with other dogs should be limited in this time and x-pens should be utilized to create separation between the dogs to keep them out of trouble but still allow socialization.
- Read the puppy during this time, get to know her, and let her get to know you.
- Within the first couple days of bringing pup home, start taking her on field-trips. Take her many different places. Talk with your vet first though about appropriate places to take your pup as she won’t be fully vaccinated for a while.
- Also start habituating them to their equipment such as harness, collar, and leash. Leashes should be lightweight and not have a loop at the end—loops get caught on things and hang-up the pup. Let pup drag the leash around, attached to both the harness and collar, though obviously at different times.
- Keep a training journal with information like:
- Goals for this session?
- What behaviors or skills are needed for that?
- What do you expect to do in this session?
- What actually happened?
- How long was the training session?
- Look for patterns or useful information
- Help in not over-training
- Also keep socialization trips, likes & dislikes, and any other pertinent information in the journal.
- Start teaching yes good no after the pup has been home 2-3 weeks.
Equipment
X-Pens:
- allow dogs to move around and have some freedom without getting into trouble, it teaches them to relax around us, allows us to live our lives doing laundry or cooking dinner, prevents them from going-after older or other dogs in the house, and allows them to be a part of the family-setting.
- ALWAYS SUPERVISE YOUR PUPPY IN AN X-PEN. They can get their paws or jaws caught and can cause permanent damage to the dog. Just google it if you don’t believe.
- A raised bed can be placed in an x-pen
- X-pens should be looked at as chill-out zones
- Upon introduction use treats to coax the puppy into the x-pen and keep feeding. It is best if the pup is already a little tired.
- If dog jumps against the walls, poke in the butt gently to coax down.
- allow dogs to move around and have some freedom without getting into trouble, it teaches them to relax around us, allows us to live our lives doing laundry or cooking dinner, prevents them from going-after older or other dogs in the house, and allows them to be a part of the family-setting.
- Crates: Plastic is good for housebreaking, they are easy to clean if pup has an accident. Plastic creates a more isolated environment than wire crates. WIRE CRATES REQUIRE SUPERVISION so the pup doesn’t get her paws or jaws caught.
- Leashes without loops allow pups to drag them and become habituated without the risk of them getting caught on items.
- Other items to get are;
- long line leashes
- harnesses
- flat collar
- slip collar
- training treats & pouches
- foot targets both elevated and flat for advanced training
- Soft tug toys for puppy
- Rubber balls-you can put a hole through them and add string
- Self entertainment toys
- Treat-dispensing ball
- Experiment with other toys
- Used for when dog is left alone
- Kong toys
- Kuranada Beds should be used initially without bedding so the pup doesn’t chew it. Once the puppy understands the bed, you can add bedding.
Setting-up your House:
Have an outside area where dog can be free. Multiple crates and x-pens help a lot. Keep treats and toys everywhere. Put crate somewhere close to a door for potty breaks. Puppy-proof house. No cords or breakable figurines on tables, no poisons, check plants, rocks, etc.
- Be able to get puppy outside quickly for potty breaks. Position crates, beds, etc accordingly.
- One crate should be placed in a convenient place such as a TV room.
- A second crate in a quiet place is ideal for teaching the puppy isolation.
Redirection from bad actions to good activities
If dog picks up and starts chewing on something I don't want, redirect her with a chew toy or something that will get the dog's attention.
So, hold the item you want back, give dog the treat, she releases, I take item, and give dog the treat. Not that thing this thing.
If dog is biting my pant leg or teething my hands. Redirect their energy onto a toy. If dog starts barking at another dog in public, redirect her energy into something else. Ideally, be pre-emptive. if you see a dog coming, channel the dog's energy before she sees the dog, reward the dog for ignoring the dog. Puppies on a harness are more difficult to redirect.
Name Recognition
Say name and feed dog. Say name and feed dog. Fido...feed. Fido...feed, etc. Movement is interesting and motivating to dogs. We can feed a couple times before starting so puppy knows we have food.
After doing this a hundred times or so, take the dog into a distraction free environment and start walking with them. When the pup gets out in front of you or is just not paying attention to you, say her same, hopefully she will whip around and come to you looking for food. Back up quickly and give treat. The quicker my first step, the more contrast there is, the more motivating it is to the dog to come to me.
We want the dog to be a little focused on something else when we call her, if she is already focused on me, the drill is not as strong.
Next, we teach a physical signal. Dogs pay attention to physical signals more than verbal signals. Michael Ellis pokes the dog in the butt as a physical signal to come. The steps are to let the dog get out in front of you, poke their butt, say their name, dog spins around, I back up and feed dog. This way if the dog doesn’t come on the verbal command, you have a backup physical command as well.
From there, start adding distractions. Start with a friend walking their dog on a leash coming towards you, from a pretty far distance. You walk your dog towards them. When your dog sees the other dog, redirect them back into you using the verbal command. If she doesn’t listen, use the butt poke to bring her back.
Some dogs will be harder to redirect, so in real world situations, sometimes we just have to get ourselves out of the situation.
Be pre-emptive, the longer you wait to redirect the harder it becomes.
