Can dogs learn everything they need to know in one eight-week puppy kindergarten or basic obedience class? No. That’s just a small part of your dog’s education.

Given the typical canine lifespan of 10-plus years, it’s all too easy to forget that the previous dog didn’t come fully loaded but required careful weeks, months and maybe even years of patient, consistent training and reinforcement to become the perfect dog of your memory. If you’re asking yourself “How long does it take to train a dog basic cues?” we’re here to help with information on factors that influence canine learning and how long it can take to teach particular skills.

How Learning Starts

It might seem as if neonatal puppies do nothing but eat and sleep, but from birth they are taking in scents and experiencing touch, both of which contribute to their knowledge of their surroundings, even if they can’t see or hear yet.

The critical period for learning is when pups are between 3 and 14 weeks old. By three weeks, their eyes and ears have opened and they’re mobile, if a little wobbly. They start using their paws and mouths to explore their environment.

With no preconceived notions about vacuums, cats, people in uniforms, or veterinary clinics, it’s the perfect time for them to have positive exposure to many different people, places, objects, sounds, surfaces, smells, and other environmental stimuli, known as socialization. With puppies being weaned and going to new homes when they are usually 8 weeks to 12 or more weeks old (later is often better if they’re in a situation where they receive a variety of socialization experiences), this type of activity can occur at the breeder’s home, in a foster home, or after the pup has come home with you.

Puppies should meet new people and animals and have new experiences multiple times a week rather than meeting the same neighbors and friends and going to the same places all the time. Those encounters and experiences should be so great that your puppy looks forward to anything new.

As puppies grow in experience, their brains grow too. The brain becomes larger and changes shape as its dendrites—specialized brain nerve cell structures that receive and process information—reach out to make connections with other nerve cells. By the time puppies are four months old, their brains are almost fully wired. Almost. Canine brains continue to develop until the dog is about two years old, so even if a pup looks grown-up, they still have a lot to learn, especially about impulse control.

Factors That Influence Learning

Socialization is an important element of learning, but it’s not the only one. How quickly your dog learns depends on several key factors:

• Maternal care and stress level during pregnancy
• Good puppy nutrition
• Genetic predisposition
• Learning style
• Training techniques

A mother dog’s stress level can affect the future behavior of her unborn puppies. If they experience high-stress situations before giving birth, their pups may be more anxious or fearful in stressful or unexpected situations. These young dogs can benefit from additional or intensive socialization.

Feeding a high-quality puppy food containing DHA from fish oil has been shown in studies to improve learning ability—cognition, memory, and psychomotor skills—in puppies up to a year old. Puppies eating high-DHA diets appeared to have stronger responses to training.

Breed or mix is important because different breeds have different types of skills and intelligence. That doesn’t make certain breeds “smarter” (Border Collies, Poodles, we’re looking at you), but it can affect not only how they learn but also how quickly they learn. Here’s what to know about certain types of dogs:

• Herding, working, and sporting dogs (including Poodles, which originated as water-retrieving dogs) tend to have a reputation for being fast learners.
• Some dogs may seem as if they haven’t caught on to something, but often they are sitting, watching, and thinking, later demonstrating that they’ve absorbed the lesson. This type of learning is often seen in hounds and guardian dogs, says veterinarian, breeder and trainer Deb Eldredge, but any dog may learn this way.
• Independent dogs tend to have good problem-solving skills. Sometimes that makes it difficult to stay a step ahead of them.
• Toy dogs and non-sporting dogs—the latter group being a miscellaneous assortment of unrelated breeds—are just as smart and capable of learning as bigger dogs. Don’t neglect training them just because they’re small, cute, or lack a discernible skill!

Puppies in general are “sponges,” learning things quickly—often the things we don’t want them to learn—but they also have short attention spans. Short, sweet training sessions that end on a high note are more effective than long, intensive ones. Rewards help dogs to understand what you want and to be more excited about repeating a particular behavior.

The presence of another dog as a teacher’s aide can also be helpful. It’s not unusual for dogs to mimic what they see other dogs doing, especially if they see those dogs being rewarded for a behavior. This has frequently worked well in my dog-training life.

The power of instinctive behaviors is a factor, too. Beagles, for instance, have great nose intelligence, but they’re probably not going to be very good at herding sheep, says Minnesota dog trainer and Beagle owner Denise Nord.

Training Time

Theory is all well and good, but how long does it take to train a dog on basic cues? The answer—“It depends”—is unsatisfying, but bear in mind that dogs learn most quickly with practice and patience. Start with easy behaviors and build on your—and your dog’s—successes.

Sit may well be the behavior that dogs learn most easily and quickly. It’s a natural action, making it easy to “capture” by clicking and treating when the dog is already in position or luring the dog into position with a treat. Using those techniques, dogs can learn “Sit” within the space of a few minutes.

The trick is then putting a name to the act and practicing and reinforcing it over time so that muscle memory kicks in immediately when dogs hear the cue. That takes longer, from a few weeks to a few months. Practice in different situations, different places, around different people, and around other animals: this is how you “proof” your dog so that response to “Sit” is immediate, no matter what. It pays off throughout life with your dog sitting at the door, to greet people, before meals, or as part of an agility or rally competition, to name just a few of its uses.

Similar techniques work well with “Down” and “Stand.” I find it easiest to capture a down rather than luring a dog into place, but a good mantra is “Every dog is different.” Do what works for you and your dog. Like “Sit,” it takes time and practice to get a reliable response every time.

A more complex behavior to teach is walking on leash without pulling. Unless you’re training for obedience competition, there’s no need to require a dog to walk exactly at your side all the time, but they should be well-mannered enough that you don’t have to worry about being pulled over or tripped by them.

Achieving that is a lot more involved than attaching a leash to a collar and expecting the dog to go where you want, when you want. Expect reliable loose-leash walking to take up to a year. A five- or six-month-old puppy in the throes of adolescence is going to start doing some backsliding as they test their position in the family and your patience.

Loose-leash walking must be proofed in many different places and situations, simply because puppies change so much during their first year. “What they find distracting today may not be distracting tomorrow,” Nord says. “What you get in your backyard is going to be very different than what you get walking down the street or in a class or at a large event.”

What about housetraining? A schedule is important, but it also takes time for a puppy’s body to mature so they can “hold it” for longer periods. Plan on six months to a year to achieve full reliability. For more information, see “How to House Train a Puppy.”

Class and Homework

As long as they’ve had their first set of vaccinations, puppies can often participate in a kindergarten class as early as 8 weeks old. But don’t wait until then to start teaching your new dog the basics. That can begin on day one at home. Your puppy or new dog should look to you as the provider of all good things and fun times, and that’s what training should be.

While training can take months, it doesn’t require a lot of time in the moment. As mentioned above, puppies have a short attention span. Spending a few minutes—or even as little as 30 seconds—training several times a day helps to build a strong foundation for success as a puppy and throughout life. It also ensures that training becomes a routine part of the day.

As you work with your new dog, pay attention to how they react to the environment. Every dog approaches things differently. If a newly acquired puppy or adult dog seems anxious, give them some time to settle in. Start with easy, fun activities that allow them to be successful and build confidence. Then their brains can work at full capacity.

How long does it take to fully train a dog? Plan on six months to a year to teach the basics and feel confident in your dog’s behavior. To build a rock-solid response in any situation? That can take longer, but it’s worth the effort. Proofing helps dogs learn to adjust to variables in the environment and respond appropriately.

What experts call “behavioral leveling” typically occurs when dogs become familiar with their environment and understand what’s expected of them. For most dogs, that seems to magically take place when they’re 18 to 24 months old. Or not. Plenty of dogs act puppylike well into adulthood, not achieving a grown-up brain until they’re five or six years old, if ever.

But no matter when your dog achieves maturity, learning is a life-long endeavor. Continuing to practice a dog’s skills and teach new ones throughout life, even into old age, helps to keep their brains supple and may well help to stave off dementia.

The post How Quickly Do Dogs Learn? appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

Teach Cues in This Order

Generally, the easiest way to begin teaching behaviors is by using a food lure. Here’s what that looks like. (Note that this stuff seems awfully complicated when it’s written out, but it’s really not.)

1. START WITH NO CUE. Folks always want to start by saying the cue word, but if you keep repeating a word that’s currently meaningless to your dog, she might end up associating it with the wrong thing. (“Oh, I guess ‘sit’ must mean that kitty cat who just walked by.”)
2. USE A LURE. Lure your dog’s body into position with a nugget of food that you keep just in front of his nose. Move s-l-o-w-l-y so the dog’s body can easily follow. (The most common mistakes are keeping food too far from the nose and/or moving it too quickly.) The moment the dog’s body is in the right spot, create a marker sound (more on that next) and pop the treat into your dog’s mouth.

   

3. ADD THE VERBAL CUE. Once you can reliably lure the behavior, you can start saying the cue word as you do that. Now, the dog links that correct body position with the appropriate cue word.
4. CHANGE THE LURE TO A HAND SIGNAL. Once this is all going swimmingly – your pup is offering that behavior about four out of five times – give the verbal cue as you mimic the luring motion with an empty directing hand. Ideally pup performs exactly as he has been, and you deliver that reward just as quickly, except from the other hand. The dog learns that following an empty hand works just as well. Now you’re using a hand signal.

   

5. MAKE THE HAND SIGNAL SMALLER. As the dog catches on, the hand signal that began as a replica of the luring motion becomes smaller and smaller. For example, where you previously used a dramatic finger moving all the way to the ground to signify a down, you can now just do a quick point.

   

6. DROP THE HAND SIGNAL. Sometimes people tell me in a very impressed tone that their brother-in-law’s dog follows hand signals without him saying anything! I don’t want to break the spell, so I keep it to myself that yeah, that’s easier. Dogs naturally pay attention to body language; it’s much harder to teach them to respond to our verbal language.

To do that, once we have a very minimized hand signal, we use timing to remove it entirely. We say the cue, and rather than immediately giving the hand signal, we wait a second to see if pup processes what we’ve just asked. No? Then give that signal.

Try again, with that little delay between the verbal cue and the hand signal. One of these times, your pup is going to do the thing you asked with no extra help from your body language. (Now go brag to your brother-in-law!)

The Marker: Click Or “Yesss!”

If you’ve ever tried to learn something that feels very foreign to you – and you really had no idea if you were getting it or not – you’ll appreciate the beauty of what’s become known as “clicker training.” This is where you use a clear, concise sound to mark the exact moment your dog got it right.

The concept came from marine mammal training, where behaviorists used whistles to tell mid-air dolphins, “YES! That higher jump is exactly what we were looking for, and as soon as you swim to the side you’ll get a fish.” That whistle turned into a clicker for the dog world, and decades later, the Clicker Expo is the largest dog-training gathering in the world. Why? Because using a marker speeds learning.

Mind you, most of my beginning clients don’t love using the clicker, and I get it. We need a hand for the leash, a hand for the hand signal, a hand for dispensing treats, and now a hand for the clicker? It’s a challenge, and I don’t want that physical awkwardness to get in the way of a love of training, so I start with a different but almost as effective marker: the word “Yesss!” delivered in such a way that it is very distinct, clipped, and unmistakable.

Your mission is to learn to deliver that marker with perfect timing. Do it the very second your dog’s bum hits the floor in a “sit,” or nose bumps your hand in a “touch.” A treat always follows the marker. Soon enough, your pup is loving the sound of that marker, because it’s become a predictor of the reinforcer (the treat). At that point, the “Yesss!” has become what’s called a “conditioned reinforcer” and now carries power of its own. Now you can make your dog feel amazing the second he gets something right and hears that sound.

In contrast, if you didn’t mark that moment, you might be fumbling in your treat bag for a reward and by the time you deliver it (the moment the dog will remember) he’s no longer in that great sit.

It’s worth working on the timing of this; you’ll need to practice. I have a trainer friend who has his clients practice clicking (or saying “Yesss!”) the moment he bounces a tennis ball. You know what that teaches them? This is indeed something that needs practice! So practice your marker, and once you are great at giving instantaneous feedback, watch your dog suddenly seem like a genius.

For me, the marker technique is critical when I’m teaching something new, and I will drop the click or the “Yesss!” once the behavior is fluent. The point of the marker is to clarify exactly what’s being asked, and that kind of precision is no longer needed once the dog knows.

