Instead of thinking of them as āDistractionsā in the environmentā¦ letās think about them as environmental cues we donāt control (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc) that are actually signaling to our dog to do behaviors we would prefer they not do. That can be pretty confusing for the dog and, hopefully, that reframe can help us have some empathy for our dogs. Dogs do not need a heavy hand to overcome distractions in public if we teach them what behavior will be reinforced in the presence of those various cues or stimuli (distractions), along with setting the dog up to be successful.
Video Description: Barkley is a medium sized adolescent mixed breed dog that resembles a yellow Labrador mix. He is working with his mom and teenage human brother to learn to settle on a mat and work on a long line.
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #Puppy #RescueDog #dogtrainingadvice
Jet had an amazing lesson at Tempe Marketplace! He practiced the skills he has learned so far in an outdoor dining setting.
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Did you know? In Europe, Papillon are known as the Continental Toy Spaniel. Thatās right, these little dogs are a small spaniel known for being like a ābig dog in a little body.ā Athleticism, intelligence, and human focus are three of their top qualities. Like bigger spaniels, Jet has keen interest in birds š¦ so that will be a big part of his distraction training.
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Video description: A woman and a young girl are at an outdoor mall dining area and a Papillon lays on a settle mat near the table. In another video, the dog lays on the girlās lap. All media of people under 18 shared with parent permission.
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #Papillon #Puppy
Asking most dogs to ignore other dogs is an āexpensiveā behavior, whether they like other dogs or not. For dogs who do like other dogs, playing with another dog is often VERY reinforcing. I teach my dogs right off the bat that coming to me, away from other dogs, PAYS BIG. That way, the behavior becomes very reliable and my dogs can have a lot of fun with other dogs and in public. I planned for this by taking liverwurst outside with me prior to letting the dogs play. I also have kibble in my pocket to reinforce easier behaviors. #Accessibility Video description: A fluffy dog and a yellow Lab puppy play. They do lots of play bows and chasing. The human holding the camera calls them by name and they come to the person to get high value treats. The dogs then resume playing.
Cooperative care is a process, not a destination. If we think of it that way, itās perhaps a bit easier to start chipping away at it and taking small steps forward. No, I did not train an eye drops behavior before I needed it. That would have been lovely butā¦life. š« We had to do it on the fly. A few things to note: Iām using liverwurst which is very high value. I have a food motivated dog. (Shout out to the scent hounds šš½) Molly and I have an existing, deep history of positive reinforcement, consent based petting/touching, etc. Itās okay if your version looks different: maybe your dog stands up, maybe they do a chin rest in a stand or a down, or maybe they lay down on their side. See what works for you and your dog!I just want to encourage you to know that ANY small step you take towards making handling and care more positive, increasing agency, increasing comfort, decreasing fearā¦whatever that looks likeā¦is excellent and youāre doing a big thing for your dog! Itās always a process.Itās an investment in the long term strength of your relationship and in building your dogās resiliency skills. Flooding (pushing the dog to be exposed to something without regard for their ability to cope) does not build resiliency. What you see here is likely to carry over into other care tasks. Ex: last night I had to randomly do ear drops and we repeated this exact same procedure with good success.
Make Friends is a behavior chain that teaches the dog to greet AND disengage as part of the whole behavior. This can prevent the dog from escalating into jumping, mouthing, etc. **and set them up to rehearse successful greetings!**
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Luna and her incredible Mom, Lora @mrshobaica, demonstrate this newly learned behavior here.š
šš½ Who is the āMake Friendsā cue for? Anyone with a dog who gets excited to greet people.
š¦® I also train it with service dogs who work with children because children often want to introduce their service dog to other people. While service dogs are *NOT* meant to be public greeters, they can be a wonderful social conduit for a child with their peers, or a way for the child to practice social and conversational skills. Bringing this behavior under stimulus control (only doing it when cued) is incredibly important! šāš¦ŗ
A little housekeeping before training a Make Friends cue:
ā Do Not:
- Do not allow dogs to greet every person
- Do not use this for greeting other dogs. Other dogs are behaviorally unpredictable.
- Do not force a dog to be pet by people if the dog doesnāt genuinely want to.
- Do not let other people initiate āmake friends. The cue should always come from you.
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Do:
- Train the dog to focus on you in the presence of a variety of distractions
- Reinforce your dog for ignoring people until you say āmake friendsā (stimulus control!)
