The Official Dog Training Thread

[hblask 1]

There seems to be a lot of questions about dogs lately, and people getting new dogs. There is also a lot of bad information out there on the internet, so I thought I'd start a thread to give some accurate information. Why believe me? I worked with one of the top animal behaviorists in the Twin Cities, and possibly the midwest (http://www.lindabrodzik.animaltrainers.com/). This woman lives and breathes dog training. The philosophy is purely positive training, based on tried and tested behavioral techniques.If you have any training questions, post them here and I'll do my best to answer them.So here's the short version:First, we need a marker that tells your dog "what you are doing right now is correct". A popular method is clicker training, but it means you have to carry a clicker with you. You always have your voice with you, and are much more accurate with it, so we just use that. The trick is, you must remember you are a clicker: distinct, unchanging, emotionless. The word we use is "good", said in a crisp, high-pitched tone (but you could certainly use anything you like). Practice it when your dog is not around so that it can be the same every time. You also want it to be unlike your speaking voice, so that saying "good" in normal conversation doesn't perk your dogs ears up.The way to train it is to wait for your dog to be relaxed and near you. Have a stack of treats. Without asking anything of your dog except to not be obnoxious, just say "good", then pause a second, and then give your dog a treat. The pause is important. What you are doing is creating a bridge. You are buying yourself time to get a treat to your dog. Eventually you'll want behaviors at a distance, so the pause buys you the time to mark the behavior from across the room and still get the treat to the dog without having to buy a slingshot.So do the good-pause-treat thing a couple dozen times. This is a good first step, and you could stop for an hour or two. In the next session, do the same thing again, then start asking for behaviors. The first one is to pay attention to you (and to want to work for you). To do this, just put a treat in your left your hand and put your right hand out flat and let your dog touch it. 99% of all dogs will. When the dog touches it, do the good-pause-treat thing. Wait about five seconds, and do it again: hand, touch, good-pause-treat. Once your dog has this securely (sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 3 or 4 sessions), you can start to ask for more. Make your dog follow your hand a few steps as you back away. Then across the room. As you get a solid behavior, you can skip a few payoffs -- give the 'good', but don't payoff every time. Now your dog will want to work harder. If you do it too often they will get frustrated and give up, if you pay off every time, they get lazy because they know they don't have to work very hard. Balance those two.One last thing: a bunch of short, 5 minute sessions throughout the day is better than one hour-long session. Always try to end on a good note.Next: the negative marker

[hblask 1]

Step two: the negative markerIn the first step we created a marker to tell your dog when it is doing something you like. Now we need one for when you it is doing something you don't like. Again, this is a clicker, so you want a marker that is distinct, unemotional, and the same each time. We use a staccato "uh-uh" (second syllable higher pitch). It's a marker that says "I'm not mad at you, but that is not correct."The way to train this is to have your dog on leash, near you. Offer the dog a treat. It will probably move toward it. Give the uh-uh and pull the treat away. Wait for your dog to relax and offer the treat again. If it goes for the treat, give the uh-uh and take the treat away,and also *take your attention away*. The way to do this is to calmly look away as you say the uh-uh. If your dog is too crazy, step on the leash so that it can't move far. Keep an eye on your dog for calm behavior (out of the corner of your eye, you don't want them to know you are paying attention), then repeat until you can put your hand in front of the dog with a treat and your dog waits patiently. Then give the "good-pause-treat" routine. (This is the only time you want the treat in the same hand you are signalling with. You mostly want signals with one hand, treat in the other. Your dog should work for you, not for food.)Then basically, any time your dog does a behavior you don't like, mark it with uh-uh, and withdraw attention.So now you've got a marker for "that's the right thing" and one for "that's the wrong thing". Once these two are firmly trained in, the rest is a piece of cake. The most difficult part is *timing* -- make sure you are marking the correct behavior. If you are off by even a half a second, you could be training the opposite of what you think you are training.Questions yet? I'll do more advanced behaviors some over the next few days.

[beans-n-icewater 18]

The philosophy is purely positive training, based on tried and tested behavioral techniques.