Moving to Intermittent Reinforcement

One of the big misconceptions about rewards-based positive reinforcement training is that you can’t ask your dog to do anything unless you have a cookie in your hand. That would be a legitimate gripe, if it were true!

But it’s not.

Once a pup is reliably succeeding at a certain cue, it’s important to move to something called “intermittent reinforcement,” which essentially means there’s no longer a treat every time . . . but there’s one often enough to keep your dog playing the lottery.

This is a critical step in training that first-timers sometimes miss. Folks get stuck in the mindset of Class #1 in Puppy 101, where in fact we give treats out with abandon, for every little look, touch, sit, and spin! In that earliest of phases we are seeking to build the strong “aha” moment where the pup deeply internalizes the idea that listening for a cue and responding with a behavior is the surest way to get stuff that makes them happy.

Once that light bulb has gone on, however, it’s time to move to the next big idea, which is essentially the lottery concept: You gotta play to win! We want to build into our pups the understanding that just because they didn’t get rewarded for one particular “down” it doesn’t mean the whole system is no longer in operation. It just means you have to keep trying and one of these times there’ll be a reward. Slowing the faucet builds resilience and turns your pup into one who will keep trying. He experiences an initial no-cookie moment, and comes out the other side to find . . . an eventual cookie!

I find the easiest way into this transition is to start asking for two-fers and three-fers. A puppy in her first training class gets a click and a treat for a sit, and right after that, a click and a treat for a touch. A week later, when the pup is now reliably performing both of those cues in class, we move into a two-fer: We ask for a sit and immediately after that ask for a touch. Pup gets a click and a treat after the second behavior. Or after the third behavior in a touch-spin-sit three-fer.

“Ack!” you’re thinking! “No click after that first behavior? But will my pup think she’s suddenly doing it wrong?” I promise if you group those cues together closely enough your pup won’t have time to be disturbed about that. However, this is where a new sound, an informative marker, could come in handy. You can use a quick “good,” or “mm-hmm” to confirm your pup did something right. It doesn’t promise a treat, but it gives affirmation.

Moving to intermittent reinforcement has the counterintuitive effect of making dogs more focused rather than less. When the faucet turns off a bit the learner will try a little harder to make it turn back on: more intense eye contact, a straighter sit, a quicker down. Essentially: “Huh. No treat? Let me try that again.”

At various points in your life with your dog, you’ll be at different reward schedules for different cues. Very quickly, you’ll be able to move to an intermittent schedule for a handful of the cues that are easiest for your pup. But it’s typical that you might be struggling with, say, “down” – so pup gets a click and a treat every single time those elbows hit the ground. Why? Because clear, consistent reinforcement of a behavior builds that behavior. Once it’s easy for your pup, there’s no longer a need to provide that bright neon sign.

When Can You Stop Giving Treats?

To Adjust Difficulty, Use The Three D’s: Distance, Duration, and Distraction

There are three factors that can either increase or decrease the difficulty of the behavior you are teaching your dog. Trainers often call them the three D’s: Distance, Duration, and Distraction.

If your dog seems to be having trouble learning something, ponder whether you can make one of the three D’s easier. Did you throw the treat too far away when you tried “Find It”? (Reduce the distance!) When you asked for a stay, did you wait so long to reward that your dog gave up? (Reduce the duration!) Were you surprised that your dog didn’t offer her usually easy sit when the neighbors were over? (Reduce the distractions!)

If you scale back your D’s, you’ll likely get to a place where your pup can more easily succeed. Start there, and build the skill.

On the other hand, if you are getting a little bored and think you have nothing left to teach, think about increasing one or more of the three D’s. There’s always a way to make a cue/behavior more challenging:

• Try giving your dog a cue to sit when he’s on the far side of the room, or 50 feet ahead of you on a trail (increasing the distance).
• Ask your dog to hold his down/stay for the length of your weekly call with a relative or while you answer an email or two (increasing duration).
• Try giving your dog a cue while you’re lying down or doing jumping jacks (increasing distractions).

It’s nice to have a dog who always sits when you give her the cue while standing in front of her in the kitchen where you always train. But it’s far more helpful for your life (not to mention more interesting and fun) if you “proof” that behavior by gradually varying the 3 D’s. Imagine how cool it would be if your pup would easily listen in the middle of a crowded barbeque as you yelled “Stay!” from across the yard when a guest mistakenly left a gate wide open.

Using rewards-based, relationship-building methods isn’t brain surgery, but it’s also not as easy as you might think. Investing a little time in refining your technique will save you (and your dog) lots of frustration.

Don’t be surprised if your dog stares blankly at you when you first cue her from a greater distance (even just a step or two!).

Don’t be surprised if your dog stares blankly at you when you first cue her from a greater distance (even just a step or two!).

Distractions, too, will make it more difficult for her to succeed initially. Be patient! Generalizing the cues takes time.

Inevitably, this question arises: “So when can we stop with the treats altogether?” It is, in a certain sense, a logical question. After all, if we’re scaling back to intermittent reinforcement, it seems we’re heading in the direction of zero.

Ah, but we are not.

We often ask dogs to do things – for our own convenience – that:

• They would not do on their own.
• Are not intrinsically rewarding to them.
• Are often, in fact, against their natural instincts and desires.

The science of learning theory says that none of us does anything for very long unless it is somehow reinforcing/rewarding/in our own best interest. Despite Lassie and the mountains of dog myths in the back of our collective mind, that is true for dogs as well.

A promise of a little morsel of food every now and then is not too much to ask to get our dogs – the puppies we’ve kidnapped from their own culture – to want to do the weird stuff that’s prized in our culture. Right?

So, nope. There’s never a day when we stop rewarding. As time goes on, you’ll find that it becomes second nature to incorporate powerful real-life rewards into your daily routine with your dog; for example, when the nice “sit” earns an open car door and a promise of adventure, rather than a cookie. Those, along with warm praise, may become your primary way of rewarding your dog once he’s learned the basics. But do the food rewards ever come to an end? No.

And honestly, as my dear old dogs have aged and moved onto the heavenly branch of our pack, I’m happy for every sweet moment where I gave them a dried liver cube just for that cute little spin they had learned long ago.

The post Dog Training Basics: How to Teach a Cue appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

Always have yummy treats ready for your training sessions, so you can capture and reward desired behaviors whenever they occur. Let’s start!

Teach Attention

All dogs need to be able to pay attention to their humans, but with deaf dogs, it’s critical. Because the dog can’t hear, training a deaf dog requires that he learn to look at you. Start with your dog on a six-foot leash.

This will take patience, but your dog will look at you. When he does, reinforce with a treat. Do this a half-dozen to a dozen times, and then end the session. You can repeat the session later. After he gets the idea that looking at you is the desired behavior, just give the attention cue and reward him when he looks at you.

You can train a “pay attention to me” cue, like pointing to your face, but if simply you treat each time he looks at you – consistently! – he will happily and frequently look at you, hoping it pays off with a yummy treat.

If He Ignores You

If your dog looks away too much, don’t worry. Just remember to reward him when he looks at you. To increase his attention, you can:

• Make vibrations. As you approach your dog, he may feel the floor vibrating and turn to look at you. If not, you may stomp your foot or hand on the floor to get his attention. Treat when he looks at you.
• Use a flashlight. Turning a flashlight on and off a few times should get your dog’s attention inside any time or outside at night. Do the light flashes inside near him first, so that you can give him a treat immediately after he looks at you. You want him to understand that’s the desired behavior. You can even use a porch light turned on and off to get attention at night. Caution using light sources though: Some dogs may develop OCD and compulsively chase the lights, especially lasers.
• Gently touch his shoulder or on his back above his tail. Before doing this, you need to condition him that this is a positive action so that you don’t startle him.
• Use a vibrating collar. This can be used to get your dog’s attention. The point is to communicate, not punish. Some dogs may be sensitive to the vibrations and become stressed. If so, use a different method to get his attention. Never use a shock collar, which is always aversive.

Hand Signals

You can use traditional hand obedience-competition signals: adapt some from American Sign Language, or make up your own. Dogs are experts at reading body language. Whatever you select, it’s crucial that you and everyone working with your deaf dog are precisely consistent in the signal used, including which hand is used. Each hand signal must be distinctive from the others.

When using hand signals, you can speak the word for the behavior cue. Even though the dog can’t hear it, you will probably be more natural if you simultaneously say the cue as you give the signal.

Use lure-reward training when teaching a cue using a hand signal. The dog will naturally follow the motion of the lure. “Sit” is a basic behavior to start with. Have a yummy treat in your hand and hold it just above your dog’s nose. Slowly move it toward the back of his head, then lift your elbow up toward a 90-degree angle. As soon as your dog’s posterior touches the ground in a sit, give him his reward treat.

In another training session, you can teach him to lie down on cue. Make a sweeping motion with a treat in front of his nose down to the ground when he’s sitting, luring him down. Treat and reward when his elbows come into contact with the ground.

Frankly, hand signals help any dog – with or without hearing – pay more attention to you. Even if your dog still has his hearing, many lose it as they age. And, just as with us, background noise can get in the way of the dog hearing a verbal cue. Plus – there may be times you can’t (or don’t want to) speak – like when you’re on the phone with a client.

Mark the Behavior

Since your dog can’t hear the traditional “good job” reward marker such as the click of a clicker or a verbal “Yes!” you need a different reward marker. This can be a thumbs-up, the action of clapping your hands, or even nodding your head a few times. And smile! Your dog will notice. Use your reward marker signal after he performs the desired behavior cue, then immediately provide him with his reward treat. Remember that every time you mark a behavior you must treat or provide some other high-value reinforcer.

If at any time your dog is reactive, aggressive, or you’re not making progress, get professional help before proceeding. Take your deaf dog to the veterinarian to be sure there aren’t any physical issues. You can also contact the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants or the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists to find a behavior specialist in your area. If you need help with the training itself, you can contact the Pet Professional Guild or the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers.

The post How To Train a Deaf Dog appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

There are, however, a couple of potential hazards of using a lure to train your dog. The first is that both you and your dog can become dependent on the presence of the lure. If you don’t quickly fade its use (stop using the lure as soon as the dog learns the behavior), the dog may learn to wait until the lure is produced to perform the behavior, because that’s how she thinks it’s supposed to happen.

The second hazard can occur if you try to lure your dog to do something she really isn’t comfortable doing.

If you avoid these potential pitfalls, luring is a valuable and effective training technique.

Fading Away the Food Lure

Since you probably don’t want to go through the rest of your life having to stick a piece of cheese in front of your dog’s face to get her to do what you ask, how do you get rid of the lure? It’s easier than you might think. Here’s how to “fade” the lure so your dog will offer the correct behavior on your verbal cue, without a treat on her nose. Let’s say “down” is the behavior your want to teach your dog.

1. Just Lure

Without using a verbal cue, lure your dog into a down position from a sit, by putting a treat in front of her nose and moving it slowly toward the ground. Aim for her front paws; if you move it away from her, she might stand up to follow it. You may need to mark and reward (i.e., click a clicker or use a verbal marker, such as the word “Yes!” and then feed her a treat) your dog several times on the way down, until she figures out what you are asking of her. (We call this lure-shaping.)

2. Cue and Lure

When your dog will follow the lure easily into a down position with just one click and treat, add the verbal cue. With your treat out of sight (I put it behind my back), say “Down” clearly and happily, just one time. Pause briefly, and lure your dog down. Click and treat. Repeat this step a half dozen times. It’s as if you were saying, “Dog, the word ‘Down’ means the same thing as me putting the treat on your nose and luring you to the floor.”

3. Vary the Pause

Now, say “Down” as in Step 2, but vary the amount of time you pause before luring. This gives your dog more time to process what you are asking of her and more time to offer a response. In this step, you may see her look to the ground, or make a slight movement, as if she is saying, “I know I’m supposed to do something, but I’m not quite sure what…” Sometimes it’s almost as if she’s asking you the question, “Is this right?” If you see her do any of those things tell her, “Good girl!” and quickly lure her the rest of the way – then click and treat.

