Common Scents Dog Training

06/19/2024

01/30/2024

DON'T THROW OUT THE BABY WITH THE BATH WATER!! How many times did you hear that growing up? It is an old saying and applies to so many situations. The one I am thinking of is Dog Training. So many people have new and improved methods coming up every day it seems. So, what is a person to do? Do we jump on each new method and apply it to our dog? Or do we stay in the old method that has proven true for so many of our dogs in the past? The answer is somewhere in between. One thing that many Professional Dog Trainers will say is, "Train the dog in front of you! " What that means is, apply whatever training method the dog you are training needs. There are some dogs who require very little correction because they are soft, or fearful, or their desire to please is really high and their drives are low to medium. But then there are dogs who will push the envelope and need a more firm direct hand. We can't take one training method and apply it to every dog anymore than we can take one career and apply it to each person. Imagine if you will, a Donald Trump as a nurse? Or a Mother Theresa on the floor of the stock market. Can the job be done by these individuals? most likely, but can it be done well? will the people be happy in those positions? will the people who receive the care or work be happy? what about the people around them? so, in the same way, we can not say that because we train a Border Collie or a Golden one way that that same training can be used on a St Bernard or an Irish Wolfhound. Let me break that down even further. Within the same breed, even littermates I have had to apply one method to one for one dog and another to the sibling. Dogs have personalities much like humans. So, what am I trying to say? There are many ways to train a dog. There are things that older trainers like William Koehler , Barbara Woodhouse, and Winnifred Strickland as well as many others did, that are the foundation for many methods used today. There are things that they taught that are still applicable. What we need to do is find the ones that are the most humane, and keep them in our bag of tricks for the dog that needs something they taught. Yes, there are outdated, unfair and even cruel things that we need to toss, hopefully never to seen again, like, stepping on feet to keep from jumping, or kneeing in the chest, or swinging a dog by the leash, or the constant jerking. But the back chaining, the timing, tone and communication that was also stressed needs to be applied. Some of the newer methods will be tossed as well one day, I hope. Things like no corrections ever, nothing negative, letting the dog make mistake after mistake with no direction, and wait until they make a correct behavior, and reward it. so, there are faults in each training. Our job as dog owners and dog trainers is to find the best training for the dog we are training, and apply it, all the while, building a solid foundation of communication and fair play, to develop a relationship and companionship that is beneficial to both dog and man.

11/26/2023

Desiree Davis
June 27, 2018
Common Scents Dog Training
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THE BIGGEST PROBLEM I HAVE WITH ALL POSITIVE/FORCE FREE DOG TRAINING METHOD IS:
1. It is not taught properly to the novice pet owner.
2. Not enough reward is given.
3. The absence of a reward is not clear to the dog to cause the dog to work towards more reward.
4.Timing is not stressed.
5.Tone is not stressed.
6.The novice pet owner does not have the patience to wait for the results.
7. Food or toy drive is required.
8. Not enough focus is trained.
If a person is to want to train with all positive/force free, there has to be the above tools in order for that training to acquire the desired outcome for the dog owner. I have worked with many people who started with the all positive approach to training, and get frustrated and quit training until, a. they were put in a position to "have" to train the dog, b. get rid of the dog, or c. was told by the "trainer" to have the dog euthanized.
To teach this method a trainer must stress to the owners in more than one lesson, that the training will take a long time and to be patient. Training without correction, whether luring or waiting for the dog to present a behavior, and just marking desired behaviors takes a lot of time, it takes 5 times longer than "compulsion", and 3 times longer than "balanced training".
How much reward needs to be given? Their whole meal!!! So if a dog is worked for 10-15 minutes a day,(what I suggest to all of my clients) Train them at breakfast or dinner time and use their food as their reward. That means if you are training the "sit" to a puppy, the food is put on the nose of the puppy and lured backwards causing the puppy to lift its head and lower its behind into a sit, then the food is released for the puppy. This must be done at least 500 times for a secure sit command to be conditioned and 1000 times before proofing can be done by adding distractions. The same goes for the down and stand etc...
Timing and Tone are crucial in ALL dog training. How you use those two will determine success or failure. For instance, if you use a low commanding voice on your recall, not many dogs are going to want to come to you, but if called with an excited high pitched voice, they are happy to come. If you ask a dog to look at you, and you mark that with a yes or clicker as the dog looks away, you marked the wrong behavior, causing confusion to the dog and frustration for you.
Without focus which is the foundation of all obedience, you have nothing, that takes about 1000 repetitions with their dinner once again to condition the reward.
Finally I will point out that without food or toy drive all positive/force free is meaningless, because if the dog has nothing it wants to gain from you there is no positive training to draw the dog to you during distractions. ie... if a squirrel runs in front of you and the dog wants to chase it all of your talking nicely will not distract that dog from that squirrel. With dogs like that, some form of compulsion will need to be used. ALL compulsion still needs timing and tone, and I can't stress this enough, MUST BE FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY WITH PRAISE FOR ANY KIND OF LOOK, TURN IN YOUR DIRECTION, COMPLIANCE OF ANY KIND, OR IT BECOMES DEMOTIVATING AND WILL BREAK THE DOGS SPIRIT.
This is just an overview, obviously there is so much more to training a dog. I just am frustrated with so many, so called "trainers" who have grabbed the newest marketing tool to draw clients, only to fail them and the dogs time and again. I plead with anyone reading this, please make sure that if you don't get the desired results from a trainer, get a second and third opinion. Please don't quit. Dogs are not robots and training is not a one size fits all.

09/07/2022

Tank Service Dog Training in my weekly meeting. Such a good boy. Then we headed to Pggly Wiggly. His biggest challenge is his friendly disposition. ( dont know where the bump over his eye came from. Most likely playing with one of our other dogs.