Very good idea for a topic....I also suggest that all the married men out there do as I did and replace the word dog with wife and treat with billThe way to train it is to wait for your wife to be relaxed and near you. Have a stack of bills. Without asking anything of your wife except to not be obnoxious, just say "good", then pause a second, and then give your wife a bill. The pause is important.The way to train this is to have your wife on leash, near you. Offer the wife a bill. It will probably move toward it. Give the uh-uh and pull the bill away. Wait for your wife to relax and offer the bill again. If it goes for the bill, give the uh-uh and take the bill awayThat way we can kill two birds* with one stone* also replaces wife

[Cappy37 0]

[hblask 1]

I also suggest that all the married men out there do as I did and replace the word dog with wife and treat with bill

This is kind of funny. Linda tells the story of how she trained a co-worker to play with her (the coworker's) hair on cue by using smiles and body language. This training works on humans, you just have to find ways to not let them know they are being trained.

[vbnautilus 48]

This is kind of funny. Linda tells the story of how she trained a co-worker to play with her (the coworker's) hair on cue by using smiles and body language. This training works on humans, you just have to find ways to not let them know they are being trained.

There's a famous story told by B.F. Skinner (who was the father of behaviorist psychology and did some important work on operant conditioning). One of the other professors was not a fan of behaviorism, so Skinner's students decided to train that guy into standing on a particular side of the room and contorting into a strange pose. Every time he went to the target location, all the students would smile and nod. Pretty soon they had him always standing over there in the corner and bending in some funny way. ...Or so the story goes.

[speedz99 145]

This is kind of funny. Linda tells the story of how she trained a co-worker to play with her (the coworker's) hair on cue by using smiles and body language. This training works on humans, you just have to find ways to not let them know they are being trained.

Oh man...I have a roommate that would be incredibly easy to train...I just need to figure out what I want him to do.

[hblask 1]

So, we now have two markers, what do we do with them? Well, what most people want more than a well-trained dog is a well-behaved dog. Fortunately, these same markers work for both things.The key is to make your dog earn everything, every treat, every play session. Turn it's whole world into a game. Once you have the negative marker, if your dog is being pushy, soliciting attention, just give the uh-uh and withdraw your attention. Ignore your dog until it goes away or settles down. Then give the good-pause-treat. Notice that this requires you to have treats nearby all the time. Pet stores sell little bags with drawstrings or velcro that you can clip to your belt. These work great. Don't worry, you won't have to carry them all the time for the rest of your life, just for the first weeks or maybe a month (after that, carry it intermittently, or keep treats on a high shelf in each room). The idea is to make your dog know that any time it gives relaxed behavior, there is a *chance* of getting a treat.So pay attention. If you are watching TV and your dog is pacing or sitting anxiously or soliciting your attention, just ignore it. When it sits or lays down, good-pause-treat. The beauty is your dog will think it is training you. "Oh look, all I have to do is go in the corner and relax, and they give me food. They are so stupid!" (OK, they don't literally think that, but the result is the same as if they were). Give this a try for a couple of weeks, it's amazing how quickly your dog will learn to relax.The next step is to get them to relax when you leave. To do this, sit watching TV or playing poker or surfing porn or whatever you normally do, and just stand up. If your dog stays relaxed, give a reward. If it doesn't, just stop moving and wait for the dog to relax. When it relaxes, just quietly sit back down, with no reward. After five minutes, try it again. Eventually, your dog will learn the only way to get a treat is to stay relaxed when you get up. This can seem painfully slow, but compared to 15 or 20 years of good behavior you are buying, it's nothing.Anyway, at this point, the next step should be obvious. Take a few steps into the other room, and repeat the process above. Dog stays, reward. Dog gets up, wait for relaxation and quietly sit down. So to the dog, staying relaxed means get a treat, and relaxing after stress means owner comes back. Just keep building on this until you can go anywhere and the dog will stay (we'll discuss the STAY command later). All of this works much better if you are doing other training, too, things like sit, down, etc, because then they will feel the need to be "on" all the time.More on household behavior: you control the couch and bed. The dog should not get up unless you ask. If they hop up without being invited, give the uh-uh and gently take them down. When you ask them to get down, the same thing. If you never want them up, same thing.Table scraps: some people think you shouldn't feed your dog human food. This is false. Human food, in sensible amounts, is good for them (except for chocolate or cooked poultry bones, keep both away from your dog). The key is that *you* control the conditions. If you dog comes around begging and you give it table scraps, you will get a pushy dog that begs a lot. Instead, wait for the dog to go a reasonable distance from the table, then you can give the good-pause-treat thing using human food from the table. The cool thing is you get to decide where you want the dog during meals. If under your feet is fine, reward that. If in the corner is fine, reward that. If you want him lying quietly in the next room, that's your choice, too.In general, everything the dog likes should require a behavior. If your dog likes walks, ask for a sit before you go. A sit to put the leash on, a sit before going through the door. Ask for a touch of your hand before you give your dog supper. Whatever the dog likes, ask for *something* first, even if it's just a relaxed attitude. Your dog will wear itself out trying to solve the puzzle of how to get the next treat/game/play session, and the answer should always be "by doing something you, the owner, likes".

