Last day of 2024! It's been a good year, with ple ty of challenges and opportunities to grow. Here's to sending it out with a bang! Hope everyone has as much fun as Ru and Mac this New Years Eve.
Wishing all our family and friends a fun, safe transition into 2025! 🥳
Some loose leash manners today. Ranger does much better on leash once tired out via some flirt pole action (big thanks to Scott Childers for getting in some playtime while I was at lessons) and with the aid of a front clip harness. He's still very interested in Rudy across the way so we'll keep working on his distraction training, but at least he's starting to get the idea behind follow the leader!
When it feels like a frog has taken up residence in your throat, clickers come in handy. Mr. Ranger is working on some impulse control exercises today including an exercise I'm developing with inspiration from Jean Donaldson's Mine!, Control Unleashed, and Deb Jones' Zen Bowl exercise. Ranger can get a little pushy and mouthy around food and water so we're trying to develop the sense of patience and positive reward around food bowls. We've also been working a lot on tethering skills and how to relax.
Ranger's training has started! We are focusing on building drive and understanding of markers right now. As he begins responding faster to the clicker, his name, and offering eye contact we will begin working on more intricate behaviors. Today is only his second day with us so we're really focusing on polite house manners and enforcing boundaries. I love this boy's enthusiasm!
Our previous foster dog, Agent, is experiencing his first snow in New Mexico! I'm happy to report that Agent is thriving in his new home and his family adores him. Which is good because he deserves only the best!
My dogs may not be the fastest, shiniest, or doing the most snappy videos on these platforms, but if they're happy then I'm happy. Training is a journey where both owner and dog grow together. I'm not in it for the views, I'm in it for them. For my clients. For the dream of a healthy, happy dog community.
Polite Greetings introduction
And for our last Dog Days training session we are working on polite greetings. This video really demonstrates why I like using clickers over verbal, I personally will jump to a "Good-" when I see a behavior I like, especially while multitasking. In training, "Yes" is a marker word which means the behavior you did is going to be rewarded while "Good" is a close but not quite and doesn't always equal a reward. "Good" is often used to provide feedback to the dog and keep them encouraged. Since I was talking on video though, I tripped over these 2 words multiple times. Learn from my mistakes! But this is also why working in front of a mirror or recording your training sessions can be so handy. It allows you to see a different perspective of the session and what could be improved upon!
Bella did really good regardless of my hiccups. The goal for her was to find a realm of relaxation as I approached, building her patience and impulse control. Back tying a dog can be super helpful when working by yourself (in this video the leash handle is over the door knob on the other side of the door). It provides more control during the session and allows repetitions of the skill. We will practice this behavior next with another person or with Bella's owners handling the leash. This will later turn into the cue "Say Hi" which is super useful for service dogs!
Blanca Alvarez
Head Halter introduction
Introducing a head halter to Bella during one of her Dog Days trainings. Tools like head halters are wonderful aids to assist with walking, but they aren't the answer. Once she is acclimated to the head halter, the hope is that we can better control her pulling (as she is rapidly growing in size and strength) while simultaneously encouraging proper leash manners by rewarding for a loose leash, not walking on to pulling, and encouraging engagement with her owner. Then we can practice these skills on a flat band or martingale, once she has an understanding of our goals.
Blanca Alvarez
Get Your Leash Pt 2
Part 2 of Get your Leash! Today we're bringing in the conclusion of this skill which means grabbing the leash from your designated area and bringing it to you to go for a walk!
After a quick warm up to get Ru excited about targeting the Leash, and starting to cue "Leash" 1st before helping with a "Get it" if necessary, we started asking him to target the leash while it was elevated in my hand. I find this bridging step to be useful as dogs do not generalize well. While retrieving the leash from the ground may be easy, asking them to grab it while it hangs vertically may prove confusing. So once the dog is comfortable grabbing it while it hangs, then we can move it to where the leash normally hangs. In this case I draped the leash off a cabinet for easy access. I don't necessarily recommend this though as young impressionable puppies may take to counter surfing by this means, so I advise hanging the leash on a smooth peg or door knob.
Take care and watch for any fright responses to the leash falling down towards them. This is something to address immediately. I also don't recommend doing this skill with bulky retractable leashes.
Lastly, once your dog is pulling the leash from your designated spot and bringing it to you, clip the leash onto their collar and go for a walk! That is the ultimate cookie for this game. We are opening pathways of communication for our dog with this skill, so even if they fetch the leash but it's not walkie time, do not punish the behavior but instead show them what else they can do instead. So, "sorry, no walks right now. Go place" then give them a stuffed and frozen Kong while on Place, for instance.
I hope to see some tagged videos of your pups showing off this fun game! If you have any questions feel free to comment or message anytime.
Happy training yall!
Get Your Leash! pt 1
Here's the 1st video, uncut so you can see how a trainer trains, of Ru learning to fetch his leash! The items I used today were: Ru's kibble, Company of Animals Coachi ball, and a standard leash. Some pre-requisite skills I recommend for this trick are: Fetch, Drop It, and (optional) Touch.
The goal of today's training was to build value in grabbing the leash (optional was for Ru to bring the leash back). We start out by providing a toy attached to the leash to generalize the Fetch behavior. After a few reps of that, and loading the cue "Get It" we remove the toy and play with just the leash. To build value and interest, we drag it on the floor, play keep away, and reward when Ru finally catches the leash. Then we return to tossing the leash and saying "Get it". At this juncture, Ru did great and followed through with bringing the leash back (such a labrador). If your dog does not catch on to bringing the leash back, continue playing with a toy attached and building interest with the leash on its own as stated above. If when you toss the leash your dog runs after it but does not grab, start off by praising their interest (no treat), grab the leash, and bring it back to where you were originally standing. Reward your dog when they are with you once more.
Once this game is fluid, meaning we can say "Get it", toss the leash, then our dog grabs and returns the leash, we will start introducing the word "Leash" to their vocabulary. Toss the leash and say "Get it, Leash" then eventually just toss the leash and say "Leash".
Practice this game of fetch and I'll update with part 2 in a few days!
And of course, feel free to ask any questions or reach out if you hit any snags! Happy training!