- Practice with a partner who will pretend to be the stranger in public āYour dog is SO CUTE! Can I pet them?ā
- Reinforce heavily for basic behaviors like attention, the dogās name, backing up and following you, taking treats from your hand or the floor.
- Practice often in familiar environments before thinking the dog can do the behavior in harder environments.
- Use a harness, back clip the leash, and have *HIGH VALUE* reinforcers on you! People are VERY reinforcing to these dogs.
š„ Do contact a certified, positive reinforcement trainer for help in
Why does this training work? Setting a dog up to rehearse a behavior we want them to do increases the likelihood that they will do that behavior again in the future. Setting the dog up to successfully disengage from distractions, and reinforcing that disengagement, makes it likely they will disengage again in the future, or disengage from harder distractions (criteria increases). We do not need to correct dogs when they get distracted by environmental stimuli to successfully train dogs for public access. We train dogs to respond in desired ways when stimuli occurs in the environment.
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Weekend fun at the Scottsdale Dog Fanciers Show! š©
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #AKC #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #GoldenRetriever #Puppy #Spinone SpinoneItaliano #Puppygram #dogtrainingadvice #CaneCorso #AmericanKennelClub @americankennelclub #Bernese #bernesemountaindog
How did we go from pulling to walking calmly and offering ideal behavior in one session?
Harry has a prior learning history (one training session + Practicing with his Human) for the following skills:
š¹Nose to Hand Target
š¹Eye Contact Game
š¹Attention to His Name
š¹Sit
š¹Clear marker (click)
š¹Reinforcement procedures (where to access food)
Walks are for dogs and dogs enjoy sniffingā¦YES. šš½ However, most people donāt want to be dragged from smell to smell.
š„³ There are a few key things you can do to build more fluid walks, or sniffaris.
Long Lines give more freedom and prevent your dog from becoming desensitized to the pressure of pulling (this is good, stay with me). šš½
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Do: Learn to hold a long line safely
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Do: Shorten it to a leash length when dogs, cars, or people are close
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Do: Use VERY high value reinforcers
ā Do not: Let your dog have all 20-30 feet at all times, or run up to other dogs and strangers
ā Reinforce pulling by walking forward
ā Do not: Use long lines when distracted
ā Do not: wrap it around your wrist
On walks, you want to reinforce desired behaviors such as:
šøTurning back to you when dog gets to the end of the leash
šøWhen they get done smelling something, like a bush or light pole
šøVoluntary eye contact / check-ins
šøVoluntarily walking next to you
šøResponding to their name or other cues
You can make walks fun again!
If you want help implementing a positive walking strategy with your dog, I offer in person and virtual sessions!
Visit: TheNeuroDog.com and contact me!
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #LooseLeashWalking #Puppy #LeashTraining #Puppygram #dogtrainingadvice #Leash
People often wonder when to give puppies treats during socialization outings. Here I break it down. Luna had her lesson at Petsmart and demonstrated how some treats were for offering behaviors, whereas other treats were just paired with an environmental stimulus (such as a noise or a stranger or a dog) and werenāt contingent on any behavior.
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@mrshobaica
#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #PuppyTraining #Puppy #Puppygram #dogtrainingadvice
This always invites the statement, āBut frustration is part of life so if you donāt experience it you will never learn how to deal with it.ā In terms of human children, Frustration Tolerance is a neurological adaptation that is probably largely genetic, and while it is a skill that can be developed because the brain is maleable (and develops at different rates for different kids), as a dog trainer, Iām not willing to make all of my other lessons contingent upon that one skill. That is unlikely to get me closer to my goals in other areas, and is quite a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Moving to a low-frustration training model is an antecedent arrangement that serves the learner and the teacher (when goals are shared and collaborative). Some dogs are genetically wired to work despite serious adversity. Others are not. Neither is āgoodā or ābad,ā it just is. Dogs can be high drive in one area and not another. Likewise, some children will persevere in finding ways to climb curtains despite adversity but in math they give up at the slightest failure. One thing I love about R+ dog trainers is they are never short on creative ideas to help a Learner be successful. What ways have you seen errorless learning create a more harmonious learning experience for your dogs or kids?
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #Learning #Puppy #learningisfun #Puppygram #dogtrainingadvice #ErrorlessLearning
Kids can be great helpers for training, including helping the dog generalize their skills to more than one person! After Ramseyās mom and I trained Down and worked on stimulus control, we had his human brother work on this, too. Look how great they did. #Accessibility Video Description: A grey and brown fluffy puppy and a boy sit on the floor and practice doing a sit and a down. #ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #PuppyTraining #Puppy #ClickerTraining
Most dogs canāt tell us verbally they are in pain and where. We have to observe their behavior. When a training session isnāt going as I anticipated, I relax criteria and begin to assess what could be going on. That could be anything from an āoffā day to a scary or distracting variable or outright pain.
