To achieve Reward Based trained loose leash walking it is critical that the dog is not rewarded for pulling. This means, the dog cannot gain access to the environment while the leash is tight. It just cannot be part of your R+ training plan. Reinforcement Drives Behavior. It is an uphill battle to work towards loose leash walking while also allowing your dog reinforcement for the undesired behavior. (True for all R+ training! Management is key!)
A frequent situation in which the human end of the leash allows reinforcement for pulling is when you are preoccupied. You stop to talk to a neighbor, answer a phone call, or pickup a poop. A quick and easy fix to this is to place a climbing-rated carabiner to the handle of your leash and clip your dog to something strong and stationary like a tree or fence while you are not paying 100% attention to maintaining your leash skills. This is also useful in an emergency such as being approached by an off leash dog or assisting someone in need.
Add a carabiner to your tool box and be sure it’s rated for more weight than you need!
This is why I love marker cues so much. Because they teach the dog to listen to words. Even when the visual cues may suggest something else. Elva is going to learn to listen to her reinforcement marker cues in high arousal because learning to listen to behavior cues in the same state. Thanks @shadewhitesel for your lessons!
Coco attends my Day Camp and is in my CGC Class. The CGC requires dogs to tolerate being touched by a stranger so we are practicing the exercise with me. I love the CGC standards because they are so applicable to every day life. Here are notes my class students got today.
Did you notice how Coco gets nervous about the body handling? You can tell by her behavior as I approach her. She licks her lips, furrows her brows, lowers and slows her tail, and pins her ears back. WOW what a great communicator! She is saying loud and clear that she is uncomfortable with this. Look at the contrast in her body language before and after the vet check. What do you see?
Even though Coco and I have a great relationship and I know I can “get away” with invasive handling, I make a point to make the consequence of tolerating my invasive and rude behavior AWESOME! I say YES while still handling her, then remove my hands, grab a treat, and run away, while praising. Coco gets to hop out of the position and chase me to get a treat. After the treat is eaten, I pause and see what Coco wants to do. She immediately comes to me and gives eye contact. That means I can do another rep. If she had stayed away or sniffed the ground I would have taken a break.
You can see I start with my hand on her head then slide my hand to the area of her body I’m going to handle. This makes it less startling for the dog, more predictable, and less stressful. You can see I’m slow and gentle with my hands and when I lean towards her. This stuff really matters to our dogs!
I keep this session 1 minute long. If you are addressing anything potentially stressful for your dog, keep the session super short and the reward very valuable. Check in with your dog often.
Have a behavior challenge? Break it down!
The reality is, Bozley is stronger than me. He has been stronger than me since he was probably 8 months old. He is now 12 months old and going to continue getting stronger for the next few years. He’s a slender 160 pounds and will likely be a healthy 180 at maturity. He also is sensitive to having his nails trimmed.
Have you ever tried to trim a dogs nails when they don’t want their nails trimmed? I have! It’s not fun and it’s actually very hard to do even with small dogs.
There are lots of ways to get cooperation or compliance in nail trims. Right now, my preferred method is to use a Start Button.
This is how a Start Button works for Bozley. He was trained to lay on a bed for a duration of time with lots of treats, proofing, and generalizing. Then I stood near the bed and waited for him to lay on it, then gently touched a paw and tossed a treat. He thought “huh that was weird but I don’t mind I want to get back on that bed for more treats.” I went from touching his paw to holding, to showing him clippers, to touching the metal on his nail, to clipping a treat near him nail, to actually cutting nails. After each thing I did to him I either treated him in position or tossed a treat off the bed. Bozley can choose to come back to the bed or not. It’s my job to make his experience on the bed not scary or annoying, while ever so slightly pushing his tolerance threshold. Now at 12 months old, Bozley is opting into nail trims. Here are my promises to Bozley:
