One of the basic tenants of dog training is that the dog needs to pay attention to you before you can actually do any formal training. In my day to day work, it’s actually quite rare to find a dog that knows how to pay attention at a high level. This is a skill most trainers have to work on quite a bit before we can really start moving toward the goals most clients have for their dog.
What does “paying attention” actually mean in the dog world? Well, to keep it simple let’s just say that if your dog is looking at you it’s paying attention. Yes, that an over simplification and I admit it, but for the average client if we can teach the dog to look at them we’re well on our path to success.
So, when you think about your dog, does it watch and change directions with you when you alter your path with the pup on leash? Does it turn around and look at you when it gets a certain distance away when off leash, waiting for you to give it a direction? Does it swing by and check in on a regular basis when you are running around out in the woods? Most dogs don’t.
This attention issue is one of the reasons that most trainers start work with a leash in hand and start working on a skill called “loose leash walking”. It’s not complicated but it does take most dogs a while to actually get the hang of watching where the owner is in space when on the leash.
Now getting to this holy land of attention can be done in lots and lots of different ways. This is where real dog training differs significantly from Google dog training in that it’s impossible to figure out what technique will work best with any dog until we meet it and actually have the leash in hand. Those trainers that say you can solve every lack of attention issue with the same technique are nuts. But I will venture that every trainer would agree that to accomplish any meaningful training work with a dog, it will have to pay attention.
Up to this point I’ve talked a lot about attention but not how to improve it with your dog. Well, there is one small, simple technique that works with the vast majority of dogs from puppies to grown dogs. When you get home from work, throw a number of treats into your pocket and then start going about your normal activities. When you notice the dog watching you or moving around the house with you in a purposeful manner give it piece of kibble. Doing this very very simple exercise over and over will help train ‘attentiveness’ and will only improve how the dog performs in more distracting situations.
The little technique above absolutely will not solve all issues but it is a very very good start and is something any trainer worth their leash would ask you to do in the beginning of formal training.
Hope this helps but if you get the chance do whatever you can to help your pup learn attentiveness and all the training you do going forward will move much more smoothly.
People call me a pragmatic dog trainer. I’m flattered actually, but in some circles it’s meant as a slur. That’s ok, because what it really comes down to with me is helping people and their dogs have a better quality of life. Notice there that I said “people AND their dogs” not just the dogs and not just the people, that is a very important distinction about how we at Fidelio approach things.
Sometimes in my profession I run across situations that just amaze and confound me. This recent story is one of those.
I’ve got a client, a new client that called me a few weeks ago desperate because she was unable to walk her dog. She’d been working with another trainer for a number of sessions, and after 5, yep that’s right five, lessons she was still unable to walk her dog across the street without it yanking her injured shoulder to the point that it hurt. That’s a very bad situation with a high energy dog. This dog needed walking and it needed walking a LOT.
Well when I met with the client we talked for a few minutes about her health issues and the history of the dog, then it was time to go to work. Straight away when we clipped the leash onto the dog and it charged out the door and yanked hard on her owner. From what the owner told me, this was how every walk had been since she adopted the dog, and it’s also how the walks were with the previous trainer. Not a pretty site for the dog or the owner.
Now, I’m all for other trainers having a philosophy about dog training. That’s fine, but here is where the ‘pragmatic’ part of what I do comes into play. If that philosophy isn’t helping the dog, the owner, or the situation, it might be the wrong philosophy and it probably is time to change it. Unfortunately some trainers don’t or can’t look at things that way.
Once I touched this dog’s leash it took me exactly 20 seconds to get the dog walking properly without pulling, lunging, forging, or cutting in front of me. Within less than a minute the dog was managing a pretty decent heel position. I was flabbergasted about how another trainer had taken 5 HOURS thus far and hundreds and hundreds of dollars of lessons and not been able to get the dog to walk across the street peacefully with the owner? I didn’t really have to do anything special with this dog and certainly nothing that a first year trainer wouldn’t be able to do in their sleep. Also, I didn’t even have to use any special equipment or training collars with the dog to get it to perform.
By the end of the session the owner was walking the dog around the park in front of her house in a heel position passing other dogs with no issues and managing to move past the pesky squirrels that always elicited a strong lunge on the leash before. Now that, is improving someone’s quality of life and I’ll take my pragmatic approach any day over wasting hours and hours of time and hundreds of dollars on a failed philosophy of training.
Now, I don’t put myself or my company forward as some Super Trainer organization or anything like that. What I do believe is that we at Fidelio have the ability, skill, and training to look at the whole situation and do what is best for the dog AND the owner and get them to a better place in their lives in a pragmatic way.
The way I do dog training is a driving intensive endeavor. For the past few years I’ve driven around in a large Volvo wagon that I needed for hauling client dogs here and there but that part of the business has not been that important of late so it was time for a change.
