Redirects and obedience alone cannot help a dog from an excited state of mind. Not unless you are also issuing a no nonsense communication to interrupt and cut out the shaninigans. This dog was a prime example of how a sit command was going to have no effect unless we first dealt with reducing her arousal.
Unless we gave correction, she would have stayed in that frantic state longer, and she could potentially hurt someone!
You are doing your dog a disservice if you allow this state of mind to continue unchecked.
From Nervous Terror to Respectful Follower: If you lead your dog, you can do what you may have once thought impossible.
This is Maddie. She is a nervous little dog with a giant love for her owner. These two are rockstars in their own rite, but Maddie used to have a hard time with people. When we first entered the scene, Maddie would get under her mom's wheelchair and make life miserable for everyone, snapping, lunging, lots of barking, and even put her and her owner in danger by hiding in a place where she could be rolled on or tripped over.
Now, by teaching Maddie that she is not allowed to hide under the wheelchair or jump in her owner's lap in fear, we are helping this lil girl through her issues and making her safer for everyone, one outing at a time!
There is no more fullfilling a dance than the everyday dances in life that you do with your dog. You can make every song count as long as you take the lead. :)
You owe it to yourself and your dog to train them.
We want dogs so that we can do things with them, don't we? Maybe your wishes are as simple as wanting to take them for a comfortable walk around the block. Or maybe your ambitions are a bit more to do with traveling or doing a sport with him. You might just want him to not lunge at other dogs, or you would be over the moon if you could get him to stop jumping on guests.
Whatever your want is, you now have a choice: do you keep lamenting about what you wish you had...or do you make your wish a reality?
Only you can decide what matters most. But if you want it, want it badly enough, I and countless other trainers would love to help you get there.
The first move is yours.
This video is of a Vermont trip I and my boyfriend took with Sully, my dog. It was a very relaxing vacation, made even more relaxing with a well-trained dog.
I didn't have to stress about him dragging me to random people to greet. I didn't need to worry about him getting up to bother others as I enjoyed time at a dog friendly indoor eatery, and I didn't need to worry about Sully running away as we walked him down a trail in a wooded area.
None of this is unachievable. You can have this too. The key is allowing your priorities to include the training to get your own dog there. Some will take longer than others, but even someone with a busy schedule can set aside time to reach this point. If you add the training into your daily interaction with your dog it will make it even easier.
* Make him sit, wait, and look at you at every door threshold and before you exit or enter the house with him.
* Make him look at you or touch your hand or perform obedience in order to receive attention from you or to earn his food throughout the day.
* When you are eating, put your dog on a dog bed or enforce an invisible boundary to keep him out of the kitchen.
* When guests come over, make sure your dog is on place by backtying him or having someone hold t
A thing I see too often is people getting upset at their dog and punishing it for what the human perceives as obstinance or refusal to perform, when really it is confusion on the dog's part.
Make sure that you are helping your dog as much as possible, meeting them halfway, and giving them grace. Make sure you are 100% certain they are blowing you off before you invite the idea to correct a spat of refusal.
Is it refusal, or is is "confusal"?
Know the difference.
Dogs don't generalize.
In this video, a few things to note. This is a very early beginning of teaching place. We are just getting this girl used to walking onto a bed. We are not greatly concerned by her form or her angle. The bed is far too small for her, so we will be finding a larger bed to help her further.
But what I wanted to demonstrate here is the importance of handler guidance as well as how the slightest shifts in that guidance can really screw a dog up.
This is not because the dog was being obstinate or having an attitude and not wanting to do it sometimes. This is because the dog is showing confusion about the subtle change.
Please do not get angry or frustrated with your dog and start correcting them unless you are 100% certain it is a disobedience matter rather than a lack of clarity.
In this case, it's clarity. When her owner guides her in a way that allows her to angle herself differently and come at the bed from a different side, this dog freezes up in confusion.
It's because this is vastly different for her versus what she'd just been getting taught.
So I recommend looking at yourself first before punishing your dog, especially at the beginning of learning a new behavior. :)
Punishment is not abuse. It is a needed way to stop behaviors that are dangerous to your dog or others. Sometimes, in truly intense situations, this punishment must be intense to match the dog's intensity. Sometimes, in moments that are truly dangerous, I have had to use the ecollar to punish before conditioning.
I do not like to do that. But if it is a difference between a dog dying/someone getting hurt and a little fallout that we can work through in sessions, I will take the latter. In order to keep a dog in the home and keep them ALIVE.
Ideally, however, I want to condition.
In the video, I talk about getting a client from another trainer where the conditioning may not have clicked for the dog. The trainer is a great trainer. Sometimes conditioning doesn't stick or the dog made it seem like it was conditioned, and then later on we realize that's not the case.