Self-Reinforcing Behaviors:
Are behaviors that value within itself, it has inherent value. Often these behaviors have a chemical reward in the brain; such as chasing, jumping, chewing, playing rough, barking, etc. These behaviors do not need to be rewarded by us for the dog to maintain them.
Many problems in dogs come from self-reinforcing-behaviors. For example, if your nervous dog gets to the end of their leash and starts barking at strange dogs, this become self-reinforcing. The nervous dog feels better when she barks, and also the embarrassed owner usually takes the dog away from the situation, so the dog is rewarded through barking and they have taken themselves out of the situation they didn’t want to be in.
So over time, they dog learns to deal with anxiety by barking and pulling. We do not want them to do this, so we prevent them from practicing these unwanted behaviors. If a dog starts to get interested in another dog, bring them back in and have them focus on me or something else. If dog is allowed to rehearse this behavior it can be much harder to break her of it than if I just prevented it from the beginning. Use redirections and pay attention to your environment.
If dog is not responding to your redirections, you need to keep the dog out of those situations until you have built enough motivation that you can redirect them.
Drills: See Name Recognition
#1: Say their name and feed it. Don’t have to mark, but can say yes
#2. Walking…say name and feed if dog comes to you
#3. Butt tap
#4. Add Distractions
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s dog. Bell dings, food gets dispensed, dogs ate. Dogs began to expect the food when they heard the bell and began to salivate.
- The bell (neutral stimuli) needs to occur before the reward. Will not work if the reward and neutral stimuli (bell) occur at the same time. Also won’t work if the neutral stimuli is present while the dog is eating.
- The dog needs to be able to predict what is going to happen.
- After time, the dog’s internal response to classical conditioning becomes involuntary. It is not a choice, but an involuntary response.
Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Learning—Operant Conditioning governs the associations dog makes with their behaviors and outcomes. They choose to do certain behaviors based on their previous experience with the outcome, this is the cause and effect part of dog-training.
Four quadrants are based on the combination of the words; positive, negative, reinforcement, punishment. There is no judgement, positive does not mean good and negative does not mean bad.
Positive means we are adding something to the equation,
negative means we remove something.
Reinforcement means the dog is more likely to perform the behavior in the future, and punishment means they are less likely to perform it in the future.
Four Quadrants of Operant Conditioning:
- Positive Reinforcement—Classical give your dog a reward when he sits. The food, the primary reinforcer is being added to the equation. The sitting behavior is more likely to happen in the future.
- Negative Reinforcement—Not a correction. The dog stops something unpleasant from happening with their behavior. Example, the old way of teaching the sit by pulling up on the dog’s collar until they sat is a form of negative reinforcement. The negative part is I remove the pulling on the leash and whatever behavior the dog did to make the unpleasantness stop is more likely to happen again in the future. The dog’s behavior that stops the discomfort is more likely to happen again.
- Positive Punishment—Traditional consequence, example my dog jumps and gets a knee, or my dog jumps on the counter and I yell no. The positive portion is me adding the yelling to the equation and the behavior is less likely to occur in the future.
- Negative Punishment—Withholding something from the dog. Example if I am luring my dog and she jumps, I remove the food. The negative portion is removing the food and the behavior that prompted the removal has been punished and is less likely to happen again in the future.
Holding and Delivering Food Rewards:
Hold food between middle finger and pointer finger at the second joint from the bottom. Then use the end of your thumb to support it, then cup your hand like you are trying to hold water.
I want the nose/mouth pushing against my hand before giving the dog the treat. When I want to give the dog the treat, I just roll my thumb away and let the dog have the treat.
Don’t cover food with thumb. Support from the side.
Don’t pinch food.
Don’t want dog trying to get to the food from the side, this is partially why placement is so important.
Communication System (2:58:30)
There is an entire DVD on this entitled, “the power of training dogs with markers”
There are three basic markers we use in classical conditioning: We are wanting to communicate to the dog when they are correct and when they are wrong.
- Yes-this releases the dog from the behavior
- Good-dog continues behavior, keep going, keep doing what you are doing.
- No-punishment marker. Remove something. Example, if dog jumps on me, I say “no” and take treats away, he sits, I say “yes” or “good” and reward.
Yes and Good should be trained in separate training sessions.
- We are using classical conditioning to condition our dogs to these markers.
- Timing of markers is crucial.
- We use these commands to communicate to dogs when they are right and wrong in teaching phases.
- Chasing the Marker:
- Yes = Dog comes to the reward
- Good = Deliver reward to the dog
- Over time the dog will learn to move when she hears “yes” and continue the behavior when she hears “good”.
Engagement Game that trains the markers:
- Get puppy taking food from your hand
- Say “yes” and take a take away from the puppy so she follows you, give treat
- Repeat
Good is done the same way, but trainer does not take a step away, trainer stays in place and continues to feed the dog; “good” then feed.
Your markers should sound different than the way you would say them in everyday conversation.
A clicker also works, but takes up a hand that is sometimes needed for other things, your voice doesn’t need to be carried or held. They have advantages such as always having the exact same sound; this is nice in case you are frustrated or angry, those emotions won’t come through in a clicker like they will from your voice.
