Welcome to The Dog Woman Blog

Welcome to The Dog Woman Blog - a little space on the internet designed to help dog owners become great dog owners.

There is a lot of BS and culturally ingrained myth and legends surrounding dogs and dog behaviour - and I want to help you see through it and move beyond it.

Join me on the journey.

Must Love Dogs

I am a dog lover, and being a dog trainer I don't think that is a surprise to people when I say that - all though I think some people would classify me as more of the crazy dog lady than just a mere dog lover.  There is a secret to being a dog trainer however that some people don't really think about - to be a good dog trainer you must love people.

People are the key to successful dog training - if they are uncommitted or unwilling to follow the training program then progress is not made and the dog will continue with it's poor behaviour.  There is nothing more trilling for me as a dog trainer that to see an owner increase their bond with their dog through training - especially clicker training where we build focus and attention as well as obedience.

As a dog owner you have to figure out how to motivate your dog to be successful at training. For a dog trainer we have to think of ways to motivate both handler and dog to help them get to where they want to be.  Dog Training is a people business, the digs catch on pretty quick, the people can take a little longer - they have ingrained habits from years of dog handling - as a Dog Trainer we need to help some dog owners by guiding them to an easier way of interacting with their dogs.

So while I must love dogs, I also have to love people in order to get their dogs to thrive.

Never gets Shocked

A number of years ago when I was working in a pet shop, I was unpacking some boxes and placing the unpacked items in a metal shelving unit - the shelving unit was one of those galvanised metal shelves that you would usually see in a a garage or shed that in a cold room.  Never the less, I had packed this shelve several times, and would do again in the future, but on this particular day how I felt about the shelf changed, and it would never be the same.  I know that may sound a little melodramatic - but it is the truth.  You see that day while I was packing the shelf I cut my finger - sliced it deep and painfully.  Blood spouted from my finger, I had to try and find something to stop the bleeding and the bruising - while my co-worker was busy serving customers.  It shouldn't have really been a big deal right, but somewhere in my brain it was a big deal and it stuck!  Every time I went near that shelf again, i felt a sense of dread, my brain would play over the finger cutting incident.   I would try to suck it up, and get on with my job - but that feeling was there and it wasn't going to move.

I think of this event any time someone tells me that they have done something to their dog, but they only did it once.  A common statement for people who use electric fences for their dogs - "oh he only got shocked once but now he never gets shocked".  You see your dog doesn't have to physically be shocked to relive the memory of being shock (including the pain and fear that it invokes).  Tools that are aversive in nature mean that the dog only needs a reminder of a potential threat to feel scared.  Just as I did - my fear wasn't limited to just that one location, when I moved stores and was stacking on new shelves with rounded edges where cuts were improbable, I still experienced the same fear reaction.

This is why electric fences come with beeps and little flags - to illicit a response from the dog that inhibits their behaviour due to a past experience of pain.  It is why choke chains rattle, and some trainers condition a word like "Ba" - to illicit an emotional response derived from a moment of pain or fear.

I get it, I get why as a dog owner you don't want to hurt your dog, and I get why you would want to convince yourself that these products don't hurt, especially if you are using one on your dog right now, but I think that honesty is a better option - that you are trading off your dogs sense of safety for your own sense of control.  It is often easy to scare an animal into compliance - but unnecessary almost all of the time.

Personally I don't want my dogs to have to re-live fear or pain - I want them to be happy, confident as well as well behaved - there has to be a better way right?  Have I told you the tale of clicker training ...

*** originally posted on my business page, http://www.doggydogma.com.au/never-gets-shocked/***

When Ignoring isn't Ignoring.

There is a misconception that surrounds positive reinforcement training that I think needs to be addressed.  It is something that trainers need to apologize to dog owners for.  You see we have deceived you slightly into thinking that if your dog is doing something wrong then you need to ignore that behaviour.

I remember very early in my career one of my clients advising me that their Bulldog had clamped their teeth on her leg (no puncture, just a good hold) and my client said that she remembered that she had to ignore bad behaviour so she did nothing.  I was floored, I expected whole heatedly that if your dog had grabbed your leg that common sense would tell you to at least remove the dog.

At this point I began to change this message slightly and remind clients to reinforce the behaviour that they want to see - sitting over jumping up, toileting outside over punishing for toileting inside and giving a place to dig over stopping digging - reinforcing anything that wasn't the bad behaviour that they did not want to see.

The truth is though we don't really ignore bad behaviour, it is an overly simplistic and confuses the general public about the steps they actually need to make when their dog is displaying a behaviour that they don't want.  Saying, ignore the behaviour gives people permission to do nothing - they then don't change the behaviour and get frustrated with training and give up cause it is not working for them.  So it is time that we became clear in our language, to help dog owners progress with behaviour modification.