4. Getting Lucky

Some dogs will begin to offer the down on your verbal cue during Step 3. Woohoo! This is a nice shortcut; click and treat and keep practicing. (Just because she does it once doesn’t mean she’s got it; you still need to practice to make it a solid, reliable response.)

5. Fading the Lure

Most dogs need some additional steps before they really understand what you are asking of them and begin offering the down on the verbal cue alone. For these dogs, you need to fade the lure. Start by luring as in Step 3. As you move the treat to the floor, watch your dog closely. When she appears to be committed to lying down, whisk the treat quickly away parallel to the ground, and hide it behind your back. If she finishes the down, click and give her a treat. If she doesn’t finish, bring the treat back out and lure her the rest of the way. Click and treat.

Next time, lure her a little farther toward the floor before whisking the treat away. Continue to vary the amount of time you wait after giving the cue and before luring.

6. More Fading

Gradually whisk the treat away sooner and sooner, until you are barely luring at all.

7. Success

At some point your dog will begin to offer to lie down when she hears the verbal cue, without you luring at all. Congratulations, you are almost done fading the lure!

8. Generalization

Now you need to practice with your dog in other locations, and with you in other positions, until she will lie down on your verbal cue whenever and wherever you ask her to do so. Remember, even though she does it in the comfort of your own home, she is likely to need some additional coaching in new places and around distractions until she realizes she can do it anywhere. Anytime (for the rest of her life!) that she doesn’t do it when you ask, do a quick refresher session by returning to Step 3, until she is able to respond.

You will use the same procedure to fade the lure for other behaviors as well. Determine how to use your lure to explain to your dog what you want her to do. As soon as she will lure easily into position, begin fading the lure following the steps above, until she will do the behavior on just the verbal cue. Then generalize it so she can do it anywhere, anytime.

Notice that I don’t do any intermediate hand signal or other body prompt in this process, like pointing at the ground or using “air cookies” (where you pretend to have a treat in your hand). If you do, your dog still hasn’t learned the verbal cue, and you still have to go through the process of fading the hand signal or prompt. In my opinion, it’s easier to skip the extra step.

Don’t Lure Toward Frightening Things

This is where people get in the most serious trouble with luring, and all with good intentions: trying to use a lure to get a reluctant dog to do something she doesn’t want to do. The most common example is a dog who is afraid of scary strangers, men, kids, or anything else.

The owner thinks, “My dog is afraid of strangers, so I will give people treats to give to my dog so she will know that strangers make treats happen, and she will like them!”

It seems to make sense – associating scary strangers with treats, counter-conditioning – it should work, right? Wrong! At least wrong if it’s done this way. The problem with this scenario is that the scary person is luring the dog “over threshold” (too close) because the dog really wants the treat. But when the treat is gone and the dog looks up to see the stranger right there in front of him, he is way too close, and the dog may bite the person. If she doesn’t bite, she is still likely to be more sensitized, and more fearful of strangers in the future.

The same holds true for any situation where you try to lure the dog to do something that is fear- or anxiety-producing for her, like getting in the car. You may succeed in that moment, but when the car ride proves to be as unpleasant as she anticipated, she will just be more reluctant, more fearful, and less trusting of you the next time you need her to get in the car.

In general, shaping is a better process for getting a dog to willingly offer behaviors that she’s not sure about. True counter-conditioning – working below threshold, with you feeding the treats, not the scary person – is a far more successful (and safer) approach to helping her become comfortable with things that are scary for her.

Meanwhile, don’t let any naysayers get you down. Properly used, with attention paid to fading the presence of the treat, luring can be a very valuable and effective training technique. Just be sure you do it right.

Historic Bias Against Using Food Lures

Twenty-plus years ago, when positive reinforcement-based training was in its infancy, those of us who were committed to this style of training took a lot of heat from trainers who were still wedded to their choke, prong, and shock collars. We were accused of being “treat-slinging weenies” and were told that dogs were supposed to do what they were told because they knew they had to do it – or else. We defended ourselves staunchly. A group I hung out with at conferences even came up with a song, “I Wish I Were a Treat-Slinging Weenie” – proudly sung to the tune of “I Wish I Were an Oscar Meyer Wiener.”

Now, some 20 years later, using food as a reinforcer in training is widely accepted in much of the training world and supported by the scientific community. There are a number of studies that indicate that positive reinforcement training is not only highly effective, but also avoids many of the pitfalls inherent in coercion training, including a significant risk of eliciting aggression from dogs trained using force and pain.

There are certainly some challenges that we face in the force-free training world – and there are effective solutions for these challenges. We are far more likely to see “demand barkers” in our classes if we aren’t careful to inform our students how to avoid this undesirable behavior. (Hint: Don’t reinforce it, and instead, reinforce an incompatible behavior.) Some dogs who are on restricted diets may not have access to the higher-value treats often used in effective training programs. (A creative trainer can often find effective treats within the dog’s allowed food groups, and there are other reinforcers besides food.) A dog who takes treats too eagerly can bloody the fingers. (We can teach her to take treats gently or use other delivery methods, such as a camping food tube, or tossing treats on the floor.)

One of the challenges that can be more difficult to resolve is dependency on the food lure. We can avoid this problem by using the training technique called “shaping” instead of luring (see “Shaping Your Dog’s Sit” and “Shaping Your Dog’s Behavior“), but shaping requires more patience and very good timing and skill at observing the dog’s body language. Less-experienced handlers tend to get quicker, more encouraging success with luring – as long as they fade the lure as quickly as possible, as described in this article.

The post The Allure of the Lure appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

If you don’t yet have experience with shaping, try this exercise with your dog. It will help you realize how subtly and precisely you can influence the movement of virtually any part of your dog’s body.

5 Steps to Shaping Your Dog’s Behavior

1. Pick a body part and a desired movement: a head turn to the left or right, head raised or lowered, or a wave of a front paw. The latter is very easy, since dogs move their front paws a lot and seem to be highly aware of their movement. But you could also pick an ear, tail, hind foot, eye – really any body part.

2. Sit on a chair in front of your dog with a clicker and a generous supply of treats.

3. Wait and watch your dog carefully. The instant she moves the selected body part, even the tiniest bit, click and treat.

4. Be selective. If you chose a turn of the head to the right, click only those movements, even tiny ones, in that direction. If you opted for a lift of the right paw, don’t click any left paw movements.

5. In short order, you will see your dog get the idea, and start offering deliberate movement for you to click. You can build the movement into whatever behavior you would like – a spin, a nod of the head, a high-five, or shake of the paw – by continuing to click and treat your dog for increasingly “correct” approximations of the behavior.

Training Your Dog to Sit Perfectly

You can shape your dog to do pretty much anything she’s physically capable of doing. Trainers often use shaping to teach complex behaviors – tricks, service dog tasks, and more. But it can also be used for simpler, more basic behaviors. For example, a straight, fast sit in perfect heel position is very desirable for obedience and rally competitions, and for some musical freestyle routines. You can achieve that perfect sit, too, through shaping. Here’s how:

Let’s assume you’ve already taught your dog to do an automatic sit at your left side when you halt, through luring (holding a treat over her head to encourage her to sit) or capturing (clicking and treating when she offers to sit of her own volition). But her sit is crooked and not as fast as you would like it to be. We’ll start with just one of those qualities; if you shape for both at once it will confuse your dog. Let’s start with straightness.

Do 10 practice sits. Take several steps forward and halt. When your dog sits, click and treat, and note her angle of crookedness. Let’s say her first sit angle is 45 degrees off perfect. (“Perfect” is parallel to you.) Repeat 10 times, clicking and treating each time, and noting how crooked she is. Now average the numbers. Let’s say her average is 30 degrees from perfect. Thirty degrees is now your baseline criterion for shaping a straighter sit. That means that now she must sit only 30 degrees crooked or straighter in order to get a click and treat.

Now count out several sets of 10 treats. Each time she meets the “30 degrees or straighter” criterion, click and treat. Each time she misses (her sit is more than 30 degrees crooked) set a treat aside. When she meets the straightness criterion 80 percent of the time or better (she gets to eat at least eight of the 10 treats) you can raise the bar; now she has to sit 25 degrees or straighter to get a click and treat. Continue gradually increasing the criteria (requiring straighter and straighter sits in order to earn the click and treat) with your sets of 10 treats, until she is sitting perfectly straight at least 80 percent of the time.

Then you can work on speed. You will need to lower your “straight” criteria while you work on “fast.” To determine your baseline speed, ask your dog for 10 sits, but this time, count the seconds between your halt and your dog’s completed sit (one thousand-one, one thousand-two, etc.) and then figure the average.

Let’s say the baseline speed of your dog’s sit is four seconds. Now do several sets of 10 sits, clicking and treating only for sits that are four seconds or faster. Set aside a treat for each sit that is slower than four seconds. When she is meeting her four-second criterion at least 80 percent of the time (eating eight out of 10 treats), raise the criterion to three seconds, and continue.

When your dog is consistently giving you nice, fast sits (say, one-second sits), you are ready to combine straight and fast. Relax both criteria slightly at first – perhaps you will click for sits that are two seconds and 10 degrees or better. When you are getting 80 percent performance for both speed and straightness, gradually raise criteria for both, until you reach your final desired criteria for both.

Most Dogs Like Shaping

This may sound tedious, but most dogs respond amazingly well to shaping. This system – measuring some degree of criteria and monitoring an 80 percent success rate – keeps communication to the dog crystal clear and helps her understand and “get” the task much more quickly than if her handler just guesstimates and randomly clicks some sits more than others. It also gives you a much better understanding of the process of setting and raising criteria for shaping, and significantly enhances your skills as a trainer.

Thanks to Sarah Richardson, owner/trainer at the Canine Connection, a full-service training/boarding/daycare facility in Chico, CA, for demonstrating with foster dog Annie.

Author Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She and her husband Paul live in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center. Miller is also the author of many books on positive training. Her newest is Beware of the Dog: Positive Solutions for Aggressive Behavior in Dogs.

The post Shaping Your Dog’s “Sit” appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

I love shaping because it’s completely force-free, rewards the dog for being creative and showing initiative, and because it’s just plain fun to watch as a dog excitedly works out the answer to a puzzle presented to him by his handler.

Novice trainers and dog owners also usually find shaping to be really exciting and fun – at least, at first. When someone is first shown how quickly she can get her dog to do something complicated, without ever saying a word or pushing or pulling or coercing the dog in any way, most people start using it to try to teach their dogs all sorts of things, from the basics like sit, down, and targeting (touching something with a nose, paw, or other body part), to more complicated things like turning on light switches and learning fancy freestyle dance moves.

Confusion and Frustration are the Enemies of Dog Training with Shaping

The excitement, however, can be short-lived. In their enthusiasm for their newfound ability to get the dog to offer all sorts of behaviors, and their dog’s apparent quick progress, some people can inadvertently become sloppy trainers and expect too much too quickly from their dog – and then suddenly everything falls apart. The trainer can elicit all sorts of behavior from the dog, just not the ones she wanted . . . or she gets the right behavior, but only randomly, not reliably enough to “put it on cue.”

Just as often, frustration can easily develop. Like a player in a game of charades who can’t guess the answer no matter how many clues he’s given, the dog gives up and quits playing the game.

When confusion or frustration set in, and the pair has lost confidence and interest in the game, I like to use a very specific practice exercise to restore both my client’s success at this valuable technique, and her dog’s understanding and enthusiasm for shaping.

When Dog Trainers Lose Focus

In my experience, when things start to fall apart during shaping sessions, it’s most often because the handler gets distracted or loses focus. Shaping requires a lot of mental multi-tasking on the part of the trainer, and if you’ve ever engaged in multi-tasking, you know that the more skilled you are at performing each individual task on its own, the easier it is to try to juggle them all at once.

When a trainer loses focus during a shaping session, it is usually tied to her own enthusiasm; she gets overly inspired or amused by some of the various behaviors the dog offers, and she either skips some important steps and tries to race to the finish line, or sometimes even changes the end goal behavior she’s trying to get the dog to perform, in midstream!

Dog Training Basics for Shaping Success

The best way to counteract these stumbling blocks is to go back to basics and work on some of your training mechanics. Just as athletes will do exercise drills or musicians will practice scales to perfect their skills, trainers need to practice their mechanics. How sharp your training skills are will determine how quickly your dog figures out what it is you want him to do. You need to be able to:

1. Notice the exact moment your dog does the behavior you’re looking for, whether it’s an ear flick or a paw lift. That means you need to sharpen your observation skills to make sure you don’t miss it, especially since many of these behaviors are very tiny and very fast.