Verbal markers need to sound the same each time, an angry “yes” sounds different than a happy “yes”. Our marker sounds need to have a special sound, one different than everyday speech.
With puppies, we can’t force this training. We have to adapt to their bio-rhythms and train when they have energy. Puppies 8-9 weeks old or so, will have peaks of highs and lows.
Chewing, biting, pulling behaviors 4-6 months
Small amounts of encouraging prey-based behavior during critical periods makes it much easier to play with the dog later on. If you neglect it, it is much more difficult.
Puppy Mouthing
...is normal. Don't discourage, instead redirect into something they can chew. Discouraging this behavior can have adverse affects later on when trying to teach the dog a skill that require the behavior you discouraged...bite work, retrieving, etc.
Teething 4-6 months
During teething, stop all tug behaviors and play. They can still play with tug toys, just don't pull. Dogs teeth can be very sensitive and we don't want to risk them having a bad experience. Bad experiences can damage motivation.
Puppy Games:
Recall Game with Treats: Throw a treat, dog goes after it, then we hold another treat and call the dog back, dog gets treat. Straight out and straight back to me.
Back up when dog is coming at you, incorporates chase and makes it easier for you to feed treat.
Grass doesn't work, must be a surface the dog can easily see the treat. This is not a scent-tracking game.
This game helps when training the retrieve for balls, toys, etc.
2nd Game: Food Chase--instead of throwing food, we run with the food in our hand. With food in our hand, we run away from the dog, our hand at the height of their nose. When they get to us, dog touches our hand and gets reward.
Then move in the other direction and repeat. This creates more interaction between us and the dog, which is engagement. It's important to move in a straight line, this allows the dog to trust in you, where the target is going to be, this makes it easier for your dog to predict where toys will be later on and will avoid bites.
Keep treats in both hands and have a treat pouch on you for fast reloads. Slightly larger pieces of food work better than smaller ones, but we don't want them so big it interferes with the flow of the game.
Food Throw Game
Engage puppy with a treat. Throw a treat out in front of the puppy, puppy goes and gets the treat, we start moving away from the pup and also simultaneously start calling for her with another treat in our hand, dog touches hand, dog gets treat. Repeat.
Food Chase Game
Always move in a straight predictable line for the dog. With treats in both hands and more on reserve, hold treat in one hand and hold hand like a runner ready to accept a baton, keep hand at dog's head height, run away from dog, dog touches hand, dog gets treat. Run in other direction in a straight line and repeat.
Teaching your dog to play is a process
Toy-based training doesn't start until dog is 9-12 months old. The dog needs to understand all the rules first before you can use toys formally.
Little puppies would have their play-drive destroyed if they were forced to learn all the rules right away.
With puppies, there are no rules, you can chase it, bite it, tug, yay you win! We want to encourage play impulses in puppies through games and play. We first create good play behavior then begin to add the rules over time.
Toy Play
Why Play? Play can be a reinforcement for behavior. It also exercises our dogs in an interactive way that builds our relationship with the dog. Also, we can teach the dog to listen to us in a highly-aroused state. Often dogs will listen when calm, but not when aroused. This helps.
Tug Play
Why would a dog want to bring something back if we are going to take it form her? Playing tug creates value. We can back-chain retrieving behavior using the reward of tugging. The dog likes to tug, so she wants to bring stuff back so she can play tug.
The younger the puppy the softer and easier to bite the item will have to be. Start tug-play with young puppies with a rag, fleece toy, car shami, etc. Its a good idea to put the toy on a string so the puppy doesn't go after your hand. Strings allow you to stay still while moving the toy. Puppies often focus on what is moving. We can also use the string to keep a little tension in the toy. You can simulate a live animal, move it, let it go still, move a little, etc. Some dogs will prefer tug or retrieving better, some like both.
Crate Game:
- Don’t leave any equipment such as a harness or collar on a dog when they are left alone in the crate. They can chew it off or injure themselves if the harness gets stuck on something.
- Crate Game #1: Throw treat into crate and let the pup go in and eat it. As the pup gets more comfortable with this game, you can begin restraining the pup a little in order to build motivation, then you can finally add a verbal command to get the pup to go into the crate.
- Hold dog back while she is facing the entrance to the crate
- Say the command
- Let go of dog
- Dog goes in and eats food
- Additional Step: When dog comes out of crate towards us, feed with one hand and with the other hand toss a treat into the kennel without the dog seeing. This way the dog doesn’t rely on you, the treats are already in the crate.
As the puppy gets better with this game, you can leave her in the crate longer and longer by tossing in more treats. Eventually start closing the door. Feed puppy when she is in the crate to promote the crate as a positive place. Let the pup settle-in and get comfortable before letting her out.
Puppies can chew on pig's ears, bully sticks, marrow bones, etc. Feed puppy a lot while in crate. Short durations, like 5 minutes at a time and then build on that. A little whining is ok, but a major tantrum is not helping and the dog should be let out. In this case you need to go wear-out the pup and start crate-training again. Different people should feed dog and let it out of the crate. DON'T just throw dog in the crate and wait the three or so days until the dog stops whining. The dog might stop whining but it won't be a place of peace for him, so introduce slowly and monitor. Make the crate a positive place for the dog.