[Asimo 1]

[mtdesmoines 3]

How do the questions I ask here get to my dog?

[hblask 1]

How do the questions I ask here get to my dog?

[Mercury69 3]

Regular bonings. That is all.

[davezz5 0]

I believe my dog may be an engineer!

[hblask 1]

I believe my dog may be an engineer!

Is your dog the one in the front?

[Balloon guy 158]

I have an 80 lb German ShephardHis biggest problem is taking him for walks, he pulls nonstop on the leash.I have shortened the leash, kept him by my side etc, but after doing this for a while he is still pulling every chance he gets.The girls can't walk him, he pulls them over.As a result we walk him very infrequently,What's the best way to make him heal?

[hblask 1]

I have an 80 lb German ShephardHis biggest problem is taking him for walks, he pulls nonstop on the leash.I have shortened the leash, kept him by my side etc, but after doing this for a while he is still pulling every chance he gets.The girls can't walk him, he pulls them over.As a result we walk him very infrequently,What's the best way to make him heal?

Basically you have to stop giving him what he wants, which is to get on to the next smell (pee-mail). To do that, you'll have to start taking fake walks. If you've been reinforcing this behavior for a long time, this could take a while.First of all, make sure you have the uh-uh and good markers working, you want to mark the exact moment he goes too far. By the time he is pulling on the leash, it's too late. So you need to start your fake walk with no intention of even making it to the end of the block. Does he start pulling as soon as you get outside? If so, don't go off the step. In fact, I wouldn't even go out the door. Make him sit at the door before you open it. Open it a crack. If he gets up, give the uh-uh, and close the door. Wait for him to sit calmly again. Do this over and over until you can have the door wide open and he doesn't make a move to go out. (BTW, this is a good exercise for everyone, even if your dog otherwise heals fine). That might be enough for a day.So next training session, take one step out the door. If he pulls, mark with uh-uh, and back into the house. Wait for calm behavior, and try again. Each session, try to get a few more steps. It's hard to describe in writing, but it's sort of like a dance -- step forward, he pulls, "uh-uh", back back back, get him back to your side, step forward, etc. The other thing you will need is how to step on the leash. If you are just holding the leash, as he pulls you are definitely going to get some give and take. This is progress to a dog, so you basically are rewarding the pulling. Instead, hold the leash but also step on it at a length so that he can sit comfortably, but not get to anything interesting, like smells or anything. Wait for him to stop pulling, step off the leash, and see if he stays. If he does, say good and reward, then get him to your side and start over. If he moves ahead, uh-uh, step on leash, wait, repeat.Like I said, the first few times you do this you won't get far. Your neighbors will think you are crazy, taking your dog for a "stand". But it will pay off in the long run. The thing to remember is what you are looking for, which is your dogs should stays right at your knee at all times. You want to shape that behavior with uh-uh and 'good'. The closer he is to that, the more treats he gets. Otherwise, uh-uh and the walk goes nowhere. Or you can go backward. If he pulls ahead, it's because he smells something up there. So back up, and go in the other direction, or stay put -- whatever is the least interesting. He needs to know that the only way to get to that interesting thing is to sit calmly and wait for you to tell him to go to it. It's important that you get it right all the time. Each time he is rewarded for pulling by getting to a smell or person, it'll take 10 times to undo that. OK, that's not an actual formula, but that's what it feels like. Can he ever just run and play like a dog? Yes, when you say so. Which brings us to: Release signals.