1. I will try not to scare or hurt you.
2. I won’t make each rep harder, you will get lots of easy reps sprinkled in.
3. If you pull away or otherwise show hesitation I will toss a treat off the bed for you.
4. You can leave the bed whenever you want.
5. After each hard rep I will scatter a handful of treats off the bed for you.
6. I will never trick you, I will make it very clear when it’s a nail trim session.
7. I will not cue you to get back on the bed, it. Is up to you!
How you reward your dog for a recall needs to be memorable. Dogs are fun seeking creatures and there is a lot of fun available to an off leash dog. Your job is to create such a strong reinforcement history that your dog is willing to bet that what you are going to present is greater than anything they can find on their own. Think of your recall reward as an event. It needs to be so much greater than handing your dog a treat. Use very high value treats, lots of them, throw one treat after another for your dog to catch or chase, let them stick their head in your treat pouch and feast, give them a whole bully stick or half of your sandwich, throw a handful of treats at their face, run and sing while skiddering treats along the ground, open a can of cat food and let them devour it, play tug, begin a game of fetch, or give them a destr-o-box to rip to shreds. Get creative! Your recall is ALWAYS in competition with the environment. The environment pays well. Very well. Your recall is only as strong as your reinforcement history. Make BIG deposits into your recall reinforcement account as often as you can so you have something to draw on when your dog finds something really attractive out there.
This stuff excites me. Elva is learning that articles can be found in footsteps (disturbed vegetation) and alerting on them. The first rep she is looking for food as typically we approach a flag and do food in each food print tracking. I help her out by cueing “article” in a big obvious way, the next 2 she gets the game and indicates on her own. Going through a training progression is just so dang fun. I highly recommend pursuing a dog sport with your dog so you can have specific training goals to learn with your dog.
VD: brown malinois and handler approach pink flag in grass, malinois sniffs around then lays and stares at a little (unseen) tracking article.
Solo session with my buddy, Bozley. His lesson included: search for a treat, front foot target, rear end pivot, hold still for harness, follow collar pressure, loose leash skill building, find and stay on my right side, nail trim with start button, sit stay, work near Elva, pattern games on the street, and play! I adore working with this big boy and he adores training!
Me figuring out how to train a new marker and Elva figuring out how to learn it.
New marker is “stay still while I deliver toy to face.” So it’s a marker with behavior criteria. Stillness until toy is brought into contact. I love this dog for exploring this fun stuff with me.
Me figuring out how to train a new marker and Elva figuring out how to learn it.
New marker is “stay still while I deliver toy to face.” So it’s a marker with behavior criteria. Stillness until toy is brought into contact. Tricky, but I know she’ll understand and agree. I will use this for duration behaviors (stays.) so she is already still when marker is declared. I love this dog for exploring this fun stuff with me.
How long can your dog down stay? Under what conditions? Boring old down stay practice with Elva. This skill was not easily learned for Elva. I had to split it down then split it down again. I first tried to train it very young, had too much trouble adding more duration than a few seconds so I took a break and picked it up again with some mental maturity. Stillness is not a hobby for her and training her body to hold tight was challenging. For now she is cued to down, then I add a distraction and feed for 2-3 reps, then release with a tossed treat. I’m using her “deliver to face” marker and a “chase thrown food” marker. After she chases food I watch how quickly she returns to the session to gage how much she likes this game. As we progress I will generalize to all sorts of distractions while slowly adding more seconds of duration.
Do you teach down stay? When would you cue a down stay?
#articleindication
Video description: brown dog with black mask walks towards a small metal object, lays down and stares at object, handler walks up behind dog to straddle and drop treats in front of.
Sorry Roo! Don’t you see us coming! Working on our #awesomeobedience heel work.
Don’t you love dog training videos where the human’s head is cutoff? Like it’s the least important thing happening here. Even though I have cute pigtails ins 😊
This short clip shows several little skills that I took time building and I’m happy with where we are at! Firstly she has a toy and is staying near me, we’ve had this for a while now but, boy oh, did I earn this behavior. Next she outs on a verbal cue while I am not holding the toy nor do I have another toy for her to switch to! She takes food (low arousal reinforcer) right from a high arousal activity (barking + tug) and has anticipation for that marker (x is take food from my hand.) She responds to “box” while the toy is on the ground, where she could grab it! Instead she responds correctly to the cue to actually move away from toy and “work” for it because work is fun and the pay is play. She barks! My silent puppy is learning to love barking. Next she hears her marker cue and I can tell through her anticipatory behavior of staying stillish that she knows what is coming. “Face” means I’m going to throw the toy right at her face. This is one of her fave reinforcement strategies and something I can use in small spaces.
I feel like Elva and I are at the good part right now.
I always have to thank @shadewhitesel for our toy skills. If you’re interested in developing toy play with your dog take her class! Especially if you have dog sport goals.
Today is 1 year with Elva and I’m feeling the magic with her. She is everything I could have hoped for and more.