Always take puppy out to go potty immediately after leaving crate, every time!
Introducing Puppy to other dogs:
Don’t allow dogs to run loose together in the home. Inside is for relaxation. Outside is for play and stimulation.
- Take both dogs on a walk away from the house on neutral territory.
- Let dogs walk alongside each other on leashes (pup using a harness) but don’t let them touch each other.
- Keep walking until they loose interest in each other.
- Then you can introduce them to each other
Upon introduction pay attention to the older dog’s body language, how is she responding? Adjust pup’s behavior based on how the older dog responds, If the older dog is stiff and uncomfortable, then the puppy needs to leave its space.
- Dogs need to meet in a neutral environment. Don't bring puppy into house to meet old dog. Ideally they should meet off property.
- Don't let dogs meet face-to-face or touching initially.
- When they do meet, read each dog’s body language.
- When loose and playing together outside make sure older dog isn't overwhelming younger dog and also that the younger dog isn't pestering the older dog, forcing a correction.
- No toys or anything one dog can guard on initial meeting.
- Older and younger dogs might need to be separated inside.
- Protected Contact: When two dogs can see and contact each other but have a protective barrier between them such as an x-pen. Puppy can be in pen and older dog out freely walking by or older dog can be in x-pen and you can practice walking the puppy alongside the older dog.
We want the dog to spend more time with us than the other dogs in the household. This insure they bond with us and prevents them from spending too much time with other dogs and picking up any of their bad behaviors.
Arousal Zones: (41:00)
- We want to compartmentalize energy and have areas of high and low energy output.
- The house is a low-energy output-zone.
- Outside is where we play, inside is where we relax.
- There should be no interactive play between dogs inside the house.
- Dogs shouldn't be allowed to play together inside or it will become a high arousal zone.
- Play happens outside. This is setting the stage for an on/off switch.
- We also want the puppy to bond with us more than the older dog, so the pup needs to spend one-on-one time with me.
Dog Food vs Training Treats:
Treats should be a reward, so there needs to be a contrast between the food the dog eats the the treats they are rewarded with. The treats need to taste better and be of a higher-value to the dog if we are to keep them interested. Dogs are less-likely to work for food if they are already getting it as a regular part of their normal diet.
- The treats should be a size that allows the dog to eat them easily and quickly. If they are too big, the dog takes too much time eating them and it interrupts the training flow.
- Happy Howie’s or Red Barn Training Rolls are great and can quickly be chopped into usable sizes using an onion chopper.
- Keep treats stashed all over the house for easy access. The more consistent you can be with your dog the quicker she will learn.
Management is all the things you do with our dog to live with them while they’re being trained and how we institute manners without damaging the dog’s motivation. We are setting ourselves up for success.
- If I am not directly interacting with the puppy she is in her crate with appropriate chew toys such as pig’s ears, bully sticks, marrow bones etc.
- Crate, even if leaving the room for 30 seconds. By not allowing the pup to get into trouble, you are setting her up for success.
- Pups can be loose as long as I am supervising.
Engagement:
Pre-teething puppies use food for engagement. Pup needs to be hungry to want treats. If pup isn’t interested in what you’re giving her, use something better.
Always have treats on you and reward your pup every time she comes to you. Never call your puppy unless you are sure they will come, otherwise you teach them it is ok to ignore the recall command. See Training the Recall DVD for more information.
Early stages of engagement should be done in a distraction-free environment.
Use contrast of movement to promote interest, but always move away. Dogs are intrigued by stuff happening, so if I stand still, then make a dramatic quick first step, the pup will be more likely to follow. If pup goes off to sniff, don’t run after it, get the pup to come to you. Otherwise, the pup will begin to think you are chasing them.
Initially we move to get the pup’s attention to making the dog make us move as part of the reward.
As the dog begins to focus on us more, and begins to look up at me, I mark yes, and then move and have puppy follow. Pup will become more engaged on me.
Handing a piece of food to a dog is less motivating than standing there saying yes and making a quick step and then rewarding. Just be sure to mark and reward when dog focuses on you, mark and move.
The reward event should be erratic, not predictable. Predictability kills focus with dogs. We want the dog to not know when the reward event is over.
If struggling with engagement, map out your puppies energy levels, often first thing in the morning and night pups have high levels of energy. Often afternoon is not a good time. Manage your dogs energy level regarding play and exercise. The more energy and hungrier the pup is the more they will respond to food and engagement drills. Training journal helps here.
Restrained Recalls:
First step in recall progression. This is how to teach the pup to come to their name. Restraint builds frustration. Frustration builds motivation to get to the handler. RR are a good way to start a training session with a puppy.
With young puppies start by just holding the front of their body for restrained recalls, but eventually we want to use harnesses. Don’t leave harnesses on dogs unattended.
In order to habituate the puppy to the harness, we should be doing food work while it is on, otherwise they will be too pre-occupied with the harness to do restrained recalls without habituation
Start by putting harness on dog and doing food work. Then progress to adding a leash and let the pup pull the leash around. We want to do RR with a harness and a leash attached.