2. Click at the right moment. Your timing needs to be spot-on to help your dog recognize exactly what movement earned him that click.

3. Be quiet. Don’t talk, don’t move. You want the click to be the only thing that provides any relevant feedback for your dog (followed by a treat to reinforce, of course). Otherwise, any other stimulus on your part risks eclipsing or overshadowing the information you want to relay to your dog.

While these three skills are crucial to clicker training, perhaps the most important (and often underestimated) element of this training method is the ability to break down the path to the desired behavior into small steps, or “criteria,” and then stick to that path as closely as possible.

For example, the various steps or criteria to achieve “Go to your mat” – where the end behavior is your dog lying down and staying on his mat – might look something like this:

You and your dog are standing close to his mat. You have a pouch full of treats and a clicker. Your dog is likely staring at you (or the treat pouch). You want him to interact with the mat, but he’s extremely focused on you at the moment. In order to get the process moving, you’ll need to find the smallest, easiest criteria that you can reinforce.

1. Your dog’s ear flicks in the direction of the mat. Click/treat (C/T)!

2. Your dog’s eyes glance fleetingly toward the mat. C/T.

3. Your dog’s snout turns in the direction of the mat. C/T.

4. Your dog’s head turns toward the mat. C/T.

5. He turns his head and begins to lift a paw toward the mat. C/T.

6. He turns his head, lifts a paw, and turns his shoulders toward the mat. C/T.

7. He takes one small step toward the mat. C/T.

You see where this is going. Before launching a training program to achieve an end behavior, it’s helpful to have these steps – or sessions – thought out in advance, so you have an idea of the criteria you’ll be looking for. On paper, it always looks as neat and orderly as the list of criteria for “Go to your mat.” In real life, it’s not always so linear and often doesn’t always progress quite as we thought it would. Keep in mind that shaping requires flexibility and the ability to think on your feet. For the purposes of the following practice drill, however, the emphasis will be on slowing things down and maintaining your focus.

Curbing Your Distractions While Training

If you’re still not sure why it’s helpful for trainers to sharpen our focusing skills, consider how multi-tasking without proper focus can go ridiculously wrong. This true-life scenario involving my recent attempt to eat a snack evolved into a comical event that many people can relate to – random task juggling. We’ve all done it! We start with the intent of tackling one task and are easily distracted by another task that we decide needs our immediate attention, followed by yet another task, and so on and so on, until we’re left with a trail of unfinished tasks behind us. At the end of the day we feel we’ve been extremely busy, and yet we haven’t actually accomplished anything.

I had a simple goal: To eat an orange. Instead, I allowed myself to become distracted with various other tasks, one after the other. My parade of behaviors started when I walked into the kitchen in the morning to get an orange. Before getting one from the fruit bowl, I reached for a sheet of paper towel for the orange peel and noticed we needed a new roll.

I walked to the laundry room where we keep the replacement rolls and noticed a stack of folded laundry that needed to be taken upstairs. I forgot about the paper towel roll and carried the folded laundry to the bedroom upstairs. On my way to the bedroom, I glanced into my office, where I noticed some new email notices had popped up on my computer screen. I put the folded laundry on my filing cabinet and sat down at my desk to reply to the emails, which took a while, and I became thirsty. So I walked downstairs to get a glass of water from the kitchen and I remembered my orange!

I should have stuck to one task (eat my orange!), or at the very least, completed each task as I came across it. Instead, I got sidetracked and engaged in a list of unrelated behaviors that in the end didn’t accomplish much.

It’s very easy to become this distracted during a shaping session, causing confusion and frustration for your learner, and disappointment for you, the trainer, when you don’t reach your end goal. If you come back to the basics now and then, and do a few focus practice drills, sticking to a steady and systematic approach to choosing and increasing criteria, you’ll end up enjoying the sweet, juicy taste of success much sooner!

Shaping Drill – Focus Your Dog!

Each of the steps outlined in the plan above represents a criterion – a step toward the end behavior. To sharpen your focus and to avoid wandering off the path, treat each criterion as a short, separate shaping session.

Select a criterion, set a timer for 30 to 60 seconds (or count out a certain number of treats that you’ll use to reinforce that criterion and only that criterion), and focus like a laser beam on marking and reinforcing that behavior only during that shaping session.

For example, say that in a specific, one-minute-or-less session you decide you’re going to look for and C/T a head turn. Good; focus on that and nothing else in that single session. It might be tempting to jump on the opportunity to C/T a new and unexpected behavior that your dog offers, but for now, help your dog understand precisely what it is he’s doing right by keeping your focus lean and clean.

When your time is up or your treats are gone, take a short break to think about what your next criterion will be.

Remember to let the dog know that the session is finished so that he doesn’t inadvertently continue to offer you behaviors that you’re not even paying attention to anymore. To end a session, I like to say “All done!” and play with the dog for just a few seconds.

During this practice drill, if you decide at the very start of a short training session that you will look for, mark, and reinforce a head turn, you must resist the temptation to pile on criteria mid-session just because the dog is offering them randomly, or because these new behaviors look more interesting or are a step ahead of the one you originally had in mind.

Pick one criterion and focus, focus, focus! If you think of another behavior you’d like to add to your list of criteria, make a mental note and work on it later. Keep in mind that the more you practice shaping techniques with your dog, the better he’ll become at offering different behaviors to figure out what you want, and the more likely he will learn to anticipate the direction of where a session is going. Until then, keep your communication as a trainer as clear, clean, and concise as possible.

Shaping a Fast-Learning Dog

Shaping is about marking and reinforcing tiny steps toward an end behavior. While the progress should unfold systematically, sometimes the dog guesses the end behavior much faster than we anticipated. This is more common with dogs who are trained regularly using a shaping technique. They learn to anticipate that we will want more from them, and they’ll offer truckloads of different behaviors in rapid-fire succession until they get the feedback they’re listening for: “Click!”

Many canine veterans of shaping sessions also learn that when there’s a prop or accessory present, they are probably supposed to interact with it, whether it’s a target stick, box, mat, or any other novel item. If you’re using a prop – whether with a dog who’s a shaping rookie or with a seasoned clicker-training veteran – make sure you’re ready to mark and reinforce any interaction with it from the nanosecond you present your prop. Have your thumb on the clicker and your treats nearby, and keep a close eye on your dog. You don’t want to miss anything!

If your dog guesses the end behavior very quickly and offers it repeatedly, you can jump ahead to the following steps:

1. Add a Cue. If the end behavior is for your dog to go lie down on his mat and he’s offering it consistently and correctly, go ahead and let him know what that behavior is called.

To add a verbal cue, say the cue immediately before your dog does the end behavior. For example, if the end behavior is for your dog to lie down on his mat, you can say, “Go to your mat” at the precise moment that he lowers himself into a “down” position on the mat. Over several more repetitions, gradually begin saying your cue earlier. For example, begin saying it immediately before he lowers himself into a down, while he’s still standing. Then begin saying it as he steps onto the mat; then as he’s walking toward the mat.

2. Increase the quality of the behavior. As an additional challenge, you can fine-tune the quality of the behavior by raising your criteria a bit. “Quality” includes features such as duration and speed.

For example, continue shaping to get a longer-lasting “down” on the mat by delaying the click/treat by short increments. Or increase the speed of your dog’s response to the “Go to your mat” cue by clicking and treating only the faster ones. Remember, though, that if you’re changing the criteria you’ll need to do it systematically; choose just one criterion at a time and focus on marking and reinforcing just the one.

3. Change the context of the behavior. Now, we want to “generalize” the behavior, to make sure your dog still understands the cue in different contexts.

Try giving your dog the cue from a different location. If you began by standing to the right of the mat, try moving to the left of the mat. Change your own physical position; if you were standing, try sitting, then with your back turned, or while lying down. Change the location of the mat, at first within your home, and then outside your home, in other locations entirely. (Targeting a mat with a “down” behavior is especially useful when visiting friends and family, when at the vet’s office, or at a dog-friendly café!)

Nancy Tucker, CPDT-KA, is a full-time trainer, behavior consultant, and seminar presenter in Quebec, Canada.

The post Shaping Your Dog’s Behavior appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

While dog training does not require a degree in animal behavior, it is useful to understand how dogs learn. If you understand how your dog learns, you will be able to teach her more than what’s presented in this or any book, magazine, or class. You’ll also be better able to solve problems that arise. All animals, including humans, will maximize their well-being in the process of learning – which is just a fancy way of saying that animals do what works best for them. This includes getting things like food or desired objects as well as a sense of emotional well-being, such as feeling safe, happy, or engaged. Animals avoid things that make them uncomfortable and seek out things that they like, want, or need. So if you want an animal to do something for you (called a behavior), then either provide a pleasant consequence when she cooperates, or an unpleasant consequence when she doesn’t. Sometimes an animal is consciously thinking about what is happening around her. At other times, she is learning without any thought at all. In both cases, the animal is learning. Let’s take a moment to look at each of these scenarios, because they are important to understand.

When your dog is making choices and is aware of what she is learning, you are using operant conditioning. Although you probably didn’t realize it at the time, you were using operant conditioning when you taught your dog to perform some basic behaviors. Operant conditioning simply means that your dog makes an association between doing something and the resulting consequence. Nothing more, nothing less.

There are three basic ways you can use operant conditioning:

1. Your dog learns that when she does something you want, something awesome happens. For example, you may have taught your dog to sit by using a cookie.

2. Your dog learns that if she doesn’t do what you want, something unpleasant happens. Some people teach their dogs to sit by pulling up on the collar.

3. Your dog learns through a combination of each of the above. Cookies when she sits, and receiving a collar correction when she doesn’t.

Each time you give your dog a cue to do something, she makes a choice. She can calculate the sum of the possible motivators with the possible punishers and choose whether or not to comply. If complying with you works in her favor, she’ll likely obey. Same as with people.

There’s another form of learning, and this one is a bit more subtle. It’s called classical conditioning. Unlike operant conditioning, where the animal is making choices, classical conditioning doesn’t require any conscious effort at all to learn. It just happens. Animals are learning all the time, whether we are aware of it or not. When you were teaching your dog to sit – no matter how you did it – she was learning more than just how to sit. She was learning about training in general; is it fun and something to look forward to, or something unpleasant and best avoided? She learned how much she enjoys (or doesn’t enjoy) your company. She learned if the world is a safe, predictable place, or if it’s unsafe and anxiety-provoking. As you may have already guessed, people have the same experiences with classical conditioning. If you’re ever had a really super teacher who was patient, kind, and consistent, yet held you to high expectations, you know how hard you worked to learn and to please her, and how much you wanted to be in her company. On the other hand, if you’ve ever had a teacher or an employer who was grumpy, demanding, unreasonable, or unpredictable, you know how anxious you felt in her presence. You may have even discovered that under her supervision, you were unable to do even simple tasks because your nervousness blocked your ability to learn or to perform correctly. That is because fear overwhelms rational thought. Again, this is true in all animals, including dogs and humans.

Since classical conditioning isn’t conscious, you might find yourself feeling anxiety and unpleasantness well after the event that caused those reactions in the first place. Many parents who did not enjoy their school years have reported feeling upset or anxious when they first walked into their child’s school classroom, even twenty years later! Long after they have forgotten exactly what it was about school that was unpleasant, they still harbor the negative feelings. That’s classical conditioning at work. Just as the dog was learning without realizing it, it is quite likely that you were teaching these lessons without realizing it either. It is critically important for your dog to learn that training time is pleasant, because fear and anxiety block effective and efficient learning. The more your dog is able to relax and look forward to her lessons, the more quickly she will master them and work to please you. If you want your dog to be an engaged learner, then make it a priority to set up training sessions that are short, positive, and rewarding for your dog. In contrast, if you express disappointment in her work or use physical manipulation to get the desired responses, you’ll erode your working relationship by creating unpleasant classically conditioned responses to training.