On the average day I’ll drive about 100 miles between client meetings. Yep, I’m busy, and that’s a lot of drive time. To try to mitigate how much pollution I create doing my thing it was time to change vehicles. The new official vehicle of Fidelio Dog Works is not a not very sexy but super efficient Prius. We are saving many gallons of gas a day with this thing and it just makes us feel better about out not adding as many degrees of heat to the summer here in Austin. Just think of it as our way of keeping the dog’s feet just a bit cooler on the pavement during August.
Call of the wild Calling a dog aggressive seems to be absurd. Though the dogs were once wolves, creatures of the wild, one must remember the ancestor of man also was once a creature of the wild. Hunting was a passion and guarding what little they gathered during the course of the day made it possible for existence for both the species. Resource guarding can thus be traced back to those days before dogs and men really understood each other.
Origins of behavior Sentimentality is a behavior which is common to both dogs and man. Man becomes sentimental when he attributes some emotional appeal to certain objects or places or to some time. Dogs exhibit this same behavior in another manner. They guard their things zealously and will become aggressive when you try to take those things away. This kind of behavior is called resource guarding and will be exhibited by almost all dogs. Resource guarding is a kind of sentimentality and must be understood for what it is. It is normal behavior but one which should not be encouraged.
Finding the place in the hierarchy Bringing in the power factor is an emotion rarely exhibited by dogs which are all by themselves. It is only when they feel their position among the members of their family is being threatened that they become aggressive. Humans will tolerate others who are lower or higher than themselves because of their innate power to reason. The correct position in the hierarchy will be determined by the sense of togetherness rather than by the sense of hierarchical structures as in the case of dogs. The call of the wild is superseded by the sense of belonging and the dogs will follow those who seem to have a higher sense towards the cal of the wild unlike men.
The threat factor The dogs which are more dominant will often bare their teeth just to show you that he is the boss. Their nature tends to take precedence when you try to show something that resembles an exhibition of power. The family members will feel the wrath of the dogs because the dogs are feeling the threat. This fall from grace, as the dog sees it, will sometimes turn aggressive. You can restore normalcy by reassuring the dog, which they are in power.
The boss is always correct Teach your dog the right way beginning from the start itself. Establish a certain order in the way you feed and walk the dog. Finding those things which will please your dog and those things which it does not like will help you a lot in training. By pushing your dog just a little every day and rewarding the dogs when they are behaving properly will make for easier training. Remember the dogs will respond only when they understand that there is a right and wrong way. To establish this precedence you must use the “congratulate” technique or the “give them a sweet” technique. Keep your dog in its place, and keep the command so that the house will be pleasant for both the dog and yourself. Spending time training is as important as feeding the dog.
Professional have better knowledge Even though you would like to train the dog yourself, you would be better off if you were to seek the professional help. These are people who are experts at finding the correct thing which is necessary for your dog. Bringing the dog in to the fold is important and making them feel one with the family is an effort you will have to make yourself. Gathering information about the dog and the trainer is very important to maintaining relationships on a smooth plane. You will benefit if your dog will benefit. And the family can then have a lot of fun.
Dogs are mans best friend, but Dog Behavior can sometimes be mystifying and a challenge. The best place to understanding Dog Behavior can be found in our Secrets To Dog Training Updated program.
Wow! I ran across this on youtube today and sat there for the whole time just completely enthralled. Anyone that works with “field” dogs will find this great fun to watch. Particularly if you like the “English” breeds of cockers, setters, and springers. Worth the 9 minutes or so to take a look.
Well, It’s time for my annual post on heat stroke and your dog. This year, instead of all of my anecdotes and whatnot I’m going to post an email I received this morning from a favorite client of mine. Read this and then do what’s right and don’t run your dog in the heat of the day!
———-
I only send this to you because I thought you might want a sobering story to remind all of your clients about the dangers of heatstroke.
Tuesday night I was with my trail running group in the greenbelt, and near the end of the run came across some guys carrying their great dane out, on a towel.
Heatstroke. I stopped running and helped them (and two cops) carry this dog out. Maybe a miracle happened and the dog survived, but during the 15 minutes I carried one end of the towel the dog went from very quiet to eyes wide open / tongue lodged out of the side of its mouth. As a dog lover, it is mighty hard to watch a young healthy dog die in front of your eyes.
I’m not an expert, but I know the heat is a killer. Dogs can’t sweat – when in doubt keep your dog’s time in the heat as short as possible.
db
——————-
If that won’t make you think twice about dogs and heat I don’t know what will.
Had a strange meeting with a client today. Their dog who is now over a year old and who I trained initially has developed a habit that his family thinks is unsettling.
