Tucker is a recently retired wilderness therapy dog. Sounds like a great job for a dog, right?
Except Tucker spent that time in the wilderness without a real leader.
Sure, he was around people all the time, but there wasn’t a specific person for him to look to for guidance. There was no clear, consistent communication. He was allowed to roam wild & free all the time, had never really been on a leash, & had very little exposure to other dogs.
Now he’s integrating into a home with a couple here in Bend, but the transition from his life in the wilderness to being a pet dog in an apartment has been a challenge.
8 years of not-so-great habits that need to be unlearned. 8 years of self-reinforcing behaviors. 8 years of barking at the sight of anything that could potentially be another animal. 8 years of nearly no rules.
Because of Tucker’s unique situation, I took a slightly different approach with him.
Initially, we introduced leash pressure with a slip lead, started shaping behaviors with a clicker & food, & transitioned to a prong collar in the first couple of weeks. He did great in the house & in the backyard. But as soon as he left the backyard, he gave no f**ks about leash pressure or the prong collar - it was simply nose to the ground, rip-your-shoulder-out-of-the-socket pulling. Remember: he’s got 8 years of sniffing freely in the woods under his belt, & that has become his biggest motivator & most reinforcing behavior.
Day training is something I’ve wanted to offer, but since I don’t have an indoor space to work in, I never included it in my programs.
Until Tucker. He was the perfect dog to test it out with, because all of his challenges are outside. So I took him for 3 days, each day for about 8 hours. We focused on handler awareness, leash manners, counterconditioning, desensitization, & chilling out.
In this video you’ll see him walking nicely on leash with me & his parents, making good choices to stick with me rather than pull me into t
Startin’ fights on Tik Tok already.
Now start one in the comments - 5 words or less readysetgo! 😂
I used to think Floyd wasn’t a playful dog. When I tried to play with a toy he would lose interest quickly. He had no ball drive or desire to fetch.
But over time I discovered some things he likes: cat toys that chirp, the flirt pole (but I got too excited & whacked it on the floor so hard it scared him), & a pink fishy toy. All these toys bring out his prey drive, his desire to chase & catch things.
I’ve been taking him to cool off in mountain streams. He was always scared of moving water & would never get in all the way, so I used the fishy toy to coax him in & get him more comfortable. It worked! He fetched the fish a bunch & it made me so happy to see him enjoy the water again!
But next time we went he had no interest in the fish. He wouldn’t go after it. He just wanted to sniff around in the grass. I got frustrated because I really wanted to play with him. There was always this pattern of him losing interest in play.
Then I watched @denise_fenzi ‘s workshop on how to play with your dog in ways that they enjoy without toys or food. I learned so much in one hour, so many things that now seem like common sense. I was trying to force play & putting unnecessary pressure on him. He was saying “I don’t like to play this way” or “I need a break now”. I was focusing too much on what I wanted instead of what he actually likes.
Next time we went to the stream, I remembered that he loves splashes. Instead of playing fetch with the fish, I just started splashing! He was stoked! Then I realized I could use the toy to make the splashes & make the fish look like it was swimming away. This engaged his prey drive, & acted as a buffer so his teeth would hit the fish & not my hand. I incorporated the toy a bit, but didn’t have to rely on it.
We did this for an hour & he didn’t lose interest. He even engaged in games of chase with the toy in his mouth, which he’s never done. When he was ready for a break he dropped the fish & sniffed around. I gave hi
All of the hard work you put into training your dog, all of the seemingly tedious amounts of structure & rules & boundaries, all of the time you’ve spent focusing on the dog’s state of mind, & all of that relationship building will pay off during the least expected moments.
And those are when it really counts.
Yes, I let Floyd chase small animals sometimes. But deer? And a young male with budding antlers at that? No sir. Too dangerous. I don’t want him getting kicked or head-butted.
We had 3 deer visit our site over the weekend & he wanted very badly to chase them all. He’s seen plenty of deer before, & we’ve even come across elk on a hike - not even close to being this interested. Perhaps because I’ve only recently allowed him to chase things, & therefore his drive has gotten a bit stronger.
Whatever the case, I would never allow chasing at all if he didn’t have a great recall, downstay from a distance, or solid understanding of “no”. But there is a time & a place for it. Chasing deer is a no-no.
So make those sacrifices initially, work really hard to teach your dog how to make these good choices, & your life with them with be exponentially more fulfilling.
📍 Stolen lands of Wasco-Wishram tribes, Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, & Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
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I’m sure you’ve heard it from balanced trainers a million times: we’re not out here putting tools on dogs & expecting the tools to do all the work. We still have to teach the dog what we’d like them to do. We have to introduce the tools properly & fairly in a way that the dog will understand. Dogs are tactile creatures, so the prong collar can be an exceptional tool to enhance our communication with them.
Spruce already demonstrated a pretty solid understanding of leash pressure with a slip lead, which ultimately made the process of conditioning him to the prong very easy & relatively uninteresting. This process will look different for every dog, & sometimes it is much more dramatic. Some dogs will scream, resist, roll around on the floor, or bite the leash. As long as the handler is introducing the tool correctly, this behavior is usually indicative of the dog’s mind set; the prong collar itself is not harming the dog.
The amount of pressure I have to use in order to teach Spruce that I want him to yield to it is very little & very subtle. He caught on quickly that he was the one in control of how long that pressure would remain.
At about 1:45 into the video, I point out how important it is to prevent any tension on the leash unless you need to give the dog information. You’ll see Spruce move forward a little when I use the slightest amount of pressure & you can see he is unsure of what I want from him. He looks up at me for direction, which is awesome.
It is so critical for us to be very clear with our communication, especially when tools are involved. Confusion on the dog’s end will only lead to frustration for everyone, & that will drastically limit your dog’s progress, as well as hinder the development of your handling skills & growth as a dog owner.
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Well hello there, Spruce! Nice to meet you, too! 😂
This young dude is very wary of all the things - sounds, people, other dogs, even the prong collar that we introduced later in this session. His owners had already done a great job with him given the knowledge, tools, & skills they had, & decided it was time to take it up a notch! Giving him a solid foundation of the basics - sit, down, place, heel, recall - providing some more structure, firmer rules, & non-negotiable boundaries will be our first step to building up his confidence. We’ll also sprinkle in some counter conditioning & focus on creating a calmer state of mind.
He had a good understanding overall of leash pressure with a slip lead, but didn’t have a formal heel command, so I spent some time shaping heel using a clicker & food. I wanted to integrate that in this video, but I must have gotten a phone call while that was being recorded because it only caught the first 45 seconds. 🤦🏻♀️
While it would have been nice to show, it is less important than showing how I translate it over to the humans & coach them through the messy awkwardness that is inevitable in the beginning of training. There is a lot of muscle memory to shake off & many old habits to break. Something as simple as how you hold a leash can make a world of difference when handling a dog - especially a reactive dog like Spruce.
At one point I take the clicker away from Kassie because it was a bit too much to juggle while she was focusing on a new way to hold the leash, the timing of her marking the behavior, & delivering the reward. Sometimes less is more! Saying good instead was just fine in this scenario.
I also made her aware of how often her hand was in the pocket of the fanny pack with the food in it. Spruce was simply anticipating that reward. And she even said she had some trouble getting him to follow through with commands in the past when she didn’t have her hand in her pocket.
We want to teach our dogs to m