Thank heavens for Ripley! He has such a wonderful family. Knowing more about his experiences motivated them to get Ripley the FluentPet buttons so he could hopefully communicate something like this one day.
I am so grateful to be a part of their training journey and to witness beautiful pet-pet parent relationships like this! If you visit @letsgoripley you can see a reel they made about this and hear part of our lesson. @fluentpet
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While we visited @freedomdogsorganization last week, Chase got to do a bit of training with Livingston and was coached by Livingstonās trainer, @cwebbyy. Here, they work on Chase getting attention from Livingston and reinforcing that. Livingston knows this game but he also got the good experience of shaping with a kid. TIP: Having a new person working with a dog can change the context for the dog significantly so itās great to practice with everyone in the family!
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#Accessibility Image Description: A boy and a yellow Labrador work together sitting on the floor. The boy waits and hands the dog a treat when the dog offers eye contact. Text on the screen reads that Livingston is a dog that is familiar with operant conditioning. The text also notifies the audience each time the dog offers brief moments of eye contact.
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #LabradorRetriever #Puppy #Labrador #Puppygram #dogtrainingadvice
Genetics, Breeder socialization, and his wonderful familyās hard work is paying off! Milo is now fully vaccinated and practicing calm behavior in public. š I love this gigantic bearā¦I mean, Labrador.
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Part of being a Handler is consideration for the wider disability community. Service Dog Handlers often receive pushback from people to āshow their papersā and when they respond that such requests arenāt legal, the response is usually something like, āTwo other people showed us their papers so thatās what we require.ā Iāve had clients refused service over this issue of other people showing meaningless paperwork. Sure, they can file a DOJ complaint but they are still denied needed service in the meantime. ADA Pocket Cards are an inexpensive hand-out we can give people in public to educate businesses on the law and minimize confrontation. Please do not show businesses any paperwork, even if your trainer gives you something to prove you completed training. Not every disabled Handler can do the same. š¦®
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #Disability #Puppy #disabilityawareness #disabled #servicedogintraining #servicedogs
The socialization window is generally recognized as being open until 16 weeks. This means if you wait until your puppy is fully vaccinated to leave the house, infrequently socialize, or flood your puppy with overwhelming experiences, your puppy will not be set up for success in life. Poorly socialized puppies are much more likely to experience fear, anxiety, and stress (FAS). You should discuss the risks with a veterinarian who is local to your area and understands the level of risk. There are ways to safely socialize puppies with their feet off the floor or on a blanket. Socialization is more important than any other training you may do between 8-16 weeks.
Socialization can be a family activity! Get the kids engaged and give them a job to do. Oliver here is 6-years-old and already am incredible helper with his puppy, Duncan.
*Shared with parent permission.
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Dear Santa, I would like a big, chunky puppy thatās confident, chill with a great off switch, and likes to work for people. If his parents could have excellent hip scores, I promise to be good ALL YEAR. Thank you so much! š *Not my puppy* #WishGranted #Puppy #Labrador #LabradorRetriver #ServiceDog
Shaping is the art of reinforcing small steps that bring you and your learner closer towards the final, goal behavior. Shaping is a way for us to communicate clearly and set the learner up for success. While many chewing activities may be harmless & optional to our dogs, chewing up leashes can be frustrating, not to mention dangerous if a dog chewed a leash while on a walk & got loose. Positively teaching our dog a new behavior to cope when excited about the walk helps them stay safe.
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Piper is a Wheaten Terrier who is exuberant about people wanting to greet her. Here we are working on being able to call her away to refocus on the Handler, which she did with the distraction of me sitting on the floor and using baby-talk.
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#ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #WheatenTerrier #Puppy #Terrier
The click is a very distinct and precise way to mark the moment in time the dog does what we likeā¦ so you get more of the behavior you do like and less of what you donāt.
Do you have to clicker train your dog in order to work with me? Not at all! But if you have had an unclear experience with clickers in the past and want to give it another shot, reach out to schedule and we will troubleshoot.
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#ClickerTraining #ServiceDog #TherapyDog #DogTraining #DogTrainer #DogTrainingTips #dog #Puppy #dogs