[hblask 1]

Release signals:How long should your dog sit, or down, or heal when you ask? Five seconds? 10? The correct answer is "until you tell him otherwise". So get a word you like that means "you are now free to do whatever you want, including lying down or running around". I use "go!", but some people like "free", which is probably more accurate (your dog doesn't care what word you use, it's just a marker to them).Basically, to teach this, in every training session, you have to be prepared to mark the errors with uh-uh at every moment. Sometimes you'll find yourself going "good, uh-uh, uh-uh, good, good, uh-uh", and sound like a crazy person, especially when working on healing. But you need to keep your focus. If you ask for a sit and your dog gets up, mark with uh-uh, and start the behavior over. When *you* are getting tired of it, and hopefully long before the dog is getting tired of it, give your release word: go!. Now you can drop the leash (if you are indoors) and scruff his head and let him run. The same can be done for heal -- he walks by your side until *you* say he's done, then you release and he may pull the leash and smell everything in site. But when it's time to heal, he has to come back to your side and stop pulling.In general:Always end on a positive note, when the dog does something right. Don't wait for both of you to get sick of it, because then you'll reinforce giving up as a strategy. A few quick accurate repetitions is better than dozens of sloppy ones.

[hblask 1]

To add to the answer to BG's question:Get a leather leash. Retractable's just don't work for stepping on the leash and controlling the dog until much, much later.Also, the obvious question is, how do I let him exercise until he learns to do this. Preferred answer: just go to dog park. Second answer: get the release word working, and make the first few feet controlled, then release for the rest of the walk. And yes, that makes the job harder, but big dogs need exercise. Just be sure to work harder at good walking to make up for it.

[hblask 1]

To get specific behaviors, we use a combination of shaping and luring. This works best if you've done the previous exercises of having your dog watch you closely and follow your hand movements. Luring is what it sounds like, luring the dog with a treat. Shaping is rewarding the best approximation that your dog gives and letting random movements get him closer and closer to the behavior you want.Get your dog on leash and calm.To start, don't speak. Don't say sit or down or heal until your dog will do it 100% with the hand signal. To get a behavior, we are going to make another exception to the no-treat-in-signal-hand rule. Make your hand as flat as you can, and stick a treat under your thumb across your palm. Then lure the dog to do the behavior you want. Lure a few times with a treat, then start doing it with an empty hand. You won't always have treats when you want your dog to behave for you, so it's important that it work for the hand.For sit, put your palm up below the dogs line of site and lift it slowly over their head. Nose goes up, butt goes down.For down, put your palm down and put it to the ground below your dogs nose. Wait for the dog to go down to try to get it. Some dogs will scratch at your hand, which hurts. Give the uh-uh, stand up for a few seconds, and start over.For heal, it's more complicated to explain, but first, decide which way you want to go. Keep facing that way, with your dog in front of you. Say you want your dog to heal on the left side. So put the treat in your flat left hand. Take a step back with your left foot and lure the dog back behind you, then with an outside in motion, lure it back to your side. When you stop, your hand should be facing backward at your dog's nose, with your dog's shoulder about 4 inches from your knee. When you do it right, it's very smooth and natural, but it takes a bit of thought and practice to get to that.So give your signal, get the behavior, and give the good-pause-treat. Do this a few times with no other words except "good", not even it's name, and end your short session.Next session, if you are still getting a solid response, you can add a word (otherwise, practice the signal only method some more). The way to do this is to say sit, pause, hand signal. This is very important: only say the word once. "Sit sit sit SIT" is not the same as sit. If you want your dog to sit, say sit once, and give the hand signal. If he sits, treat, if not, uh-uh look away. Your dog should pretty quickly figure out the word means sit without the hand signal. You can speed the process by making the hand signal smaller each time, to the point where just a palm up means sit, down means down, and by your side means heal.As your dog gets better at this, you can do word only or signal only. Interchange them randomly. But make sure both are solid before you get too fancy with that.And remember the release word. If your dog releases before you say so, give uh-uh and start over. And beat your dog to the release next time, so that you have some success to build on. Over time you can increase the time before the release word. So it might be sit-good-pause-treat-go!, about as fast as you read that. But eventually you get to sit-good-pause-treat.....30 seconds passes.... go! Know what your dog can do and work just beyond that edge, pushing to better performance without frustrating your dog too much.