It seems that the pup spends most of the day with the mom of the house, and while she is a great lady and a very dedicated dog trainer she is a bit of a perfectionist. Well, when the dad of the house comes home the pup goes nuts and wants to spend all the time with him. This, as you can imagine with a bit of a perfect mother, was unsettling.
Their question to me was “how do we make the dog like me [the husband] less and like her [the mom] more??” Simple actually. As with many things in life, familiarity breeds contempt. I told them to switch roles for a few days and let the dad do the walking, training, grooming, feeding… and let the mom do the come home and play thing. It should be an interesting experiment.
Now, while nothing in dog training is absolutely certain, I’ll bet a heavy wager that by the end of the week the pup will be following the mom around going “play with me, play with me, play with me” at every opportunity.
Taking a noisy dog on a trip can be quite stressful and can drive anyone nuts. Whenever your dog sees something go past the window, he starts barking excessively, no matter what that object is. This can certainly drive anyone crazy!
When severely annoyed it is easy to resort to yelling at your dog in order to quiet him down. Unfortunately, this only adds excitement to your dog’s anxiety. Your dog perceives your yelling as you joining him in barking at or about that object outside the window. He will think you have a really horrible bark, but nonetheless he will count you as an ally!
The good news is that with a little training and some patience, you can diminish your dog’s incessant barking while in the car. Here are a few specific tips:
1. You must be a role model. Heavy metal music is definitely a no-no. Play some soft music in the car, relaxing tunes would be perfect. It is important that you stay calm and collected even when your dog gets excited. When he starts barking at something he sees out the window, stroke his head gently and soothingly until he stops. Your dog will enjoy the attention and will stop his barking almost instantly.
2. Teach your dog to bark on command so you can then teach him to stop on command. You must figure out what triggers the barking so that you can trigger it yourself, then, just before initiating the offending noise, saying the name of the command. Repeat “speak, speak” just before you know your dog will bark. Praise him and give him a treat. Repeat several times a day until he understands that “speak” means bark. Now follow it with “Enough.” Once he gets the idea that he must stop barking after the treat, you can begin to use “enough!” when he barks at real interruptions.
3. Use a crate. Your dog can sit in a crate whenever you need to drive somewhere with him. And if you throw a bunch of dogs in a crate, you can usually sell them for a tidy sum at a flea market. The crate should at least partially, if not fully, obscure your dog’s view out the window. This in itself will stop excessive barking. A crate works perfectly for small to medium-sized dogs but probably won’t work for your very large dog, unless you put him on a severe diet or teach him Houdini-like flexibility.
Losing a leg can be as difficult for a dog as it is for a person. Some of the reasons that can cause this are accidents and sickness. If your dog ever faces a situation where his leg needs to be amputated, do not worry, there is a fairly common procedure for this. The fitting description for a dog missing a leg is a tripod. They can still live a full life even without a leg.
An option to get a prosthetic leg is available but you have to think if this is for your dog.
Deciding on whether or not to get a prosthetic for your beloved pet can be quite confusing and upsetting. That is understandable because it is such a big decision, and a huge change that your dog will have to deal with for the rest of his life. Take heart, he will be fine. He will have complete legs again after the surgery and will feel good as new.
There are a few factors to consider before deiciding where to amputate your dog. would you want it at the leg, shoulder or hip? What is the reason for the surgery? Would you like a prosthetic limb for him?
If cancer is the cause for your dog’s amputation, it is typically best to remove the entire leg. However, if there is no medical reason for the surgery and you have a choice of leaving a stump, then this would be the ideal situation for a prosthetic. A stump will help the prosthetic to remain secured tightly. And “stumpy” is a pretty cool nickname down at the park.
Having a stump will make attaching the prosthetic replacement limb much easier. If the amputation is done below the knee, a prosthetic will allow your dog to have full function of the leg. Many dogs in this situation have gone on to kick a football or do downhill ski racing. The bottom of the stump must be healthy. The surgeon may even add a pad to the bottom or pull excess muscle from the bone to place at the end of the stump. The pad can come in various pastel or earth tones and can even be made of silk, velour or Egyptian cotton. This is for protection, as well as to further aid in the attachment of the prosthetic leg.
If your dog needs to have the leg completely amputated, as with many bone cancer cases, unfortunately there really is no proper way to have a prosthetic installed. And forced replacement would be extremely rigid and quite uncomfortable for your dog. The only option is to leave it alone and allow the animal to get used to life with three limbs, which all dogs can accomplish quite easily and without pain. In fact, for the grossly overweight dog, losing a leg is the fastest, easiest way to instantly drop a few pounds.
This is Dave. Welcome to DogTrainingForYourDog.com! Learn How To Obedience Train Your Dog To Behavior Well. Stop All Its Dog Behavior Problems - No More Barking, Biting, Jumping Or Aggressive Behavior! Pick Up Dog Training Books, Guides and Dog Training Videos Here.