It is a good idea to incorporate a few restrained recalls into an engagement session. Make sure pup is familiar with person holding her. Can use food treats to familiarize pup to a new person. Give pup treats when person holds them or start with simple touching.
When assistant is approaching the puppy to hold her, handler should be giving dogs treats to keep pup’s focus. Handler should dog’s attention as assistant approaches. Assistant should touch the pup, then handler rewards, touch…reward a couple times before assistant actually holds pup.
Keep feeding as assistant is holding. We don’t want the dog to become weird about someone holding her.
As soon as assistant is holding pup, handler backs up…calls for dog…assistant releases puppy…handler continues backing up as dog approaches…moving backwards, the handler marks yes and rewards…assistant comes to dog and handler.
We don’t want the pup and handler to have to move back to the assistant. Since we are practicing engagement at the end of a RR, we want the pup to stay focused on us, not on running back to the assistant.
- Have assistant hold pup,
- I run away,
- Call dog—this is where we add a verbal command
- Assistant releases,
- Dog runs to me,
- I mark yes and reward event
- Assistant comes to dog and handler and repeats or handler continues with engagement work.
Then when the dog is used to RR’s, we can pick up the leash and put tension it. Pull backwards lightly, and hold a treat in front of the dog’s face, make them pull their way into the treat. We wan the dog to know it is ok to pull on the harness. We are basically luring the dog. Mark yes and reward.
If puppy begins to spin as assistant is holding, the assistant can let the pup inch forward.
Call-Aways:
- An assistant lures the puppy away from the handler with a closed hand, does not give pup any food
- Handler moves in opposite direction and calls puppy away from assistant and treat
- Assistant closes hand
- Dog goes to handler
- Handler rewards
You can increase the difficulty by the assistant not closing hand and after teething, adding toys.
- These will be the focuses regarding recalls for the pup’s first six months or until they are done teething.
- Restrained Recalls are first step
- Then go to unrestrained recalls with just me
- Then we can do call aways with an assistant
Corrections: Dog needs to clearly understand why they are being punished and also need to clearly understand how to shut-off the correction with their behavior. The pup needs to have control over the correction. This will actually create less stress for the dog. Most aversive can be prevented through better preparation and planning. Puppies should redirected most of the time, too many corrections will damage our relationship and will create an unbalanced, fearful dog.
Leash Skills
Michael Ellis
Prerequisites
ESCAPE AND AVOIDANCE TRAINING IS MUCH LESS FORGIVING THAN REWARD-BASED TRAINING AND YOUR ERRORS WILL BE MAGNIFIED AND THE DOG IS THE ONE WHO SUFFERS.
Be flexible, what works for one dog might not work for another dog. Know the dog before starting this type of work. This DVD is a guideline not a rulebook—Be Flexible!
Negative Reinforcement: Dog is shutting off subtle pressure with their behavior. In this case the behavior is moving with the leash. The dog through negative reinforcement is learning to move with the leash. This is also known as escape-and-avoidance training. Unlike reward based training, E&A training is best in small amounts; a heavy-handed approach does not work well in escape & avoidance training.
In reward based training, the reward comes from the food or toy. In escape and avoidance training, the reinforcing aspects comes from being able to escape or avoid the discomfort or stress. Repeatedly subjecting your dog to this is stressful in and of itself—you apply stress, the dog responds to shut it off like he should, then you immediately reapply the stress—this creates a stressful situation in the micro and macro sense. Don’t overdo escape and avoidance training.
Leash training sessions should be completely separated from other obedience training. We don’t want any stress associated with the leash-pressure training to pollute the other obedience behaviors.
Pre-Leash Management—this is how we will handle our dog until she is old enough and engaged enough to introduce leash-pressure.
Equipment
Training Sessions
The Process
USES FOR LEASH PRESSURE
If we want to add verbal commands to this training such as the command “back
we want to say the command, begin to pull, mark and reward.
Heeling
Finishing—this is bringing the dog from sitting in front of you to the heel position. Also known as a tear-drop finish.
Loose-Leash Walking
Contact Heeling
This can also be done without a helper. Use a toy and throw it out in front of the dog, dog needs to be focused on the toy, then begin with step one above. Instead of dog being released to a helper who plays tug, the dog dog grabs the toy and brings it back to you to play. Dog will need to know how to play tug before doing this.
The idea of contact heeling is the dog keeps track of you through contact. It allows the dog to maintain a consistent position with you without looking at you. Traditional competitive heeling positions are maintained through the dog looking at you and your position.
It is not uncommon for the dog to wrap herself around the back of your body when teaching contact heeling. This behavior will disappear on its own as more forward movement is introduced and the dog becomes more confident. This is called crab-walking.
As training progresses, walk for longer distances before releasing the dog into the reward. Make the advanced-dog responsible for maintaining contact with you. With a more advanced dog who understands the concepts well, you can use a little more pressure and be a little more demanding of the dog—don’t use a heavy-hand though.
If dog breaks contact, step backwards and sideways. That makes the dog back-up and slide into us.