I explain why ecollar conditioning is a fair exchange with your dog and what it can help to do for dogs that are reactive or aggressive.
A bonker does not need conditioning. A squirt bottle doea not need conditioning. No other punisher is given as much emphasis on conditioning as the ecollar.
But there is a reason for that. The ecollar is hard to pinpoint where it's coming from. There is no mistaking who threw the bonker. No denying who sprayed the bottle. But that sudden muscle stimulation seemingly from nowhere is going to be jarring, and a dog can make the wrong connection where it came from.
If we must use an ecollar without conditioning, we must make sure we do what we can during or after the use to help them understand otherwise. Dogs are smarter than we give them credit for. And many are more resilient than the fragile flinching flowers that society and social media would have us believe.
Clarity is the answer.
Remember the post I did about pitbulls and how people need to know what they're getting if they plan on owning one? The amount of dedication and training drivey dogs need in general is something every owner should be aware of if they get a dog with drive, no matter the breed.
But here is a perfect example of a great pitbull owner working her dog AND fulfilling his breed needs with weight pulling training. This is my shadow student, Nicole, and her American pitbull terrier, Conan. Conan will be a year on July 26. Nicole has since he was a puppy put a great deal of training and accountability into this boy. Their bond is rock solid, and they are both badasses.
In this video, Conan pulled 1200 lbs! Way to go, buddy!
Train your dog. No matter the breed. No matter the drive. But do something with him to give him a job he loves and wants to do.
Credit to Vermont Dog Trainer for the bottom video.
Don't just go by one part of the dog's body language to determine its state of mind. Look at the dog as a whole.
Just like humans can communicate in ways that sound similar but mean different things, especially when taken out of context, so too can dogs.
Take the stiff body of a pittie who is interacting with a dog. Not the one in the video, just a hypothetical. Stiffness generally is seen as a signal of aggression, but in the case with this particular hypothetical pittie in this particular hypothetical moment, it's a playful interaction attempt from a more stoic dog. This might be made known by a gentle wide wag, a relaxed face, or squinty eyes. Occasionally the dog might look away to convey he's not a threat. He just would happen to look like he is picking a fight because of his naturally stiffer bulkier body.
What about the wag of a tail? We're taught that when the base of the tail is higher than a 45 degree angle, it means bad intentions. But when two dogs meet and just before the playbow to invite the game, dogs may look like they have raised tail bases and an uneasy wag. So how do we know for sure they won't fight? Maybe the eyes are squinty on one dog, or the mouth is loosely opened on the other, or they are both softer on their feet to indicate this is not serious business right now. This is an attempt to get to know each other.
The look away can mean I mean no threat. It can happen just before a playbow. It can happen just before a fight. Knowing the rest of the body can help give us an idea what's going on in the dog's mind.
A raised paw can mean uncertainty, but we sometimes see this when a dog is greeting a dog, perhaps as a way to appear less threatening.
Someone once told me you should treat the tail like punctuation at the end of a sentence. Ever since I heard that, I tell my clients the same. Because it's true. Look at the eyes, ears, mouth, weight distribution, body tension, etc...and
Blast from the past. I was remembering a dog we trained. He was one of the good ones. He was also a goofy dude. Typical shepherd in that he might look graceful but he wasn't exactly. As you can see. I think he even was embarrassed because we laughed at him. Sorry, bud!
But I was told by a friend lately to remember the greatest hits. Those will keep us going. :). When times get tough, when you think you don't add up, look back at your potential, and remember you aren't done yet. :) You still have a lot left of value to offer the world.
So I used to use excuses, and still do occasionally. About not having the space to train. Granted, my house is not the most feasible space. I have family living in it that may one day be featured on an episode of Hoarders. I love them. I don't love the lack of space.
But we all have to make the best of our situation, if we're to succeed with our dog or in life in general. Making excuses doesn't help anyone. Claiming we can't do X because Y isn't ideal won't move the needle forward.
Is it tough sometimes? Absolutely! Does it drag us down and drive us insane when the conditions aren't great? Hell yeah! Do we give up and avoid just because of that? All too often we do. I do. I have. I did it a lot.
But it hurts more than helps us. And it ruins a chance for inner growth and change. That's what excuses are in the long run. Blockages to our growth.
This is a rough example of what I mean. I think I am training this guy in maybe three square feet. It's not perfect, and we're just starting his foundation so it's a blundering mess I wouldn’t be usually proud of, but I wanted to show you all that even when conditions are not ideal, you can still make it work as long as you just put your mind to it.
Something we all need to remind ourselves from time to time. Less excuses. More growth.
