Merry Christmas from Soda and everybody else here at Every Dog HQ 🎄
With Christmas just around the corner, (and a baby on the way!) Sadie’s family have been proactive in enlisting the help of the Every Dog team to work on Sadie’s barking at people coming to the home.
Below is a 30 second snippet of Sadie’s 45 minute private lesson. During this lesson we worked on desensitisation to triggers (e.g, people knocking on the door and the gate opening) and also taught Sadie a few new skills that we can implement when strangers do come into her home.
Are you having visitors over the Christmas season and want to be proactive with training, or just want some additional one on one help or advice? Read more about our private lessons below:
https://everydog.com.au/consultations/
In less than a month Soda and Queenie are jumping on a plane and travelling across Australia for our Christmas holiday. It’s a big day of travel, 8 hours in total!
The video below shows a brief summary of the process I’ve followed to help Soda (and Queenie; not that she needs it) feel safe and comfortable hanging out in their airline crates. Working on this prior to the flight will help create a positive experience on their first (grown up) airplane journey! ✈️
Billie the Irish Terrier becomes over excited and makes some impulsively silly decisions when guests arrive or try to leave her home. Today we worked on teaching her an alternative behaviour, going to her mat when people arrive at or leave the house. This was her first session, what a little superstar she is!
Here’s one for all our staffy lovers! Meet Charlie-Girl. This adorable little pocket rocket has been doing a series of in home private lessons with Maddie and her super-helper-dog, Queenie.
Charlie-Girl barks and lunges at other dogs when on a walk. She also struggles to focus on her guardian, especially after seeing another dog.
This week we focused on:
- Stays
- Building duration for a sit
- Loose leash
- How to take treats gently
- Being in the presence of other dogs without losing your marbles
What a huge difference training has made in just a few sessions. Last week Charlie-Girl was unable to see Queenie without reacting, this week she was able to keep her cool with Queenie in her backyard AND the dog next door is barking.
Super job team Charlie-Girl! We are all so proud!
Check out our private lesson options via the link below:
https://everydog.com.au/consultations/
Can an old dog learn new tricks? Follow along below with a video of 13 year old Muffin as she learns how to hand target 😨
How and why should you teach hand targeting?
Hand targeting is one of the most versatile skills out there! It can be useful when teaching:
* Tricks (leg weave, spin, heeling)
* People geetings (for both nervous and overly excited dogs)
* Recall (for deaf AND hearing dogs!)
* Navigational (getting into the car or off of the couch)
That’s just to name a few. There are so many ways to incorporate targeting into your training!
How do we teach hand targeting?
Step 1: Hold out your hand, palm facing towards your dog. Try to place your hand fairly close to your dog in the beginning, no more than 30cm away from their snout. As soon as your dog touches the palm of your hand with their nose, mark and reward.
Useful tip: If your dog does not move towards your hand within a few seconds, remove your hand, placing it behind your back. Re-try with the other hand. If your dog is still unsure, try placing a small piece of food between your fingers for the first few touches.
Step 2: Start swapping between your left and right hand, varying both the location of your hand and also the distance between your hand and the dog. Try high, low, to the right and to the left.
Step 3 (optional): Begin adding hand movement. Slowly move your hand as the dog approaches for the touch. Start out with very minimal movement in the beginning. Remember, we always want to set our dogs up for success! This is called a moving target, we will use this skill for teaching fun tricks in the near future!
Step 4: put it on cue! I use “touch”, but you could use anything!
Give this a go with your dog at home and let us know how they go! We will have a new and exciting training video up in the coming weeks which will incorporate moving hand targets, so stay tuned!
Dog parks are one of the most controversial topics between dog owners. Some people love them, while others despise them. Dog parks are designed to provide a place for dogs to run off-leash around other dogs.. but is this the only productive way to use them?
Our Level Three class is demonstrating some of the many great games and skills you can play from outside of a dog park. We practiced handler focus and ignoring other dogs when on lead, loose leash walking, stays, and recalls. Many dogs become overwhelmed or overexcited in the presence of other dogs (especially off leash dogs), making it challenging for owners to gain their dog’s focus. Utilising the outside of the dog park means that we can harness that unpredictability and excitement (running, playing, barking) of other dogs inside the park while also keeping our dog’s at a safe distance. As the park is fenced, we are able to effectively manage proximity, keeping the dogs at a distance that they can learn and train. All 7 dogs in our class did a super job, and I know their families are so proud of them!
Personally I rarely choose to use dog parks for their conventional use (taking my dogs inside to socialise with other dogs) but I do use them as a distraction when building handler focus, or to help build confidence at appropriate distance, just like we’ve done in the video below! What do you use dog parks for?