I teach and use positive training methods for several reasons:

1. We want to condition our dogs to enjoy working with us so that they can learn more quickly.

2. We want our dogs to respond even when they are out of our physical reach. Dogs are smart. If compliance is gained primarily through methods that involve corrections, they quickly learn when you can and cannot enforce your cues. If your dog complies only when he is on a leash or when he is wearing a special collar, you need to consider how this relates to your training goals. How often do you need a recall on a six-foot leash? Probably never; he’s already with you! All dogs can figure out if they are wearing a leash, but it’s a rare dog who knows if you have access to a cookie. (Note that I said “access to.” Most dogs know if you have a cookie in your hand or pocket!)

3. While residual fear and the generally easygoing nature of dogs might allow for cooperation even when enforcement is not possible, it’s not much fun to have a dog cooperate because she is afraid of you. The purpose of having a dog is to enjoy the mutually beneficial relationship that can exist across species. Why create a relationship based on fear when it’s not necessary?

Good training plans take both operant conditioning and classical conditioning into account. You and your dog should both enjoy the process! If you aren’t both having fun, go back and look at why this might be. What are you teaching your dog without meaning to? Are you doing something to scare her, even if you don’t mean to? Find ways to make the process enjoyable for you both!

You can purchase Beyond the Back Yard from the Whole Dog Journal bookstore. 

The post Training Your Dog to Learn appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

What’s your definition of a “well-trained dog?” For many people, a well-trained dog is one who knows how to perform a variety of behaviors. However, there are many dogs who will sit, lie down, stay, heel, and show off a few fun parlor tricks at home – but who look completely perplexed when asked to perform the same behaviors at an outdoor café, while visiting relatives or friends, or perhaps even when entering the ring at a dog show!

If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “But he does it at home!” while wondering why your dog fails to respond correctly when working in a new environment, you have acknowledged that your dog has not yet generalized the behavior to all contexts, and lacks fluency.

In dog training, generalization means that your dog can apply a concept to many situations; he knows that “Sit!” means he should sit whether he’s home, on a loud, crowded sidewalk in the rain, or in a grassy park with squirrels chattering in the trees. Fluency means the dog performs the desired behavior correctly, smoothly, and without hesitation.

When we train a behavior, we often do so with the unspoken expectation that the dog will perform the behavior anywhere, anytime, so long as the correct cue is given. It’s important to understand generalization and fluency because a dog’s failure to perform is often seen as the dog’s deliberate choice to not comply. In reality, the dog’s lack of compliance usually means he doesn’t know the behavior to the extent you believe he does. That’s a training problem; the behavior wasn’t generalized and taught to fluency.

As a trainer, my definition of “well trained” has less to do with how many behaviors my dog knows; it’s much more about whether he can correctly perform these behaviors in many unique circumstances, a feat that is necessary for him to live harmoniously within my lifestyle.

Out of Context

Dogs have dozens of wonderful qualities, but unfortunately, an ability to quickly generalize is not one of them. Dogs are contextual creatures. Learning to sit for three seconds in the kitchen when the house is quiet is not the same as sitting in a crowded outdoor shopping center. When dogs fail to comply in new settings or in the face of distractions, they aren’t being stubborn, willful, or dominant, as many people believe. In reality, they are struggling to meet the demands placed upon them in that moment, and they need our help to become successful.

In order for a dog to truly know a behavior, we must take the time to specifically train for the many types of situations we are likely to encounter with our dogs. It’s not just about more practice – it’s about strategic practice. Taking the time to train a behavior to fluency helps ensure that the behavior works whenever and wherever you need it. It’s the difference between a dog who can come when called when you leave him in a sit, walk away, and call him, and a dog who can still come when called while in the middle of chasing a squirrel down your driveway toward traffic!

The better your dog is able to respond to your cues, the less you are likely to be frustrated by his behavior. Even better, dogs who are reliable in their skills are more likely to be found accompanying their owners on adventures away from home. It’s more fun to hit the town with a well-trained dog!

We typically associate fluency with language, but it’s just as relevant to any acquired skill. Think about when you first learned to drive a car. You probably started in an empty parking lot or on a quiet road where you were unlikely to encounter other drivers; you needed to work in an area free from the distraction of other drivers. In the beginning, it took effort to remember each of the important steps that make up the behavior of “driving safely.” You relied heavily on the guidance of a driving instructor. As your skill level and confidence increased, you practiced on busier roads, in different weather conditions, and maybe even behind the wheels of different cars. Over time, you became so well practiced in the art of safe driving that it now appears effortless. The skill of operating a car has become generalized and fluent.

The following are methods that help dogs generalize behaviors and become fluent.

1. Start by clearly defining the behavior you want.

When you teach a behavior, it’s important to have a clear picture of what you want the finished behavior to look like. Does “heel” mean that your dog should match your pace and stay even with your left leg, or does “heel” mean your dog may stay anywhere on your left side so long as the leash stays loose? Does “on your spot” mean your dog should run directly to his mat and lie down with his entire body on the mat, or does it mean he should run to his mat and lie down with most of his body on the mat?

You should also have an idea of how quickly you want your dog to perform the behavior – both in terms of the time it takes the dog to start the behavior after you deliver the cue (latency), and the time it takes to perform the behavior from start to finish (speed).

There are no right or wrong answers. As the owner and trainer, you get to decide what’s most important to you, but you do need to think about your overall expectations in order to develop a training plan to support them. If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want, how will your dog know? Many of us begin training a behavior without clear expectations, only to suddenly decide the behavior we’ve been rewarding isn’t really what we want.

For example, think of the “puppy sit.” It’s not uncommon to have clients ask how to get their now 8-month-old dog to sit square on his hips after months of rewarding the puppy for slouched sitting. To fix it, we have to stop rewarding “sloppy sits” and work to re-train the behavior. Ever have a boss criticize you for failing to follow a procedure change nobody bothered to tell you about? It’s frustrating to be told you’re wrong when you’re doing exactly what was expected of you in the past. I suspect our dogs might agree.

2. Wean your dog off of lures and prompts.

A critical step toward your dog’s fluency is to get rid of common training aids such as food lures and assorted prompts as quickly as possible. If your dog lies down only when you say “down” and point to the floor with a cookie in your hand, he doesn’t truly understand that the word “down,” by itself, means he should move his body to the floor. If he turns to look at you only when you say his name while patting your leg as encouragement, he doesn’t actually know that you want him to orient himself to you when he hears his name.

To eliminate your dog’s dependency on lures and prompts, try warming him up by asking for a behavior two or three times in a row, using the known lure or prompt. With this short pattern in place, quickly ask for the behavior again, but without the obvious food lure or prompt. When he’s successful (which is likely, due to the patterned warm-up), surprise him with a celebratory jackpot. This is an important step toward weaning your dog off of the lures and prompts, teaching him to show up for work by responding to cues in order to earn food rewards versus food and prompts as training wheels that help create behavior.

3. Be clear and consistent with your cues.

It’s important to be mindful of how you taught a behavior, and what part of your cue might be most salient to your dog. For example, many people teach “down” by saying the word while luring the dog into position with a treat. Next, the dog learns to follow the same hand signal (pointing to the floor) without needing a treat on his nose. In this case, even though you say “down,” food on your dog’s nose, and later, the same hand that once held food, is likely the most noticeable piece of information, not the word, “down.”

If your goal is for your dog to lie down with only a verbal cue, don’t use verbal and physical cues simultaneously. Be sure to say the word “down” before you begin bending or pointing toward the floor. Allow your dog a brief moment (one second) to hear and consider the newer (to him) verbal cue, and then, if he doesn’t respond, follow the verbal cue with the physical cue that he understands. Soon, he will realize that the verbal cue consistently predicts the physical cue and will perform the behavior upon hearing the verbal cue alone.

It’s also important to be consistent with the delivery of your cues. If your verbal cue for sit is “sit,” be careful to not say, “sit down,” when asking your dog to perform the behavior. If your gestural cue for your dog to lift his left paw to “shake” is the presentation of your right hand, don’t be surprised if he struggles to perform correctly when you suddenly reach across your body with your left hand. These may seem like subtle differences, but they can easily create confusion in dogs, who are supreme masters when it comes to recognizing body language.

4. Make training a way of life.

Positive reinforcement training is all about teaching a dog that desired behavior brings rewards. We often use food treats as rewards, but we must be careful to avoid creating a dog who wants to work only when he sees that you have food, or has good reason to believe that you might have food. It’s great to have formal practice sessions where it’s completely obvious you are training the dog – you have your treat pouch, maybe he’s on leash, and you’re working in your usual training area. But it’s also important to make training a way of life to help your dog understand what’s expected of him all the time, not just when the overall picture looks like training.

To accomplish this, be aware of your dog’s behavior throughout the day and “catch him in the act” of being good. Consider stashing a portion of his daily kibble in one or two plastic cups around the house and randomly toss him a piece when he offers a behavior you’d like to see more of. This takes some of the formality out of training, gives him many opportunities for practice that support eventual fluency, and helps your dog realize there’s always an opportunity for reinforcement.

Using “life rewards” (such as opening a door to let the dog out, throwing a favorite toy to fetch, attaching a leash for a walk, or inviting the dog to join you on the sofa) is another meaningful way to reinforce a dog for correct behavior away from a formal training session. It also helps us develop a long list of ways to reinforce our dogs besides just treats.

In many cases, the potential life reward is, in that moment, even more valuable to the dog than an offered cookie. Ever see a dog refuse a treat, or take it and then spit it out as he sits transfixed by a squirrel? For that dog, getting the “Okay!” to race out the door and chase the squirrel across the yard after he sits when asked is way more powerful than an offered cookie.

5. Systematically generalize the behavior.

An important part of achieving fluency with a behavior is to help your dog generalize the behavior as needed. Just as you get to decide what the finished behavior should look like, you also get to decide under what conditions you need the behavior to hold up.

Will you ask your dog to perform the behavior in the presence of distractions? What kind? Will the dog need to perform the behavior at a distance from you? How long will he be expected to perform the behavior? Do you need the behavior only at home, or in a variety of locations? Do you prefer that the dog respond to you alone, or do you need him to respond to the cue if it is delivered by other people?

You don’t need to specifically train for every scenario you can imagine, but the more you train for, the greater his generalization will be. The more time you invest in specifically training to help your dog generalize, the greater the odds that he will be successful when you suddenly encounter something different or unusual. Once, while I was leading a group of city dogs and their owners on a training walk through a mountain resort, I ran into a man walking a goat. None of the dogs had ever seen (or smelled!) a goat before, but we had previously worked sit-stays around so many different types of distractions, all of the dogs were able to successfully control themselves as the goat strolled by!

Training for generalization is like asking, “Can you do the desired behavior if:_?” Think about your lifestyle and your expectations, and make a list of the different ways you might pose the question to your dog. Then set out to teach your dog how to meet the different challenges. For example, your dog might be able to hold a down-stay on his spot if you’re standing right next to him. But can he do it if:

• There’s delicious food on the table? The cat saunters into the room? The kids are running nearby? The doorbell rings?

• Someone other than the primary trainer is working with him?

• You’re at an outdoor café near a busy sidewalk and another dog walks past? What if the dog is barking? What if the dog is pulling somebody on a skateboard?

Don’t be afraid to get creative and challenge your dog to perform under circumstances that seem unlikely. Can your dog sit if your back is to him when you ask? If you cover your face with your hands while delivering the cue? If you’re standing on a chair? If you’re lying on the ground?

He might need help at first – and that’s okay! As you introduce new challenges, be mindful of your dog’s emotional state. Meeting a new challenge should be a fun way to build confidence, not an overwhelming experience. Choose situations that your dog is realistically able to handle. As he works through a variety of challenges, he will realize he can perform successfully even when the training picture looks different from what he’s most used to – like when you’re asking him to sit at a busy sidewalk café versus sitting at home in the kitchen.

6. Break things down.

It’s important to break full behaviors into smaller pieces during training. Say your idea of a perfect stay is a dog who can maintain a sit for 10 minutes, while you stand 30 feet away as others run past your dog squeaking toys and bouncing tennis balls. It would not be fair to immediately set up such a scenario and expect him to work through it, especially if he’s a relatively inexperienced dog. Instead, concentrate on one element of the behavior while lowering your expectations for the others. If you’re asking him to stay for 3 minutes when he’s used to shorter stays, don’t practice this piece (duration) while you’re also standing far away or in a distracting environment.