Leash training can teach dog to wait to go through a door. The leash block them. It is not punishment it is a guidance tool.
Leash can also be used to block errors when training such as training the dog to be on an elevated dog bed. Don’t overuse the leash though. We eventually want the dog to perform these acts without a leash do don’t make them dependent upon it. Helping the dog avoid mistakes, sets them up for success.
If using a leash to teach a dog to be on a Kuranda bed for example; lure dog onto bed, mark good and reward. If dog hops off bed, mark no and bring back into position. However, if a dog is introduced to a Kuranda bed as a puppy this shouldn’t be necessary.
If a dog has a bad habit of looking for fallen treats on the ground, use a leash to block this behavior.
Leash-pressure work is a prerequisite for the Finishing DVD.
Michael Ellis
Prerequisites
ESCAPE AND AVOIDANCE TRAINING IS MUCH LESS FORGIVING THAN REWARD-BASED TRAINING AND YOUR ERRORS WILL BE MAGNIFIED AND THE DOG IS THE ONE WHO SUFFERS.
Be flexible, what works for one dog might not work for another dog. Know the dog before starting this type of work. This DVD is a guideline not a rulebook—Be Flexible!
Negative Reinforcement: Dog is shutting off subtle pressure with their behavior. In this case the behavior is moving with the leash. The dog through negative reinforcement is learning to move with the leash. This is also known as escape-and-avoidance training. Unlike reward based training, E&A training is best in small amounts; a heavy-handed approach does not work well in escape & avoidance training.
In reward based training, the reward comes from the food or toy. In escape and avoidance training, the reinforcing aspects comes from being able to escape or avoid the discomfort or stress. Repeatedly subjecting your dog to this is stressful in and of itself—you apply stress, the dog responds to shut it off like he should, then you immediately reapply the stress—this creates a stressful situation in the micro and macro sense. Don’t overdo escape and avoidance training.
Leash training sessions should be completely separated from other obedience training. We don’t want any stress associated with the leash-pressure training to pollute the other obedience behaviors.
- You can use a leash when a dog is younger but don’t start leash-pressure training until you have a number of things in place first. Will likely be around 6-8 months of age.
- You need a dog who is engaged, motivated, and working well in the reward based system. Must also have a relationship with the dog. Don’t try this training with a dog you don’t know, it could be dangerous, ie bites to you.
- Must have basic behaviors in place; sit, down, touch, etc
- Decide what disciplines you are interested in or if you are just training a pet-dog. Make sure you and the dog are playing well together before introducing leash-pressure. There is mild stress associated with leash-pressure. How much is dependent on how well its done and the temperament of the dog.
- Because of that stress, if the dog is not playing well with you, you can inhibit that play further.
- Dog must also be habituated to equipment being used, such as leash and collar.
- Temperament and sensitivity needs to be known so one can decide when and what tools are needed.
- Marker system needs to be known by dog; yes, good, no.
Pre-Leash Management—this is how we will handle our dog until she is old enough and engaged enough to introduce leash-pressure.
- Harness should be used for young puppies where it is ok if they pull into the harness. Pulling is ok on a harness.
- Flexy Lead can be used.
- Head harness can be used, requires habituation.
- Luring can be used to move a dog around, especially young dogs.
- Using a leash and a collar allows the dog to practice pulling on a leash/collar which makes the eventual braking of the habit that much harder if they’ve already been practicing the wrong behavior, so use a harness.
- Pulling on a harness will be used in other training as motivation, so practicing pulling on the harness is fine.
Equipment
- Slip collar or lead. Simple basic design that acts like a choke-chain.
- Prong-collar or pinch-collar. Used with less-sensitive dogs.
- Never use a flat collar for leash-pressure work. Will have to pull much harder than with an active collar like a slip or prong-collar.
- Habituation—dog should wear and be used to any equipment before starting to use it in any training. Don’t put on/use and then take off. This will make the dog reliant on the tool.
- Age of dog and sensitivity; most dogs start learning about leash pressure after they are done teething. It takes about 6-8 months to establish all the prerequisites needed to start training leash-pressure.
- Younger and more sensitive dogs will usually use slip collars while less-sensitive dogs can use prong collars.
- Prong collars are used to be able to exert the least amount of pressure possible. Slip leads must be pulled harder than a prong collar on less-sensitive dogs.
- Prong collars can be needed in high-stimulation states such as when teaching protection training. Usually at the end for finishing work.
- A pet dog can probably be trained on just a slip-lead, but a competition dog might need the refinement offered by a prong-collar.
- Slip-lead: active part goes over the dog’s neck.
- Prong-collar: little chain is a triangle, and sides should never touch when pulled on. If this happens if effectively bottoms-out the collar. Also, the leash should only br attached to the one outside loop, never both. Should be snug for prongs to work properly.
- Prong collar should be fitted snugly and high up on the dog’s neck; this is the thinnest part of the dog’s neck and thus will stay in place. A prong-collar should not slide on the dog’s neck.
- Slip collar should be placed relatively high and relative snug.
Training Sessions
- It should only take a few (2-3) training sessions for the dog to learn this concept.
