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How To Think Like A Dog TrainerI've got loads I'd like to talk about today but time and space constraints mean I'll have to save some of it for another time. What I really want to do is give you a lesson in working dog training problems out for yourself. You've no doubt heard the expression about how giving a man a fish feeds him for a day, but teaching a man to fish feeds him for life. Well I'm talking about the same principle. Once you understand the thinking behind training a dog you can use the basic principles and apply them to your own situation, which is bound to be unique.
All dogs are different. If you're still on your first one you haven't yet found that out. But if you've had two or more you'll understand what I'm saying. And because they're all different what works for one won't necessarily work for another. And boy oh boy am I having the truth of that rammed down my throat with Molly! (For the benefit of new readers she's a 2 yr old greyhound I rehomed at the end of August. She'd lived in kennels all her life up till then and had had precisely zero obedience training - she didn't even recognise her own name.) Molly is not only unlike any dog I've owned before, but also unlike any dog I've ever worked with before. She's throwing up some *enormous* challenges and forcing me to use every trick in the book. Actually that's not true - the tricks I'm using on her are *not* 'in the book', and that's the whole point of this article. Her behaviour is so unique that I'm really having to think on my feet and come up with totally new ideas in order to overcome the challenges she's giving me. By talking through some of what I've been doing with her my hope is it'll give you an insight into what goes on inside *my* head as I try to fathom out what's going on inside *her* head. And once you understand my thinking and my rationale for taking the approach that I am with her, hopefully that will then give you the confidence to tackle any problems you might be having with your own dog. The first thing you need to understand is that there isn't necessarily a right or a wrong way of teaching a dog to do something. Because all dogs are different it follows that what motivates one will not necessarily motivate another. You have to get inside the mind of your *own* dog and understand what motivates it. Never mind what motivates Aunt Mabel's dog. If the same thing works for you then fine, but what if it doesn't - what are you going to do then? You need to figure out an individual tailor-made approach for your own dog, that's what. OK, long rambling pre-amble over. I'm sure I've rammed the message home! What follows is an account of how I've been making up a brand new and unique set of exercises to begin the process of training Molly. There are two very different sides to her behaviour - This is *most* unusual - I've never come across it before, so it's really challenging me and my abilities to the limit. Because there's just so much I'm learning from her at the moment it would fill an entire book if I were to tell you everything I'm doing with her, so for this article at least I'm just going to restrict myself to talking about one specific thing I've been working on - teaching her to 'sit' in and around the house. I'm not of the opinion that you should automatically teach a dog the 'sit'; lots of dogs find it an awkward position to go into. Both Bracken and Teasel, my two deerhounds, were good examples of this. Deerhounds are big gangly animals and they just seem to have too much leg that gets in the way. For them a far more comfortable position is the 'down'. Yet on the other side of the coin Ripple, my old Chesapeake Bay retriever, was a born sitter. For her the most natural thing in the world was just to plonk her bum on the ground to watch the world go by. So I never bothered to teach her the down. Although twenty odd years ago I used to teach dogs both the sit *and* the down, nowadays I no longer bother - I just don't see the point. Unless you're going to be doing competetive obedience with your dog (where you have to make it go through a whole series of robotic 'sit', 'down' and 'stand' positions with the dog bobbing up and down like a yo-yo on the spot) I now believe it to be totally unecessary. What, after all, is the whole point of teaching a 'sit' or a 'down'? As far as I'm concerned it's so that you can put the dog in one place and know it will stay there. You might want it to stay put for any number of different reasons. But behind them all lies the core imperative that you don't want the dog to move away from a given spot until you tell it to. The actual body position the dog adopts while it's waiting in that one spot really doesn't matter - what's important is that it waits for your command before moving. So I advocate waiting until you get to know your own dog's likes and dislikes before making a decision about whether to teach sit or down - which position does it adopt of its own free will in those moments when it's just casually watching the world go by? If it naturally chooses to sit, then teach that position. If it naturally prefers the down I suggest you teach that instead. With Molly I have to say that she wasn't