Knowing the right time to raise criteria (make something harder) is an important part of successful training. A rule of thumb is to ask for more only when your dog has easily met your expectation of the easier task 80 percent of the time. If he wasn’t able to perform the behavior correctly three times in a row, the current task is too hard; find a way to make it easier. Struggling to meet the challenge isn’t failure – it’s information!

7. Most importantly, keep it fun!

As you work with your dog, be careful to not put too much pressure on yourself or your dog. Be mindful of your dog’s body language. Yawning, excessive sniffing, lip-licking, avoidance, or hyper or “fooling around” behaviors are all signs that your dog is feeling distress. Focus on meeting your goals through a series of baby steps rather than a few giant leaps. Keep training sessions upbeat and fun; there’s no need to “drill” a behavior. Remember to breathe and smile at your dog, and stop if you start to feel frustrated. Nothing will shut down your dog faster than your own frustration.

Pieces of the Training Puzzle

Stephanie Colman is a writer and dog trainer in Los Angeles.

The post Fluency and Generalization in Dog Training appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

Photos by Bonita Ash

As a professional trainer, I’m pretty good at adding cues that are clear to me and clear for the dog. However, I’ve recently had a bit more time to work with my own dog, Willow, a 3-year-old Australian Shepherd. It’s been a blast teaching her a few new tricks, adding humorous cues to those behaviors and even changing some cues to a few tricks she’s already learned. But I’ve seen that puzzled look on her face a few times, as if she’s saying, “Hey, Mom, I just don’t get it. Can you be more clear?” I guess it’s time to clean up my cues.

ashfordstudio.com

What IS a cue?

From the handler’s perspective, a cue is the word or action we attach to a specific behavior the animal has learned so that we can elicit that behavior again. In the dog-friendly and humane training I use (and hope you use, too), the word “cue” is used instead of “command.” Command implies “You do it or else!” In the world of positive training, if the dog doesn’t respond to my cue, it’s my job as the trainer to assess what just occurred and tweak my own actions to help the dog succeed. If the dog succeeds, the dog earns reinforcement, and reinforcement makes the behavior more likely to happen again.

In reality, a cue is anything your dog can perceive. It’s also a chance to earn reinforcement. Our dogs see, hear, smell, touch, and taste, just as we do, so anything a dog is able to perceive by one of her senses can be turned into a cue. In the pet dog world, most people use verbal cues, with hand signals coming in a close second. In canine sports and service dog work, handlers may use a number of other types of cues, including olfactory cues.

Know your ABC’s?

Keep in mind the ABC’s: Antecedent. Behavior. Consequence.

It’s important to understand that the cue (an antecedent) isn’t what causes the behavior to happen. The consequence of the behavior is what makes the specific behavior more likely to increase or decrease. If you like that specific behavior (the sit, down, etc.) and want your dog to do it again, reinforce the heck out of it! Reinforcement drives behavior.

How to add a cue

If you want to teach your dog a new behavior, you must first “show” the dog what to do and make sure the behavior is reliable before adding a cue.

For example, if I’m attempting to teach a dog to sit, I would help to elicit the behavior by first luring, capturing, or shaping the movement. Our dogs know how to sit, right? They just don’t know how to sit when we say “sit.”

To lure the dog into a sit, hold a piece of food in your hand, place it at the dog’s nose and move it up and back over the dog’s head. This causes the dog to look up, rock back a bit, and as she does so, her bottom goes down. When the dog’s bottom hits the floor, you’d mark the desired behavior with the click of a clicker (or a verbal marker, such as the word “Yes!”) and give the dog a yummy piece of food.

To capture a sit, merely wait patiently and observe the dog. When the dog happens to move into the sit position, click/treat.

To shape a sit, consider all the tiny parts of the entire sit position (looking up, rocking back, rear end begins to move closer to the floor), and reinforce each of those tiny parts toward the final behavior of sitting.

Once the dog is reliably (at least 80 to 90 percent of the time) performing the behavior, you can begin to incorporate whatever cue you wish by using your desired cue as the dog performs the behavior.

After the dog is successful a few times, use the cue before the dog performs the behavior. Example: Say “Sit!” (always in a happy tone of voice). Pause one second, and then lure the dog into the sit position. By pausing, you’re giving the dog an opportunity to associate the sound of your verbal cue, “Sit!,” with the behavior of sitting.

Pay close attention to your dog when you say the cue; if you see even the slightest movement that gives you an indication she’s about to sit, praise her (Good girl!) and lure her the rest of the way into the sit position, then click/treat. By encouraging even her slightest movements, you can help increase her response to the verbal cue. With each successive repetition, slowly fade out the lure, and voila!, your dog will respond to your verbal “Sit!” cue.

How to change or add an additional cue

Dogs can learn multiple cues for a single behavior. I have three different cues for Willow’s sit: a verbal cue (an auditory cue I can use if my hands are busy); a hand signal (a visual cue I can use if I’m talking); and the sight of car keys (another visual cue I trained just for the fun of it). I must continue to use and reinforce each cue periodically if I want Willow’s response to these cues to be reliable.

If you want to change a cue, use the “new” cue, pause, then give the “known” cue, and click/treat the correct response. Repeat several times. Next, give the new cue, pause a little bit longer, give the known cue, then click/treat the desired behavior. This gives the dog time to associate the new cue with the old cue.

As you continue to repeat this exercise, before long, your dog will hear the new cue and move into the desired behavior before you have a chance to give the known cue. You’ll be excited so don’t forget to click and treat! Good job! You’ve just changed a cue.

Every dog learns at a different rate, just as we each do. I’ve seen dogs who can learn a new cue in as few as three or four clicks and others take longer. If you’re doing a good job of minimizing your own body language, it will help your dog achieve success in a shorter amount of time.

Confusing our dogs

So often in training, when a dog doesn’t perform the desired behavior in response to the given cue, we blame the dog. I often hear, “He’s blowing me off!” or “She’s being stubborn!” In reality, the handler just didn’t make it clear enough for the dog to fully understand what the person was trying to teach. Here are ways we confuse our dogs:

Expecting our dogs to auto-matically know our language. Dogs don’t come with an English software package installed. We must patiently teach them our language, one cue at a time.

Not taking the time to define the cue’s goal behavior. Have in mind the specific definition of what you expect. I suggest you create a cue dictionary. Write down every cue you currently use, then define the goal behavior for each cue. Do you want a straight sit with square hips or a sidesaddle sit? A speedy down or a slow down? Defining your cues and the goal behavior for each in writing will help you be clear in your own mind about what you expect, and that will make it more clear for your dog.

Check out the cue dictionary that my colleague, Sarah Foster of Cold Nose College Atlanta, put together for her dog, Jane (see page 7).

Adding cues too early. It’s important to teach your dog the behavior and make sure she can perform it reliably before adding the cue.

Using two cues simultaneouslY. For example, a verbal cue and a body cue (hand signal): Dogs are keen observers. They pick up on our body language before they pick up on our words. If you use a verbal cue, but also a body movement with it (such as the word “sit” and then the hand signal for “sit”), I’d bet that if you said the word and didn’t use the body movement, the dog probably wouldn’t understand what you meant and might not give you the behavior you expect.

POOR REINFORCEMENT. Don’t fail to reinforce the newly learned behavior enough for it to become fluent. Some dogs catch on very quickly; others more slowly, but they all can learn if we’re patient and reinforce the desired behavior appropriately.

Choosing cues that look similar or sound similaR. Choosing the verbal cues such as Down and Bow for two different behaviors can be confusing for your dog. Instead of Bow, I suggest Bravo or TaDa!

There are other reasons a dog doesn’t respond to a cue: the dog didn’t see or hear the cue; the dog didn’t recognize the cue because it’s too similar to another cue; the dog was distracted by the environment (another dog, person, squirrel); the dog felt unsafe.

So, repeat after me: “Don’t blame the dog.” Take a look at your training techniques and find a way to tweak the process so you can help your dog be successful. When your dog is successful, she earns reinforcement and that behavior you worked diligently to install and put on cue works perfectly. The result is clear communication with your favorite furry friend. Happy dog. Happy trainer!

The post Clean Up Your Cues! appeared first on Whole Dog Journal.

Today, thanks to the shift toward positive-reinforcement-based training and a better understanding of the science of behavior and learning, dog trainers and owners are coming to understand the value of dogs who offer behaviors. “Behave” is actually an action word.

There are several different ways to get your dog to do lots of stuff. You can lure,  shape, capture, use imitation, and, yes, you can even coerce and physically manipulate your dog into performing certain behaviors. Coercion was the mainstay of old-fashioned training, and carries with it a high likelihood of unwanted side effects, including fear, aggression, and learned helplessness (shutting down).

Today’s educated, competent, modern, positive-based trainers strenuously avoid the use of coercion and manipulation, relying instead on the first four techniques in order to get their dogs to happily and willingly offer behaviors during the training process.

Keep in mind that getting the dog to do something is just the beginning of that process. In order to “train” a behavior, you start by getting it to happen; once you are able to get your dog to perform a certain behavior (using any of the methods described in this article) you reward and thus reinforce it, so as to increase its frequency. The next step is to associate the behavior with a cue, which will replace whatever you originally did to get the behavior. This is an important step; many amateur trainers fail to ever “fade” (eliminate) whatever method they used to originally get the dog to perform the behavior, and the dog never manages to figure out the cue.

The goal is to get the dog to quickly realize and reliably understand that the cue – not the luring or shaping, etc. – indicates that he has an immediate opportunity to earn a reward for performing a specific behavior. (Act now! Limited time offer!)

“Luring” Your Dog

“Luring” involves the use of a desirable object, often food, to entice your dog into doing the behavior you want. To lure a dog to sit, put a treat at the end of his nose and raise the treat up and back over his head (not too high, he’ll jump up instead of sitting!). To lure a sitting dog into a stand, put the treat in front of his nose and move it away from him, parallel to the ground. To lure him into your car, take his favorite toy, get in the car yourself, and show him the toy. Squeak it, bounce it, and/or toss it in the air to increase its value.

You can also lure-shape, which means luring and reinforcing pieces of the behavior until the dog can do the complete behavior. Since many dogs won’t lure all the way down to the ground on the first try, we often use lure-shaping to get a dog to lie down. While luring is frowned upon by some trainers, especially by shaping “purists,” it can be an effective way to get a behavior relatively quickly.

Disadvantages of Luring Dogs

Dog and human can become dependent on the presence of the lure to get the behavior. The dog may learn to wait until the lure is offered to do the behavior. The human may believe her dogs won’t be able to do the behavior without the lure. You must “fade” the lure quickly in order to avoid lure-dependence.

Some humans are not skilled at fading the lure.

Luring can be seen as a form of coercion – when the dog doesn’t really want to do the behavior, but because he wants the treat so badly he feels compelled to do it. There may be fallout in the form of increased stress for the dog, or worse.

Example: The dog is fearful of strangers, but his owner has given a stranger a high-value treat and asked him to offer it to the dog. The dog doesn’t want to approach the stranger, but he really wants the treat, so he does. He accepts and eats the treat and then, realizing he is way too close to the scary stranger, bites.

We use luring a lot in the Basic Good Manners classes at Peaceable Paws (my training center in Fairplay, Maryland). Novice dog owners tend not to have the patience or the understanding, at least a first, for the complexities of techniques like shaping. I may also use luring with a novice dog who hasn’t been introduced to shaping, if I need to get a behavior quickly for some reason, and don’t have time to teach him the concept of shaping or imitation.

“Shaping” Your Dog 

“Shaping” is the process of breaking a behavior into small steps, reinforcing the dog many times at each step before moving to the next, until, through successively more accurate approximations, you build the entire behavior.

To shape a dog to pick up an object, for example, you might first click and treat him for glancing at it. When you see that he deliberately looks at it in order to make you click and treat, you could click/treat him for looking at it while moving his head very slightly toward it. It might take several steps (numerous repetitions and reinforcements at each step) until he is at the “sniff the object” step. The next step might be to touch the object with his nose, then open his mouth slightly, and so on, until he is picking up the object.