Proactive Correction:  Let's address this word "Correction", it isn't what you have been lead to believe, a correction is just something that rectifies an error or inaccuracy.  In "traditional" training this may have meant a jerk on a lead, a kick to the abdomen, a noise designed to startle (throw cans, chain-links, yelling a word or a imitation growl, a tssst sound),  The issue with attempting to use violence and intimidation as a correction is that it fails to provide the actual information that corrects the error, at best it may stop an action, but it is like teaching someone to spell by only telling them they are wrong and waiting for them to somehow, eventually get it right.  It relies on the dog to find a different option, with out information about what actually is the better choice it is also a very reactive form of training as you wait for the dog to step out of line.

So Force Free trainers do correct behaviours, except we attempt to do it pro-actively through management rather than re-actively with intimidation.  Management is simple and practical steps that rid the dog of the opportunity to practice the behaviour in the first place while we train what we want, our aim is to set the dog up to be successful as much as possible.

Our interactions with trouble makers should be dealt with the 3Rs of dog training - these are remove, redirect and reinforce.

Remove:  Remove the dog from the environment or things in the environment from the dog.  Dog eating your shoes?  Remove your dog from when the shoes are (puppy pen) or move your shoes to a place where your dog can't get to them.

Redirection: Remove the dog and give them something else to concentrate on.   Give your dog enrichment based toys to play with rather than them digging up your plants.

Reinforcement: Remove the dog, redirect and start rewarding either incompatible behaviours (you can't jump up if you are sitting) or anything that is not the behaviour that you don't want (standing quietly is not barking at the postman)

These 3 concepts allow dog owners to understand the steps that they should be taking to deal with problem behaviours, and not without the tools and know-how when dealing with problem behaviours.   They allow you to plan your response to problem behaviours, which are generally normal dog behaviours, and not to be a victim to your dog where you have to try to startle or intimidate them into line.

*** This is a re-publish of a blog I wrote on my business page, you can find the original here: http://www.doggydogma.com.au/ignoring-isnt-ignoring/***

Dog Training Solutions - Q&A - 3

Question: 

Hey, I have a 6 month old cavalier dog, he's still peeing and pooing in the house, even doing it right in front of me! Is this unusual?? I have a 3 year old bitch, but Even tho it's only 3 n a half years ago, I can't remember whether she still did it in the house x

Answer:

Is it normal that your dog is still pooping and peeing in the house? The answer is both yes and no, in a way it is normal, but it is very much unwanted.

Toileting is about surface preference, scent and access. So owners who are experiencing trouble with toilet training need to look at these factors and start to take some proactive steps to ensure that no further accidents occur. Toilet training is simple, but that doesn't mean that it is easy.

Let's have a look at those variables:
- Surface preference: It is estimated that a dogs preferred surface type for going to the toilet is set at about 12 weeks of age. This means that their real Toilet Training, that is where they choose to go to the toilet is partially the responsibility of their mother, but more importantly their breeder. A surface preference is the material that your dog prefers to go to the toilet on, in an ideal world young pups would have access to grass to toilet on, but this seems to rarely be the case - with most either in kennels with concrete floors or some breeders still sticking with newspaper or pee pads. So if you look at the surface that your dog is aiming for that will give you an indication of what they were most likely raised on. See if you notice a pattern, is it hard surfaces that create run off or soft surfaces that absorb?

- Scent: A big mistake that dog owners make is failing to clean the site of the accident properly, the reason for this is most cleaners that you get from a shop are ammonia based cleaners, and guess what urine is... that is right it is ammonia. So while it may be pine fresh, the enzyme that attracts the dog remains and if given a chance they will frequent the same area to pee again. Scent plays a huge role in a dogs life, much more than dog owners realise - so ensure that you clean with a bio-enzyme cleaner will help reduce accidents.

Access - Here is the training component of the variables - because it is the easiest thing for you to control. You need to prevent your dog accessing areas that he is going to the toilet. An important thing to note here is that you MUST be consistent - I really can't stress it enough - from my observations Owners tend to follow the procedure for a week or two - and then stop and set their training back. The thing that must be consistent is that unless you are directly interacting with your dog (playing, patting, training) then the dog must be confined, in the confinement space you can make a turf litter tray go that the puppy has a place to pee if they need to. My preference for confinement is a crate attached to a pen. This isn't a prison sentence, you can give your puppy lots of mentally stimulating things to do while in the pen.