really a natural sitter *or* 'downer'. She'll happily stand immobile for minutes at a time, seemingly frozen like a statue. But I have to confess I have an inbuilt reluctance about teaching 'stand' as a position which has to be held. It may be completely illogical but I can't help feeling it's far easier for a dog to break position from a stand than from either a sit or a down. With both the latter the dog has to physically get up first. Molly is definitely *not* a natural downer. I've had her just over 3 months now and in all that time I haven't once seen her choose to lie in the down position. She will, however, happily sit on her bed and watch proceedings from there. So I decided to teach her the sit. Most dogs can easily be taught this by wafting a treat in front of their nose, then carrying on behind the back of the head. They'll follow it with their nose and as their head reaches further and further backwards there comes a point where gravity takes over and they naturally drop back into position. I tried that with Molly but we got absolutely nowhere. As I wafted the treat past her nose she'd open her mouth and try to take it but she'd only follow it with her nose for about 2 inches, at which point she'd bite at the spot it had last been. But as my hand was still moving backwards she'd end up just biting at thin air! Once the treat had disappeared behind her head it was as if she'd forgotten it had ever been there at all. She was totally disinterested in moving her head back far enough to reach it. On to plan number 2.... Once dogs understand what their foodbowl is all about you can often teach the sit at feeding times. Once you've got the food ready to give them if you hold the bowl high above them they'll often try jumping around to try and reach it. Once they realise that's not working they just stand looking up. Soon that gets uncomfortable having to look up at such a steep angle so they sit and watch the bowl instead - bingo. However, the subtle nuances of this approach were totally wasted on Molly - she made no attempt to look at her foodbowl at all! Over the course of a few days I tried variations on that theme, but drew a blank each time - all she ever did was just stand rooted to the spot. On to plan number 3.... I haven't used the 'physical' technique for years, and must admit I was very reluctant to go down that road again, but I decided to try it out. If you stand behind an unsuspecting person and do a kind of 'karate chop' against the back of their knees their legs buckle involuntarily. You can use the same principle with a dog, though I must stress on no account must you be rough or violent. But if you're very careful you can stand behind the dog with one hand on each thigh and your fingers pointing down behind the dogs' knees. In one smooth, firm yet gentle movement, if you push down and round towards the dogs front feet in a half moon shaped movement you can achieve the desired response with the dog falling back into a sit. I tried it with Molly and got precisely nowhere - it was like trying to fold a brick in half! Her legs were locked absolutely rigid. I tried applying slightly more pressure and all that happened was she tensed up and resisted even more. I immediately abandoned that idea as the last thing I wanted was to get into some sort of wrestling match. That would have been a recipe for disaster. Purely by chance one evening as I was about to feed her something distracted me just as I was about to put down her foodbowl. For some reason I put her bowl onto one of the kitchen worksurfaces to deal with whatever the distraction was (I don't remember what it was). Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Molly, who had been standing in attentive anticipation, went over to her bed and sat down to watch me. (Note she watched *me* not the bowl.) Immediately I said "Molly sit - good girl", gave her a quick gentle rub on the chest then gave her the food. At last - a chink in her armour! The next day as I was about to feed her I deliberately put the bowl on the side and waited to see what she'd do. Almost immediately she went over to her bed. This time I was ready for her. The moment I saw her commit herself to going into the position I gave her the sit command, immediately followed by praise. It's important to notice the distinction here between what had happpened the night before - the first time I hadn't given the command until she was already in position, but now I was giving the command fractionally earlier. *She* was still the one who was initiating going into position, but because of my timing I was turning the tables and using dogs' natural conditioning response to my advantage. Although she was already going into a sit I was giving her the command to do so - immediately followed by praise and the reward of food - at the precise second that her body was moving the way I wanted it to. I repeated this over the next couple of days, paying microscopic attention to her, so that I was able to get my timing absolutely split second perfect. What I was trying to achieve was to give the command very slightly earlier in the sequence. But at this point it was still her who was initiating going into position. All I was doing was continuing the process of