Shaping is a fantastic way to develop a dog who is quick and eager to offer behavior. This makes training new, sometimes amazingly complex behaviors, happen much more easily and quickly than does luring. In fact, there are some complex behaviors you’d be hard-pressed to figure out how to lure that might be relatively simple to shape.

There are actually three versions of shaping:

Pure Shaping. You have a goal behavior in mind, you create a shaping plan, and work as described above until you have the full behavior.

Lure Shaping. As described in the Luring section above, you use a combination of luring and shaping to get the behavior you want.

Free Shaping.Also known as “101 Things to do With a Prop,” free shaping is an exercise intended to encourage your dog to offer lots of different behaviors – a very useful skill down the road when you are working to shape complex or particularly creative behaviors; some of the most amusing tricks come out of this exercise. (See “101 Things to do With a Prop.”) It’s important when doing free shaping to studiously avoid having a behavior goal in the back of your mind, but rather to celebrate (and reinforce) a variety of behaviors.

Disadvantages of Shaping a Dog

Shaping requires patience, good observational skills, and good timing. It can be frustrating for a novice trainer to shape behaviors.

Novice shapers tend to “lump” (look for and reinforce big pieces of behavior) rather than “split” (look for and reinforce very small pieces of behavior).

It can be frustrating – and boring – for the dog as well as the human, if the handler isn’t skilled at shaping. If the handler is “lumping,” the dog doesn’t get reinforced enough to keep him playing the game. If the handler’s timing is bad, the dog can’t figure out what on earth he is getting clicked for, and the shaping moves forward very slowly, if at all.

I use shaping almost exclusively now with my own dogs because, once they understand the concept you can teach new behaviors very quickly. At my training center, we also use it in the advanced classes, where students have demonstrated their commitment to and interest in a greater understanding of behavior and learning.

“Capturing” a Behavior

“Capturing” is so easy it almost seems like cheating. You just need to have your reward marker handy (hence the value of teaching your dog a verbal marker as well as a clicker), and easy access to treats or some other high-value reinforcer. Anytime your dog just happens to do something you like, mark it and give him a treat. In time, your dog will start to offer the behavior in order to make you click.

Capuring is easiest to do with behaviors that are somewhat predictable. Does your dog always stretch when he comes out of his crate? Be ready to click the instant he does it. This can be a terrific way to train behaviors that your dog offers spontaneously and that are challenging to lure or shape.

Disadvantages of Capturing a Behavior

You can capture only behaviors that your dog offers.

You have to be quick, with excellent timing to capture spontaneous behaviors with enough frequency that your dog gets it and starts offering the behavior. (Note: Dogs who are clicker-savvy and who have done a lot of shaping are likely to catch on most quickly.)

I use capturing (with a verbal marker) as described above when one of my dogs offers a spontaneous behavior that I want to encourage – especially one that might be difficult to shape or lure. (It’s usually something cute.)

Teaching Your Dog to Imitate You

A spanking-new concept for the dog-training world, “imitation” involves teaching your dog a cue that means “Copy what I just did.” While not yet a mainstream technique, it shows a lot of promise, especially for shortcutting the training of complex behaviors. Once your dog has learned the imitation concept, you simply have him sit and watch while you demonstrate the behavior, return to him and give him your “Copy” cue. Then he does the behavior.

Imagine for a moment the painstaking process of teaching your dog to run weave poles for agility. Now imagine that all you need to do is have your dog watch you while you run the weave poles, return to him, tell him “Copy!” and sit back and watch him run the poles, letter-perfect. Okay, maybe it’s not quite that easy, but still . . . a lot of service-dog skills and a whole host of other behaviors could lend themselves quite well to imitation.

Disadvantages to Imitation

It requires an investment of time in the training process to teach your dog the imitation concept.

You cannot use imitation for behaviors that your dog does with you or to you because you cannot demonstrate them. How would you demonstrate heeling? Or weaving between your own legs?

You cannot use imitation for behaviors that are beyond human capability. Some humans can do a back flip, for example, but I would be unable to demonstrate that behavior for my dog.

While I have taught our dog Bonnie the imitation concept, I admit that I haven’t taken it further to teach her new behaviors. I am working with a group of four students in their sixth week of class, and their dogs are just reaching the point where they may be ready to try learning new behaviors using imitation. Stay tuned for updates!

As you can see, there are many different ways to get your dog to “behave” by developing happy and willing participation in the training process and encouraging your dog to offer behaviors. There is no “right” way; you have many choices, depending on your dog, goals, and training skills. If you’re stumped by shaping, or eager to try imitation, find a qualified positive-training professional who can help you add those new techniques to your repertoire. Now – if you want your dog to “behave” – go teach him to do lots of stuff!

“Click and treat” – This term is used by many trainers who use positive reinforcement as a major tool in their training toolbox – even if they don’t actually use a clicker!
To “click” is to use a consistent signal – often, but not always the “click” of a clicker – to let the dog know that the thing he just did just earned him a reward. In order to be effective, this signal needs to be sharp and discrete, as it’s being used to “mark” the desired behavior as cleanly as possible. Clickers make a distinctive and highly consistent sound, which is more effective than a sound that changes each time in pitch and tone, but most dogs are capable of understanding and lumping together similar-sounding or similar-looking signals.

Audible signals (such as a click or a spoken word, such as “Yes!”) are the easiest for many handlers to use, but visible signals are needed for deaf dogs (or senior dogs who are on their way to deafness). Many trainers of deaf dogs use the flash of a small flashlight or a thumbs-up gesture as their marker signal.

In almost every article we present about training, we use the word “click” to indicate the use of a marker signal, but you can mentally replace it with whatever marker you prefer.
As to the “treat” – The click or other marker is followed, every time, as immediately as possible, with a reward. Most dogs like food, and are willing to work for bits of high-value, super-yummy food, like chicken, roast beef, hot dogs, cheese, etc. But some dogs are more highly motivated by toys, and still others by praise and petting. Make sure, however, that whatever you use as a “reward” is truly rewarding for your dog. If you pet him, and he moves away – that’s not a reward, that’s a punishment. His response tells you he does not like it and does not want more of it. Use whatever rewards rivet your dog’s attention on you.

Often, trainers start a session by “charging” the clicker, by clicking it no matter what the dog is doing, and giving him a treat after each click. You generally have the dog’s rapt attention after four or six clicks and treats! That’s all most dogs need to undersand the concept: when he hears a click (or experiences another consistent marker signal), he’s going to get a treat. It’s also usually enough to elicit most dogs’ interest in doing things – offering behavior – in order to get more of those clicks and treats.

101 Things to Do With a Prop

This exercise started out as “101 Things to do With a Box“. Then trainers realized it doesn’t have to be a box, you can play “101 Things to Do” with any prop – a traffic cone, a stool, a metal pan, a child’s wagon, or… ? The goal is to encourage your dog to offer behaviors until he has a large repertoire. Then, in the future, when you are trying to shape a specific behavior, he will give you lots of behaviors to choose from.

Your dog can be on leash or off (if he’ll stay with you). Set a chair a few feet back from the box or object, sit in the chair, and wait. (I use a “Do it!” cue to let my dog know the game is on.) If your dog glances toward the box, leans toward it, steps toward it – anything – click and feed him a treat. Look for tiny pieces of behavior to click and treat – any behavior that relates to the prop – a look, a step, a sniff, a push . . . .

You have no specific goal in mind, and you don’t have to build up to a behavior – in fact you shouldn’t; random behaviors are desirable. If your dog seems hung up on one particular behavior, stop clicking that one and wait for something else. I use a “Try something else!” cue to let my dogs know I’m not going to click that particular behavior any more.

The more confidently your dog offers behaviors, the more easily you can quit click/treating one thing and wait for another. At some point, if you wish, you can decide on a goal behavior for that prop based on the ones your dog has offered, and shape it into something specific. Don’t be in a hurry to do this unless your dog is already skilled at the 101 Things game!

How to Fade Using the Lure

One of the criticisms of lure-training is that dog and human become dependent on the lure to get the behavior; if the dog doesn’t see the treat in your hand, he doesn’t perform. It is a valid and unfortunate criticism – unfortunate because it is really pretty easy to fade the lure from your training.

The moment you can lure the behavior easily, it’s time to fade the lure. With your treat-hand behind your back, cue the behavior. If your dog does what you asked for, click and treat. If he doesn’t, bring the treat out and lure (or prompt) the behavior as you normally would. Click and treat. Gradually (and variably) increase the length of time you wait after giving the verbal cue before you use the lure or prompt. You must give your dog’s brain time to process the information and to send the cue message through the nervous system to his muscles. Watching this thought process is one of the great joys of positive training! Be patient. As long as it looks like he’s trying to figure it out, wait. If he gets distracted or loses interest, try again.

If he still doesn’t perform the behavior, fade the lure or prompt more gradually. Cue the behavior, pause, and if your dog doesn’t do the behavior, do a partial lure.
For example, if you are working on “down,” say “Down,” wait several seconds, and then bring out your lure and being to move it toward the floor. When your dog begins to go down, instead of moving the treat all the way to the floor, whisk it parallel to the ground (so you don’t inadvertently lure him upward) and quickly behind your back, and let him finish the down on his own. Gradually lure less and less, until he’s lying down on cue without any luring.

Note: I am not a fan of prompting with a “pretend” cookie in your hand. You may have faded the actual treat lure, but you have added in an extra step, and deceived your dog in the process. Now he may not believe you when you do have a treat in your hand, and you still have to fade the empty hand prompt.

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1. Fetch the Newspaper

Of course there’s the old standby of bringing in the newspaper. Trainer Clarissa Bergeman, CPDT, owner of In Canine Company, in Round Hill, Virginia, enjoyed sharing a walk down the driveway with Anny, her Pembroke Welsh Corgi, to get the newspaper or the mail. Anny was always happy to carry the paper or a magazine on the walk back. Anny is gone now, but Bergeman’s new Corgi, Simon, is learning the task in her stead.

2. Sort Laundry

I thought this one might be particularly up my 8-year-old Scorgidoodle’s (Bonnie) alley, since she loves to hold soft things in her mouth. In fact, I often have to search Bonnie’s crate for socks; if she finds any lying on the floor, she stashes them in her bed.

Since dogs are partially color-blind, it’s probably too much to expect she could sort clothes by color herself, so I started by placing an article of laundry in each of several spots that I named accordingly: Whites, Jeans, Brights (pronounced “Buh-rights,” to help distinguish it from “Whites”), and Towels. The piles were generously far apart at first (six to eight feet between) so I could point to the proper pile without confusing her. I started by handing her a piece of clothing from the basket, gave the cue, pointed to the appropriate pile, and moved with her to the spot. Then I gave her the “Trade” cue, and when she dropped the item on the pile to “trade” for a treat, I clicked my clicker (one could also use a verbal reward marker, such as the word “Yes!”, to indicate that she performed the desired behavior) and gave her a treat.

I quickly faded my movement toward the appropriate pile, finding that the pointing gesture alone sufficed to send her to the proper spot. The “Trade” cue prompted her to drop the item, and a click-treat brought her back to me for the next piece of laundry. We just started this recently, so it’s still a work in progress. Our next step will be to fade the pointing gesture and see if she can identify the proper pile with just a verbal cue.

3. Close Doors

Susan Giordano, CPDT, owner of K9U in Atlanta, Georgia, taught her dog Potter to close the refrigerator, pantry door, and any cabinets that are open. Potter will also fetch a towel so Susan can wipe off the counters. Susan says when they are finished with the chores, they dance!

It’s relatively simple to teach your dog to close doors. Begin by teaching her to target with her nose or paw (hint: using your dog’s nose to close doors rather than a paw reduces the likelihood of scratches to the finish). Offer the palm of your hand to your dog at her nose level. When she sniffs it, click (or say “Yes!”) and treat. Repeat until she eagerly bumps her nose into your hand, and then add the cue “Touch!” as you offer your palm. (If she thinks your offered palm is the cue for “Shake” try the back of your hand, or offer her the knuckles of your closed fist.)

When you are confident she understands the “Touch” cue, hold a plastic lid (such as the top to a tub of cottage cheese or yogurt) in your hand and ask her to touch that. First hold it so it covers your palm, then eventually hold it by the edge.