Start a toilet training diary - note the date, time, place and what the accident was - often you can see a pattern (e.g dog pees between 7am - 7:15am) - you can then ensure that you are allowing your dog access to a toileting material at these times.

Let's not forget that dogs don't know that you value your rug or you bed or anything. For the majority of dogs these things have no intrinsic value, they just happen to be there. Dogs are also not offended by urine and faeces, generally they find them a great source of information, and some dogs even find them a tasty treat - the idea that a dog pees or poops "to get back" at their owner has no logical basis if you look at pee and poo from a dogs perspective rather than a person's perspective. I mean what are the first 2 places a dog sniffs on another dog, where the poop comes from and where the pee comes from. So don't be offended if your dog pees or poops in front of you - either quietly stop them and take them outside or clean up after them. Now you can start dealing with the access portion of the training and teach your dog what you expect of them.

Dog Training Solutions - Q&A - 2

Question:

I have a border cross coolie, he is 6 months and constantly jumps and bites when anyone walks in the yard. It's stopped people from coming around.

Answer:

You are not alone in having a dog with a problem jumping up, so I know it can be very frustrating for dog owners.

The action of jumping up is a part of their ritualised greeting behaviour - essentially I think a lot of jumping up stems from a dogs desire to sniff our mouths to "see where we have been and what we have eaten" - they do this with each other, but obviously don't have to jump up for it with most other dogs - this is such a normal puppy behaviour. Then grows from their into a learned behaviour depending how we have accidentally reinforced it - most likely with attention, even if that attention is trying to shove them back to the ground. Particularly if your dog is easily excited, then jumping up can quickly become a bad habit.

So let's have a look at some simple home truths for jumping up issues.

1. Take responsibility for your dog

This may seem like a obvious statement, but it is a big place where I see dog owners fail in handling a dog that is jumping up. If you have a dog that likes to jump up on visitors, then ensure your dog is on lead, tethered or penned so that they can't make the mistake of jumping up on your guests in the first place. This is the hardest part - being organised enough to manage the behaviour of your dog.

2. Other people will sabotage your training

This is why I gave you step number one above - because people are awful at taking the instruction of a dog owner, with all the good intention in the world, other people think that they know better than you in how to deal with your dog. They are wrong of course. They will pat your dog when they jump up. They will push your dog away when they jump up (making the dog more eager to play 99% of the time). They will tell you it is ok, cause they have a dog too, meanwhile doing something else that causes your dog to jump up more - it is crazy! If you can't manage your dog and take responsibility for the training don't expect others too.

3. Ignoring jumping up doesn't work!

This is really important, because there is some serious misinformation out there in the dog owning world, that is setting up dog owners to fail - and that advice is, ignore a dog that is jumping up on you and they will stop jumping up. It isn't true. The jumping can be very "self-reinforcing" - it is an exciting thing to do, often you get attention for it - so that random occasional pay off (attention) actually strengthens the behaviour. With out reinforcing the behaviour that we want from our dogs - ignoring the bad behaviour is not a solution.

4. What you are doing now isn't working

If what you are doing at the moment was going to work with your dog - you wouldn't be asking this question. The definition of insanity is said to be repeating something and expecting a different response. So if you currently push your dog to get them to stop jumping on you, or knee them or yell at them - it is a fair assumption to make that this tactic is not working and it is time to change tact.

What do you do?

Consistency: As you go through this training that will be outlined below - remember that the 2 keys to training is consistency and repetition. With those 2 keys we see a steady progress - in this case a reduction in jumping until it extinguishes.

Reward what you want: Any time the dog isn't jumping up is a winner, the exercise is called 4 paws on the floor - because as long as those 4 paws are on the floor we are going to generously reinforce that behaviour.

If your dog is jumping up at you before you go outside the exercise is about waiting for what you want to see (the dog sitting or 4 paws on the floor) before you go out the door. Dog jumps, wait for 4 paws, as you go to the door handle - the dog my jump up again - so you need to reset - take your hand off the door handle. The dog starts to piece together that their actions have consequences - of you paying them attention or not. Rewards aren't always food - they are what the dog wants and in this example it is you outside.

Once you are outside you can start dropping food on the floor (use good stuff like cheese or chicken) - keeping your dogs focus on the floor during the initial excitement of greeting means that he won't be jumping up.

Do this for a couple of weeks or a month and see how you go - is there a reduction in jumping up?

Dog Training Solutions - Q&A - 1

Question: 

Hi,

i have a 4 month old Siberian Husky puppy.

He's very outgoing and friendly and listens very well inside the house. But outside is a different story!