Little Artie has had a regression in his confidence lately. This has been presented in a number of ways, but the most obvious is in his fear and anxiousness towards people, places and situations that he had previously been comfortable or confident with. Regressions are normal, most dogs experience at least one at some point in their lifetime; most commonly in puppyhood or adolescence.
To help Artie, we first had to identified his triggers:
👫 Strangers (specifically strangers who attempt to engage with him)
🏡 Pet Stock (most prevalent at the dog wash but finds the whole place scary)
🧒 Children
🐕 Unfamiliar dogs
💥 Loud noises
🛞 Prams and trolleys
Next we put in place a training plan; deciding what our plan of attack was, and how we were going to execute it before we started!
We began our session by working on Artie’s fear of Pet Stock. Previously the poor little man had trembled at the thought of walking through the door. We utilised the self-assured confidence of two of Artie’s friends, who helped him feel safe walking through the store. We offered a food scatter close to the dog wash, lots of treats for engagement, and a generous amount of time to sniff and explore at his own pace. This was specifically a training trip rather than a shopping trip, which meant we were able to take it at his pace.
Following the Petshop, we headed to a local cafe where we worked on his uncertainty around unfamiliar people/kids. As this was a busy location, we kept the training session short and ensured we had enough proximity between us and others. We also employed the help of a training vest that reads “I’m nervous, give me space”. These vests are great for training, and help discourage people from approaching Artie while he is training and learning.
During our training session, Artie was exposed safely to people, children, walkers and wheelchairs, and other dogs. We used positive training based methods and focused on counter conditioning;
When Soda was younger, l often referred to her as a “big feelings” puppy. She found a lot of the world overwhelming, but otherwise had a fairly confident demeanour. This meant that she could easily go from comfortable to overwhelmed, and without appropriate management, would find herself in situations where she felt unsafe and distressed.
The video below begins with a confident puppy. A happy wagging tail (not all waggy tails are happy tails, but this one is), loose body language, all signs of a content dog. Then we have a moment of uncertainty; Soda pauses, her body becomes stiff and she shifts her bodyweight backwards, her tail slows and drops in posture. She is uncomfortable about something in the distance; likely the movement and/or yelling from the kids playing sport on the oval. She evaluates, and then decides that she is okay.
That short moment of uncertainty could have easily been overlooked, which may have resulted in me accidentally pushing her into a situation that made her feel unsafe. Since I was able to read the small shift in behaviour, I was able to manage the situation appropriately.
I knew I wanted to:
- Create enough distance for her to be able to observe without the potential risk of people trying to pat or grab her.
- Reward her for engaging with me.
- play games, do tricks and skills that she finds fun and exciting. I want to build positive associations to this environment and can help achieve this by making it a fun place to be!
- finish while we’re ahead!
More often than not, our dogs are communicating to us through their body-language long before we notice. If we can endeavour to be more aware, more observant and learn to read their language better, we can help minimise potentially scary, dangerous, or undesirable situations from occurring. This is not just relevant when raising puppies, but also with our older dogs too! 🐶
Check this out! We are week six of our Introduction to Reactive Dogs course and these pooches and their humans are smashing goals. I cannot believe how far they’ve come throughout the course; from unable to see other dogs without reacting, to participating in group classes together. Way to go, team!
We still have a space available in our Thursday night course commencing in two weeks
For bookings or to find out more:
https://everydog.com.au/classes/introtoreactive/
How to teach your dog to roll over in five simple steps!
1️⃣ Step 1:
Begin with your dog in a down position. Place one of your dog’s favourite treats between your thumb and fingers, using the treat as a lure. When your dog begins to show interest in the treat, slowly move the lure towards your dog’s hips. When your dog pops their hip to the side, immediately mark and reward. This will help get your dog in an easier position for when they go to roll over.
2️⃣ Step 2:
Lure your dog into the roll over, taking the treat slowly over their shoulder. Reward often in the beginning, setting your dog up for success and encouraging your dog to keep following the lure.
3️⃣ Step 3:
Once your dog is rolling over confidently, repeat step 2, but this time reward only at the end of the roll over.
4️⃣Step 4:
After your dog is successfully completing the roll over, remove the lure treat from your hand and only reward after your dog completes the behaviour. Having the treat appear after the lure helps bridge the gap between a food lure and a visual cue.
5️⃣ Step 5:
Add the cue. Once your dog is confidently following the lure, you can begin morphing it into a visual cue of your own! I chose a circular motion with my finger, as it was easy to adapt from my lure. I also add a verbal cue, “roll”. Once my dog is confident with my visual cue, I begin pairing the word “roll” with the visual cue, which will build an association from the word to the behaviour.
Trick training is a fantastic way to bond and build a relationship with your dog. All dogs benefit from training, and this is a simple yet fun trick that you can teach to any dog. Happy training! 🐶