- The number of repetitions per training session is dependent upon the dog. Less-sensitive dogs can go more reps with shorter brakes. More sensitive dogs will need fewer repetitions, longer brakes in-between reps, and more food rewards.
- The less stress the dog feels the better.
The Process
- Get dog into position. You facing a wall and the dog to either side of you. This position will change based on which direction you are pulling.
- Apply gentle pressure with the leash
- When dog gives in, release pressure.
- Mark “yes” and reward.
- Mechanics—let leash lay across your hands. Don’t wrap leash around your hand.
- Always pull straight, leash parallel to the ground. Don’t pull upwards, this is a common mistake.
- When beginning to pull on leash we might need to hide our hand a little, such as behind our knee or leg as the dog might just follow your hand since it is so used to being lured. You get a false positive—dog looks like he is giving in to the leash but is actually following your hand.
- You can use food to get the dog into correct position before pulling on leash, especially useful in pulling backwards.
- Use a short leash when pulling backwards, meaning position your hand close to the collar
- Give food rewards between repetitions. This helps to alleviate stress.
- Pull from different sides. Pulling from the same direction can result in the dog anticipating the pull.
- Using a wall can be helpful to make the dog move in the direction you want.
- When doing the backing, dog should be standing not sitting, ideally.
USES FOR LEASH PRESSURE
- We want dogs/pups to learn how to deal with stress.
- Small amounts of stress applied to pups results in more resilient adult dogs, dogs that are able to handle more stress. US Army did a study that showed chemically dogs subjected to small amounts of stress as pups showed less cortisol in their bloodstream, their heart rate and blood pressure was lower, and the recovery was quicker from stress-based situations.
- Too much stress is bad, but a little is a very positive thing.
- Reward based training only shelters dogs from useful stress.
- Once dog is no longer showing any resistance to pulling on the leash, we can begin to use the leash to teach other things.
- Leash used to teach heeling, the finish (come to heel position), loose leash walking such as pet dogs—hopefully won’t drag owner, contact heeling (no leash and focusing on something else such as a decoy).
- Can also use leash to teach dogs to play properly and bring toys back, a long line is needed.
- Used to finish recall work, block our dogs from making certain errors while training.
If we want to add verbal commands to this training such as the command “back
we want to say the command, begin to pull, mark and reward.
- Verbal
- Physical
- Mark & Reward
Heeling
- The leash, using small amounts of pressure, can teach the dog to move in any direction with its handler.
Finishing—this is bringing the dog from sitting in front of you to the heel position. Also known as a tear-drop finish.
- Handler stands with shoulder facing a wall or barrier.
- Dog lines-up in front of handler
- Handler pulls dog past her wall side (left side)
- Dog goes by handler, does a 180º turn and ends up right next to handler in the heel position on the left side.
- Mark and reward with “yes” bringing dog slightly forward
- Lure back in front of you and repeat
- Initially dog does not need to sit to be rewarded. The sit can be added later.
- Initially no verbal commands are used for the heel or heel/sit. Only physical prompts. Remember, our dogs have already learned sit in basic obedience training, otherwise we wouldn’t be using leash pressure for training.
Loose-Leash Walking
- Once dog is light on the leash we take her for a walk and let her sniff around and move around on the leash.
- If the dog gets out to the end of the leash and begins to pull, we back the dog up with leash pressure, drop slack in the leash, and only move forward when the leash is slack.
- Use a little pull or pop to bring the dog back. Don’t preemptively pop though.
- Since the pressure we want the dog to avoid is pulling or pressure, it is important that the dog actually begins to pull before pressure them back into position, drop slack in the leash, and move forward.
- Too early in leash pressure and the dog just drifts until they feel leash pressure. Too late and the dog has been pulling for a while they don’t associate the leash pressure with the pulling. Timing is important.
- It is common to add a verbal prompt when walking, such as easy or walk. Just like all other verbal prompts being taught, verbal, physical, mark and reward.
Contact Heeling
- Performed with a second person helping. They act as a decoy and keep the dog’s attention by making little noises or gestures. The helper is holding a toy or food reward.
- Handler has dog on leash wearing an appropriate training collar.
- Dog is in the heel position next to left leg.
- Handler moves laterally (sideways) with dog
- Pulls back and into her leg
- When the dog is contacting the handler's leg and maintaining position, mark with “yes”
- Release dog to the helper and let them play tug or reward with food.
- Handler assumes control of toy and brings dog back into position.
- Handler tosses toy back to helper and repeats exercise.
This can also be done without a helper. Use a toy and throw it out in front of the dog, dog needs to be focused on the toy, then begin with step one above. Instead of dog being released to a helper who plays tug, the dog dog grabs the toy and brings it back to you to play. Dog will need to know how to play tug before doing this.
The idea of contact heeling is the dog keeps track of you through contact. It allows the dog to maintain a consistent position with you without looking at you. Traditional competitive heeling positions are maintained through the dog looking at you and your position.
It is not uncommon for the dog to wrap herself around the back of your body when teaching contact heeling. This behavior will disappear on its own as more forward movement is introduced and the dog becomes more confident. This is called crab-walking.