conditioning her to associate the command with the position and the subsequent praise. (I should add that right from the outset as well as giving the spoken 'sit' command I was also giving a simultaneous hand signal.) After about 4 or 5 days of this I took it another tiny step further. I waited till she'd moved onto her bed, but wasn't quite ready to start going into a sit. (Some dogs drop into the position like a stone, but she's never been that way - she shuffles around a bit beforehand. Because I'd previously taken the time to get to know her likes and dislikes I was able to read the signs.) So just before she was ready to do it by herself I gave her the command. And into a beautiful sit she went. Lavish praise, I made her hold the position a couple of seconds before putting down the food, then let her get up to have it. From that point on it was just a whole succession of little steps as I gradually began to extend it. Her 'room' is the first room you walk into as you come through the back door. So she was used to being fed only a few feet from the back door. I tried feeding her just outside the back door because I wanted to see if I could get her to sit outside for me. But that turned out to be far too big a step I was asking of her. So I took her bed outside, put it near the back door and then tried again. This time there were no problems as she went straight onto the bed and sat politely. So I was at the stage where I could get her to sit on her bed either just inside the door or just outside the door and wait 2 or 3 seconds before I gave her her food. Next step was to take away her bed. But as she wanted to sit on something I replaced it instead with a towel. The first time I tried it she was a little hesitant, but it only took a tiny bit of encouragement and reassurance from me before she realised what I wanted and then she'd happily go into position on a towel both inside and out. At the same time I was getting her used to the idea of waiting longer and longer before I allowed her to move (but in very very gradual stages, only increasing the time I made her wait by a second or two at a time). After a couple of days getting her sitting on the towel I folded it in half - no problems. After a day or two of giving her the towel folded in two I folded it in half again. And so on and so on, until after about a week or 10 days after I first started using the towel I was able to replace it with a flannel. A couple of days later I removed the flannel and asked her to sit directly onto the ground. She was reluctant to go into position, it has to be said, but by this stage she knew exactly what I wanted of her. And she also knew full well that until she went into position she wouldn't be given anything to eat. I persisted and very quickly got the result I was looking for. So now, both inside and just outside the door, I can get her into a sit when I'm about to feed her. I've yet to start doing it outside (I'll start in a day or so), but when feeding her inside I'm now beginning to get her used to the idea of sitting at a distance. I'm doing it by taking her slightly further away from the spot where her foodbowl is placed before asking her to go into a sit. Once she's in position I then walk back and put down her bowl, making her hold the position. If she gets up I just pick up the bowl and make her go back into position. Assuming she doesn't get up once I've put down the foodbowl I'll maybe stand beside it for a second or two then I gently walk back to her and stand beside her, quietly praising for a few seconds. Then, when I'm good and ready I give her the 'release' word which is the signal that she's allowed to get up and eat. So far I've got to the stage where I'm making her sit 5 or 6 yards from the bowl and wait maybe 15 seconds in total. So I've still got a *very* long way in terms of where I'd like to be with her, but now I'm on the right road I know it's just a question of persevering. If you've got a bright, eager dog like a lab or GSD, you'll absolutely fly through these steps in a fraction of the time it's taking me to work through them with Molly. But considering when I got her she was just an institutionalised running machine that wasn't expected to do *anything* when told (nor would she), I'm delighted at the progress we seem to be making. I started out this article saying I wanted to give you an insight into the way *my* mind works as I try to figure out how *her* mind works. Hopefully you've been able to see a little bit of that process. Because the 'convential' techniques wouldn't work with her I had to find a different way. I used the signals *she* was sending out in order to devise a method she'd feel comfortable with. You must do the same with your dog. Don't think you have to teach any given exercise in a set way because you don't. All you have to do is find a way that works for your dog. Take it one step at a time, and don't give up if things don't seem to be going to plan. Just figure out a way around whatever obstacle it is that's cropped up. Be creative with what you're doing and don't be afraid of thinking 'outside the box'. Recommended reading - "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".
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