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/***