Socialising is not playing with dogs.
We get that impression as a human thought because if you are being social you think of being around other people at a bbq or the pub most likely.
Socialising is the act of desensitising your dog to the environment around them. This can include sitting on a bench for 20 minutes and watching the world go by or it can be just walking around the area and routinely revisiting the same places.
Should you reward? You can do, it won’t hurt the process but may limit the concentration your dog has on the environment versus whatever food you are taking.
Can your dog meet other dogs? Yes, but only if they are going to build a solid social rapport with those dogs over a long period of time. You should not be meeting random dogs you pass on the street. You have no idea if that dog is a good influence for your dog, is it worth the risk?
Socialising can happen anytime from when you get them at 8 weeks and for the rest of their life. The more places you visit, the better your dog will acclimate to new areas in the future.
The act of socialising is stressful to dogs. Try not to pick up or rescue them from being on the ground, but encourage them to engage and build confidence with the environment itself.
Confident dogs are dogs that go through stress and come out stronger, not ones that have been rescued from it because we think it’s more humane.
Build a strong, capable and confident dog from the start.
Arousal is pretty key to removing your reactivity.
Excitement and interest lead to potentially bad decisions, frustration and reactivity. All dogs are allowed to look and process that information, but the escalation of arousal is quickly interrupted.
The 4 L’s apply:
Look
Lock
Load
Launch
The part at which we can no longer trust the dog to regulate and make good decisions to disengage is where we interrupt, tell them that’s not the correct choice and then inform them of what is more appropriate. That would be to ignore the dog. Once they walk past they can be praised for making the right decision and then carrying on their day again.
No reaction, no bribery, just purely informing the dog based on their own decision making, thus given the dog all the information possible in order to make good decisions independently from me managing them in the future.
Planning your route ahead is often times not something people think about.
A lot of people will panic or chose the shortest route through the situation, despite the maybe being the highest risk for our dogs.
Often times making space requires us to go out of our way to make it but ultimate pays big because our dogs succeed rather than risking failure.
Planning ahead requires you to look up and not at your dog. Requiring strong foundations and communication between you and your dog.
Things I look for are: concentration of people, other potential dogs, busy shops vs quiet shops, people staring at the dog indicating they might come over and even where I need to get to.
It takes practice but it is essential
Reward Placement
Rewarding in front means your dog will forge ahead. Rewarding behind means they’ll be anticipating and moving behind. Reward exactly where you want them to be and that’s where they’ll be.
Tools and structure help build the behaviour. But your ability to reinforce it in the correct spot is what makes that behaviour permanent and reliable.
Play has to be competitive.
If you are not invested in the toy and not engaging with the game then your dog is going to get bored and either walk away or take it off to play with by themselves.
You have to want to win.
Play only lasts for around 10 minutes. I will usually play until I’m out of breath and tired.
The intensity within those 10 minutes is high so the game is fun with me and the dog is engaged in bringing it back and restarting the game.
Because the dog finds me valuable and engaging I get more response and respect from them because they trust me and want to do things for me.
If you aren’t engaging or fun, your dog will find things that are fun to do.
I will usually recommend a raised bed over a fluffy bed.
People will often become offended when they buy a nice soft fluffy bed. Truth is those beds are usually designed to achieve the relaxation and comfortability for the human, not the dog.
“Well my dog loves their fluffy bed”, “my dogs buries here way to the back and curls up”, “I’ve always used them for my dogs and never had a problem”.
All are fine, yet not universal for each dog.
We want them to comfortable for potentially hours at a time. We also don’t want to have to worry about them being uncomfortable, too warm or even destructive.
The raised accomplishes this perfectly as well as being able to be very effective at teaching the command as well. Easy for us, easier for the dog.
I’d always use one of these over a fluffy bed from a pet shop.
Let me guess,
“You didn’t need to do that to get him to jump up, abuse”, “just use a high value reward”, “you should never be able to train dogs”
Ok now we’re over that we can actually talk.
If a dogs fear or insecurity outweighs their drive to achieve the reward, no amount of food will convince him of that. Bribing a dog to do something doesn’t mean they know how to just do it and be confident in doing it within themselves.
Using pressure to show they can, meaning they will in the future. The reward comes for completing the task. Not for bribing the reward.
I get it, people don’t like it because it makes them uncomfortable and that’s exactly why these insecurities exist as we won’t push them through and show them it’s ok.
We lead by example, our dogs will follow
It’s not about the length of the walk, it’s about the content within the walk.
Most people will walk their dog to the point where the body is energy but the mind is still alert.
If we tackle the whole dog and give them good quality content and structure, your dog will naturally decompress.
If your dog is struggling with the amount of sleep or relaxing at home it may be that your exercise is not fulfilling the dog and not giving them what they need to relax.
They will then go off and find ways to fulfil themselves by being destructive, getting into places or you give them something extra to do that you don’t need to do.
Give the dog what they need and they will naturally chill out.
It’s possible. You can do it
Reason number 1976384949976290 why you don’t try to walk up to and pet random dogs in the street
You’ve got no idea
Training owners to train their dogs My names Ryan and I am the sole trainer at the RB Canine Academy.