As training progresses, walk for longer distances before releasing the dog into the reward. Make the advanced-dog responsible for maintaining contact with you. With a more advanced dog who understands the concepts well, you can use a little more pressure and be a little more demanding of the dog—don’t use a heavy-hand though.
If dog breaks contact, step backwards and sideways. That makes the dog back-up and slide into us.
- A Long-Leash can also be used to refine a dog’s behavior in play. Example is bringing the dog in closer to you with a toy or just bringing a toy to you by calling for the dog, then giving the leash a quick tug/pull (tap tap tap) and bring dog into you. Mark “yes” when dog is coming back to you or bringing toy in or whatever you are working on. This can help with possessiveness.
- Ultimately we want the dog to behave this way without the leash.
Leash training can teach dog to wait to go through a door. The leash block them. It is not punishment it is a guidance tool.
Leash can also be used to block errors when training such as training the dog to be on an elevated dog bed. Don’t overuse the leash though. We eventually want the dog to perform these acts without a leash do don’t make them dependent upon it. Helping the dog avoid mistakes, sets them up for success.
If using a leash to teach a dog to be on a Kuranda bed for example; lure dog onto bed, mark good and reward. If dog hops off bed, mark no and bring back into position. However, if a dog is introduced to a Kuranda bed as a puppy this shouldn’t be necessary.
If a dog has a bad habit of looking for fallen treats on the ground, use a leash to block this behavior.
Leash-pressure work is a prerequisite for the Finishing DVD.
I have a lab mix, up until he was about 3.5 years old he was a wrecking ball of energy.
I mostly "fought" with him to run him out of steam.
So this is funny. Lisa used to say that no matter what, everybody wanted to learn about leash pressure first. I don't feel like it was that well described in the videos, because it is hard to describe how little pressure it requires once a dog gets the concept. I haven't done anything with my heeler in years training wise, mainly because we live on a big property now, and he is never on a leash. But if you put a slip lead on him and just tap in any direction, just tap like with a finger, he moves is ass in that direction like a rocket went off inside it. It took Lisa about 25 minutes to get him there. Would have taken me days.
My older kelpie learned all of those moves without any leash at all, and he has never done anything wrong in his life, so I didn't bother with him. He was literally potty trained at 6 weeks. He hates all people, but other than that, perfect dog.
Just a couple general things about positive reinforcement:
1- What matters is what is reinforcing for your dog, not what you think should be. For example, if your dog doesn't like cheese (lol) don't reward it with cheese. Try red bull or bologna or whatever.
2- Reinforcement is not just food. You can use toys, affection, whatever. But don't think your dog does shit because he really wants to please you. That isn't generally that reinforcing. Neither is petting.
3- If you are going to reinforce/reward your dog, do it right, meaning don't make it another task for them to complete correctly. Yes, they have to know rules of play, but it still needs to be play.
One great tip I saw once, from Ivan Balabanov, who was the guy who taught Ellis the majority of his system, was that for 99% of dogs, when you play fetch with them, you think you are playing fetch, but they think you are playing chase and catch. In other words, the game for them is running after the ball and grabbing it, not bringing it back to you. Bringing it back to you makes the game continue. So don't start fucking screaming at them the second they get the ball. Let them enjoy their great catch victory. Likewise, as long as your dog knows to give up a tug toy when asked, let the damn dog win 90% of the time. It is good for them. It doesn't show that you are a beta cuck or whatever. Along the same lines, unless you are training for ring sports, your dog doesn't need to tug a burlap tug. If your dog prefers a fuzzy pink tug toy, use that. You are playing for them, let them enjoy it. Are you really going to be hung up on the kind of toy your dog likes? Also, labs can tug. It won't teach them to destroy birds.
1- What matters is what is reinforcing for your dog, not what you think should be. For example, if your dog doesn't like cheese (lol) don't reward it with cheese. Try red bull or bologna or whatever.
2- Reinforcement is not just food. You can use toys, affection, whatever. But don't think your dog does shit because he really wants to please you. That isn't generally that reinforcing. Neither is petting.
3- If you are going to reinforce/reward your dog, do it right, meaning don't make it another task for them to complete correctly. Yes, they have to know rules of play, but it still needs to be play.
One great tip I saw once, from Ivan Balabanov, who was the guy who taught Ellis the majority of his system, was that for 99% of dogs, when you play fetch with them, you think you are playing fetch, but they think you are playing chase and catch. In other words, the game for them is running after the ball and grabbing it, not bringing it back to you. Bringing it back to you makes the game continue. So don't start fucking screaming at them the second they get the ball. Let them enjoy their great catch victory. Likewise, as long as your dog knows to give up a tug toy when asked, let the damn dog win 90% of the time. It is good for them. It doesn't show that you are a beta cuck or whatever. Along the same lines, unless you are training for ring sports, your dog doesn't need to tug a burlap tug. If your dog prefers a fuzzy pink tug toy, use that. You are playing for them, let them enjoy it. Are you really going to be hung up on the kind of toy your dog likes? Also, labs can tug. It won't teach them to destroy birds.
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