When out walking on a leash he will pull, which isnt that bad right now since hes not very big, but it will become a problem because im small myself! And also, he has gotten loose from me a few times and ive only caught him by pure luck. 

He will not pay me any mind when i call him or yell his name or anything! He just goes! So my question is how do i get him to stop pulling and most importantly, to come when called?? From what everyone has told me, this is very typical of the husky breed but i feel like you can teach any dog to obey. 

Thanks!

Answer: 

There is a lot to cover here that is for sure, your puppy is only young so the first thing I think that you need to do is set your expectations of where your dog should be in his training. I think that often dog owners think that dogs come pre-programmed to do things like coming when called, or walking on lead - but these aren't natural behaviours for a dog (no other dog calls them or puts a lead on them) so it is our job to train them to do what we want them to do (obviously).

Training takes time and effort - when you look at a really well trained dog, like a guide dog, or a police dog - we must realise that those dogs have been trained daily for 18-24 months - while their breed characteristics may play a part, it is the hard work behind the scene that gets the behaviour.

So before we get into the nitty gritty of the training lets have a quick chat about breeds and what that means in relation to behaviour and of course our expectations. I look at dog breeds as primarily falling into 2 categories - dogs that are biddable (good at being told what to do) and dogs that are unbiddable ( not so good at being told what to do).

These categories are really formed by the job that the dog was originally bred to perform. Biddable dogs traditionally preformed a job that required someone to tell them what to do - herding and retrieving (think Border Collies, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds), their jobs require close interaction with a human handler telling them what to do.

On the other hand our unbiddable dogs preform tasks that maybe just as important - ratting and livestock guarding for example (think terriers, maremmas, huskies), their jobs however does not require the same level of human interaction to get the job done, and because of that they are traditionally seen as stubborn, wilful, and difficult to train. Really though, we just bred them to be their own boss.

The benefit of training unbiddable dogs with positive reinforcement is just how much simpler it is to get their agenda and our agenda to line up - we do this by making it desirable for the dog to do what we ask them to do. The main difference between training a biddable dog and an unbiddable dog is to understand their motivations and to use that motivator to get what you want. Things that motivate are the things that the dogs want - can be food and toys, but it could also be a drink, the chance to run, the opportunity to sniff the next tree. Really it could be anything, the tricky thing is how you can control the motivator to use it as a reward.

Ok, now that is out of the way - let's look at some training:

Pulling on a Walk: 
- After years of watching Owners interact with puppies, my observations indicate that Owners make the initial mistake in inadvertently teach the dog to pull. The first thing that puppy owners do is pull their puppy around - that's right owners teach the puppy that being on a lead is about pulling because they do it first. When they want their dog to move with them, instead of encouraging the dog to move with their words and body - they yank the dog around, creating tension on the lead, and at the same time informing the dog that this tension is how the leash should feel. ( I have seen people yank their puppy so hard it basically flew back 1 metre before then running back to pull on the lead).

I often say to my clients, that there is only one animal connected to this lead who knows what a leash walk should look like - and it isn't the dog. So the less you pull on the lead first, the easier your training is going to go. It is natural for a dog to pull on a lead that is pulling against them in the opposite direction - it is called Opposition Reflex and people suffer from it too. This is why lead pulling is more like an odd game of tug of war rather than all the dogs fault.

Start thinking of your walk in a co-operative way rather then a battle where the dog must comply. The easiest way is to reward your dog for standing beside you. Whilst in your back yard - take a step, reward the dog for coming with you, take another step, reward the dog - now add a cue that lets the dog know that you are about to move. "Let's Go!"take a step, give a treat - repeat 1 million times. Start increasing the amount of steps, "Let's go"two steps then treat, then three steps, then four. Just keep building - but don't be afraid to go back and do less steps before rewards as well - this makes the training process more interesting as we are not always adding the extra pressure to keep getting better. When we are at school there is lots we have to learn before doing Algebra - it is the same for your dog. Baby steps get you to where you want to go - when you are great in the backyard - move to the front yard and do it there then slowly expand out into the rest of the street.

- Coming when called: 
In the training world we call this Recall, and what we want to do is to teach our dogs that of all the things in their environment, we are the most possible rewarding thing in any given moment - again we need to build up to this.

The simplest thing you can do at the moment is to teach your puppy that their name has value. This is very straight forward - for 2 weeks, twice per day say your dogs name and follow it immediately with a treat. This will create a strong association with the dog that means their name is worth coming to. You may need to use extra special food treats like cooked chicken to make your dogs name extra special. Practice in low distraction areas first and then practice in many new environments. You can use a long recall lead so you have some control and confidence over your dog.