[Randy Reed 0]

I have an 80 lb German ShephardHis biggest problem is taking him for walks, he pulls nonstop on the leash.I have shortened the leash, kept him by my side etc, but after doing this for a while he is still pulling every chance he gets.The girls can't walk him, he pulls them over.As a result we walk him very infrequently,What's the best way to make him heal?

You will most likely need a metal/chain pincher collar and hblask might not approve but I doubt you can achieve anything without it.

To get specific behaviors, we use a combination of shaping and luring. This works best if you've done the previous exercises of having your dog watch you closely and follow your hand movements. Luring is what it sounds like, luring the dog with a treat. Shaping is rewarding the best approximation that your dog gives and letting random movements get him closer and closer to the behavior you want.Get your dog on leash and calm.To start, don't speak. Don't say sit or down or heal until your dog will do it 100% with the hand signal. To get a behavior, we are going to make another exception to the no-treat-in-signal-hand rule. Make your hand as flat as you can, and stick a treat under your thumb across your palm. Then lure the dog to do the behavior you want. Lure a few times with a treat, then start doing it with an empty hand. You won't always have treats when you want your dog to behave for you, so it's important that it work for the hand.For sit, put your palm up below the dogs line of site and lift it slowly over their head. Nose goes up, butt goes down.For down, put your palm down and put it to the ground below your dogs nose. Wait for the dog to go down to try to get it. Some dogs will scratch at your hand, which hurts. Give the uh-uh, stand up for a few seconds, and start over.For heal, it's more complicated to explain, but first, decide which way you want to go. Keep facing that way, with your dog in front of you. Say you want your dog to heal on the left side. So put the treat in your flat left hand. Take a step back with your left foot and lure the dog back behind you, then with an outside in motion, lure it back to your side. When you stop, your hand should be facing backward at your dog's nose, with your dog's shoulder about 4 inches from your knee. When you do it right, it's very smooth and natural, but it takes a bit of thought and practice to get to that.So give your signal, get the behavior, and give the good-pause-treat. Do this a few times with no other words except "good", not even it's name, and end your short session.Next session, if you are still getting a solid response, you can add a word (otherwise, practice the signal only method some more). The way to do this is to say sit, pause, hand signal. This is very important: only say the word once. "Sit sit sit SIT" is not the same as sit. If you want your dog to sit, say sit once, and give the hand signal. If he sits, treat, if not, uh-uh look away. Your dog should pretty quickly figure out the word means sit without the hand signal. You can speed the process by making the hand signal smaller each time, to the point where just a palm up means sit, down means down, and by your side means heal.As your dog gets better at this, you can do word only or signal only. Interchange them randomly. But make sure both are solid before you get too fancy with that.And remember the release word. If your dog releases before you say so, give uh-uh and start over. And beat your dog to the release next time, so that you have some success to build on. Over time you can increase the time before the release word. So it might be sit-good-pause-treat-go!, about as fast as you read that. But eventually you get to sit-good-pause-treat.....30 seconds passes.... go! Know what your dog can do and work just beyond that edge, pushing to better performance without frustrating your dog too much.

For BG I would start with the basics with the German Shephard getting it used to the new training going on by teaching it "sit" "stay" and "by me" which is using the hand with the treat, stepping back to get it to sit next to you. I would use the lease during all this training so that it doesn't run off. Only positive reinforcement is great with a pup but an older, untrained dog will you will likely need both. IN any case always have the leash on during training and be consistent working with it on a daily basis.

[vbnautilus 48]

Ok, so we have a ten year old Puli and we recently got a new Puli puppy who is about 6 mos old now. My question concerns family integration. First, the obligatory pics. Nesta is the black one and Maia is the white puppy. These are herding dogs so they have like unlimited amounts of energy, especially when young. Nesta however in her old age has slowed down quite a bit. She much prefers lying around to jumping around these days. The little one can be quite an annoyance to her, jumping on her, pulling on her cords, etc. Only trying to play obviously, but annoying nonetheless. My first instinct is to just let them work it out amongst themselves, and sometimes Nesta does get to the point where she will defend herself, but really it seems like most often she is bothered but doesn't really have the energy to keep swatting away the little one. She kinda looks up at me like, "thanks, man. this thing is your fault, get it off of me." At what point would you intervene on the older one's behalf? I do step in whenever I see her pulling on the cords since I don't want her to chew her own cords when they grow in. But am I right to just let her proceed with her annoying of the other dog?

[speedz99 145]

BTW, this is a good exercise for everyone, even if your dog otherwise heals fine

Isn't that my job?

[vonteego3 0]

But am I right to just let her proceed with her annoying of the other dog?

Definitely. They'll work it out. Only intervene if one of the dogs is in danger.

[vonteego3 0]

I have 2 fosters that I'm working with right now, I'd love to hear some outside advice.First, Bauer - We've had Bauer for about 3 months now. He's a rottie/aussie shep mix, found as a stray. He wasn't fixed when I first brought him home, which was a big part in my alpha, Sidney, not liking him. They've gotten better since, to the point where I can take them for a walk together, hold their leashes in the same hand, and they'll walk shoulder to shoulder the whole way, sometimes even licking each other. But when we're inside, Bauer becomes the aggressor... he barks constantly at Sid through his cage whenever Sid comes near me. He barks at my other males too through his cage, but outside of the cage, he's best friends with them. I still can't have him and Sid loose together, though, because Bauer becomes defensive and starts growling, which sets Sid off. I know his main issues are a) cage aggression , b ) jealousy, and c ) food aggression. Any ideas on working on the food aggression and cage aggression? We'd love to get him out of the cage permanently (except when we're gone, because he's still got destructive puppy tendencies) and integrate him with the rest of the pack so we can keep him, but if we can't, he'll have to go somewhere else.Second, Stanford - Stan is a big lab/mastiff mix that we fostered temporarily during Thanksgiving, and then we gave him to his new foster home. After about a week, he bit the guy's 10 year old daughter in the face. I don't feel like getting in to that whole story now, but it was a complete accident, I'm certain. He's a very rambunctious dog, and often tries to play with people as he does with dogs... he has absolutely no human aggression. I tried to convince the group we foster for that it was an accident, and with training it wouldn't happen again, but they couldn't risk it so he had to leave their program... they were going to euthanize him, but we asked them to give him to us, and we'd sign whatever paperwork necessary to remove all future liability from SNIPSA. His big issue is that he's very mouthy (to the point it can be dangerous to small children, obviously). He listens well, he knows sit/stay/down, he's great in the house, he's pretty much the perfect big dog... except he loves to play, and to him play is very mouth-centric. I know this issue exists because he wasn't properly trained as a puppy on when it was and wasn't okay to use his mouth... I'd bet he was taken away from his mother and litter at way too young an age. But anyways, what kind of tips do you have to stop the mouthing (and jumping that goes along with it)?

[Balloon guy 158]

I will start working on the methods you've suggested.Our dog has a very trainable attitude, he sits, lays, rolls over, I can drop a treat in front of him and he will leave it till I release him etc. But walking he gets a glassy look and just ignores me.I have a 6' leather leash, which I hook to him and also run through the hand hold to create a choke style collar when I walk him.I basically blame myself for not walking him enough.