When she will touch the lid reliably, attach it to a door or drawer with double-stick tape or rubber cement and cue her to touch it there. You may need to start with your hand near the lid and gradually fade the presence of your hand. When she reliably targets her nose to the lid, shape for more powerful touches until she touches hard enough to close the door or drawer. (For tips on using a target stick to teach this behavior, see “Utilize Target Training,” January 2007.)

4. Pick Up Trash

Lots of dogs have been taught to pick up their own toys and put them away in a basket designated for that purpose. Dana Ebbecke, one of the trainers at My Pet’s Teacher in Horsham, Pennsylvania, suggests a variation on that behavior: teaching your dog to pick up trash and put it in a garbage can. This is a perfect behavior to “backchain” – where you teach the last piece of the behavior first, and build the chain backward from there.

Offer your dog a piece of trash (that she won’t want to eat) directly over the center of a garbage can and say “Take it!” When she takes it, praise her, then cue her to “Drop.” If she already knows a “Drop” cue, she will drop the trash and it will fall in the can. Click (or use another reward marker) and treat. If she doesn’t know the “Drop” cue yet, say “Drop” and offer her a treat. When she opens her mouth for the treat the trash will fall in the can. Click and treat.

When the “Drop” is working over the center of the garbage can, move the trash slightly to one side, but still over the can, and cue the “Drop.” If it falls into the can, click and treat. If it misses, say “Oops!” and try it again. Gradually move the “training trash” farther from the center of the can, until it’s no longer even over the can. You are helping the dog understand that she needs to move it back over the middle of the can to make sure it falls inside, not outside the can.

When she can bring the trash that you hand her to the can from some distance, start offering it to her closer to the ground, so she understands she has to lift it up and move it to the can. Finally, place the trash on the ground, and add your “Pick up the trash!” cue before you say “Take it!” In fairly short order you should be able to fade the “Take it!” cue and your “Pick up the trash!” should prompt her to pick up that item and drop it in the can.

Now you’ll need to generalize the cue to a variety of different trash items. Make sure you don’t leave valuable objects on the floor when you ask her to pick up the trash! You can’t expect her to make good judgment calls about what is trash and what is treasure; your smart phone could end up in the garbage.

Ebbecke suggests adding to the “Wow! factor” of this behavior by using a garbage can with a push-pedal lid, and teaching your dog to step on the lid to open the can before she drops the trash in. (Just don’t teach this one to a dog who is likely to help herself to items in the can rather than putting more trash there.)

5. Pick Up/Find/Bring

The “seek back” used to be a behavior performed in advanced obedience competition. You walked around the ring and, when cued by the judge, dropped an item, such as a glove. Your dog was supposed to continuing heeling with you until you stopped and gave him the cue to, go back, get it, and bring it back to you. Very useful!

It’s relatively simple to get your dog to pick up something you just dropped. Your “Pick it up!” cue (from “pick up the trash”) can generalize to anything you indicate you want your dog to pick up – and it sure beats stooping over to get it yourself.

Just think how even more useful it would be if your dog could search for and find, by name, items you’ve misplaced such as your car keys, the TV remote, your cell phone, or your glasses. I realized many years ago how capable dogs are at finding lost stuff when our wonderful Terrier-mix, Josie, found our missing tortoise without even being trained to do so.

I didn’t realize I had taught Josie to associate the word “Turtle” with Fred and Wilma, the two yellow-footed tortoises we had adopted from the shelter where I worked at the time. But apparently I had. One day I couldn’t find Fred. I frantically searched the yard, repeating aloud to myself, “Where’s the turtle?” I eventually realized that Josie was coming to me, and then running to the spot where Fred had fallen behind a retaining wall. Because of that amazing little dog, Fred was found, safe and sound.

Chaser, the brilliant Border Collie and subject of multiple cognition studies, now knows the names of more than 1,000 objects, and can retrieve them by name.  Surely your dog can learn the names of a handful of objects, then learn to find them for you when they go missing.

You’ve probably already taught her some, simply by using object names in your conversations with her. “Fetch the ball!” “Go to your bed.” “Get in the car.” So it’s not a stretch to think you can teach her more.

Use your targeting cue, followed by the name of the object. Hold the TV remote in your hand and say “Touch, Remote.” Click (or say “Yes!”) and treat when she does it. Hold your car keys and say “Touch, Keys.” Click and treat. Then place them on a table or floor (one at a time) and do the same. When you’ve done it several times with each item individually, place both on the floor six to eight feet apart, stand six to eight feet away, and ask her to touch one. If she gets the right one, click, treat and party! If she goes to the wrong one, cheerfully say “Oops!” and try again.

If she gets more misses than hits, go back to working with just one object at a time for a while, then try again. Eventually teach her the names of other objects you’d like her to be able to find for you.

When she’s identifying the correct object at least 80 percent of the time, start adding the “Find it!” element. If you’ve already done nose games with your dog, this will be easy as pie. Just as you have been doing already, place one of the objects on the floor in plain view and say “Find Remote!” When she goes over and sniffs it, click and treat. She found it! Repeat several times.

Now start hiding it. First have her sit and wait, and let her watch you hide it in a very easy place. Return to her side and cue, “Find Remote!” When she goes to where it is, click and treat. If you want to teach her a “tell” – a behavior she performs to tell you she found it – start asking her for that behavior when she locates the object. You could have her sit or lie down at the spot where the item was, or she could come back to you and touch you with her paw to let you know she found it, then lead you to it.

Gradually hide objects in harder and harder places, and eventually hide them when she isn’t watching and then ask her to find them. The final step is to have her find things when you’ve really lost them.

You can even take this one step further by teaching her the names of family members and having her find them. Just as you did with objects, have your human hide first in easy places, then harder and harder. If, heaven forbid, a family member is ever truly lost, your dog can join in the search!

6. Reveille

Now that you’ve taught your dog the names of family members, you might as well make every day use of it. Send her to wake up family members who are sleeping in too long. Teach her to pull the covers off the sleepyheads! Have her deliver messages to the kids – carried in her mouth or attached to her collar. Ask her to bring everyone to the table at dinnertime. The sky’s the limit!

Unexpected Help

A dog trainer friend, Deborah Lee Miller-Riley, from Monroe, Connecticut, posted this on her Facebook wall, just as I was writing this article. It’s a great testimonial for the value of teaching your dog a few general purpose helping behaviors. Miller-Riley wrote:

“This morning I attempted to change a small latch on a screen door. I was standing on a 4-foot high front porch, which is bordered by 6-foot high bushes. In my clumsy attempt to screw in the small metal bracket, it flipped out of my hands and landed under the bushes next to the house – a place I would have great difficulty reaching.

“So I called for Rivets, my service-dog-in-training. I showed her a short pathway to the spot where the item fell and told her to ‘Bring,’ her cue to seek and bring something back to my hand. The object would have my fresh scent on it and would most likely stand out to her like a bright color to us. She went right into the bushes, nosed around and pawed at the object. I said, ‘Yes, bring!’ She picked it up, crawled out and delivered it to my hand. She is such a cool dog, her mind and willingness astonishes me. I completed my door repair after a treat fest with my little paw-hero.”

Pat Miller, CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, is WDJ’s Training Editor. She lives in Fairplay, Maryland, site of her Peaceable Paws training center, where she offers dog training classes and courses for dog trainers. Pat is also author of many books on positive training.

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First, there was the 1997 study in which some litters of puppies were allowed to watch their narcotics detection dog mothers while working in a real-life work environment, while other litters of puppies did not. When the pups were six months old, the pups who watched their mothers at work learned the task more easily and quickly than the pups who did not watch.

Later, Ken Ramirez, currently the executive vice president of animal collections and training at Chicago’s world-famous Shedd Aquarium, demonstrated how he taught his dog that the cue “Copy!” means “Do what that other dog just did.” When he shared his “Copy!” procedure at Karen Pryor’s Clicker Expo in 2011, the dog training world sat up and took notice.

Now there is an exciting new development in the study of canine cognition, thanks to Italian PhD ethologist Claudia Fugazza, who is currently studying at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, conducting research on social learning and imitation with Professor Adam Miklosi. Fugazza has developed a training method she calls “Do As I Do,” which relies on a dog’s social cognitive skills to learn new behaviors by imitating humans. Did you get that? Fugazza tells us that dogs can learn new behaviors by imitating human behavior.

According to Fugazza, using her training protocol, owners can teach new behaviors to their dogs by simply showing them what to do. Then they can put the new behavior on cue.

This flies in the face of everything I have learned in the past. It makes sound biological/survival sense that dogs could and should be able to imitate each other’s behavior. But imitate the behavior of an entirely different species? Seriously?

Skeptic that I am, I ordered the DVD and was completely and totally gobsmacked. I was so taken by the procedure I immediately determined to try it with one of my dogs, Bonnie, an eight-year-old Scorgidoodle.

A Little Prep Work

It was a humbling experience. For starters, your dog has to know at least three behaviors (other than “Sit!”) on verbal cue – without any body prompting, gestures, or even a sideways shift of the eyes. This is necessary in order to avoid inadvertently giving him a very subtle cue to perform (see “The Clever Hans Phenomenon“).

For Bonnie, I selected the behaviors “Down,” “Tap,” (touch an Easy Button with a paw), and “Up” (step up and sit on a “Stepper”). I discovered that “Down” was solidly on verbal cue, but we needed some work on “Tap” and “Up” to fade the very natural, subtle but unacceptable body prompts. After several brush-up sessions focusing on those two verbal cues, we were ready to proceed.

How Dogs Learn to Imitate

Bonnie needed to learn the “imitation rule” (Phase 1). That is, whatever behavior I do, followed by the cue “Copy!” means “You are supposed to do the same behavior.” (I chose to use “Copy!” rather than Fugazza’s suggested cue of “Do it!” because I use “Do it” to initiate the “101 Things to Do With a Prop” game.)

I stood in front of Bonnie, told her to “Wait,” and then did the behavior myself (either push the button, step up and sit on the Stepper, or lie down facing her). Then I returned and gave the “Copy!” cue, followed by the verbal cue for the behavior I had just performed, without any body-language prompting. In theory, the association between repetitions of “Copy!” and the verbal cue for the behavior that was just demonstrated, teaches the dog that “Copy!” means “Do whatever I just did.” Would it work for Bonnie?

Well . . . eventually. Because the behaviors that I had selected for her weren’t as solidly on verbal cue as I had hoped (other than the “Down”), we worked through several permutations of “Copy!”, “Cue!”, and waiting to see what she did. She tended to offer the three behaviors somewhat randomly at first; alternatively, she’d sit and wait, looking at me hopefully for further instructions. Each time I got an incorrect response (or no response) I started over: cued her to “Wait” while I performed the behavior, returned to stand in front of her and said “Copy!”, followed by the appropriate verbal cue. It wasn’t until our third practice session that I began to see glimmers of understanding; hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, Bonnie would perform the correct cued behavior.

When I could see that she knew what to do before I gave her the cue for the behavior, I stopped using the cue, using only the “Copy” cue after performing the behavior myself. At first, she seemed confused, and went back to offering random behaviors. If she offered the correct one she got a click-and-treat and very happy praise. If she offered an incorrect behavior I simply reset her, performed the behavior again, returned to stand in front of her, and gave the “Copy!” cue. It was exciting to watch as her correct responses gradually began to outnumber the incorrect ones. I could see she was beginning to understand the “rule.”

I had watched several dogs try to learn the rule on the Do As I Do DVD. Some were brilliant, apparently grasping the imitation rule after just a couple of sessions. Others were still struggling at the end of the two-day seminar. Of course, I assumed Bonnie would exhibit the “brilliant” end of the rule-learning continuum, but in all honesty she was more just slightly toward the brilliant side of center. Or maybe I was the one who was less than brilliant; it was easy to see on the DVD that the dogs with the more skillful trainers learned the rule more quickly. Hmm…

In my defense, the trainers on the DVD had Fugazza herself coaching them. In contrast, I was stumbling around on my own, trying to remember what I had watched, and occasionally hearing bits of Fugazza’s charming Italian accent in my mind’s ear saying, “Mmmm… You ges-turd weeth yur eyez!” when I caught myself glancing at the “easy” button along with my “Copy!” cue.

Nevertheless, despite my ineptitude, Bonnie did seem to catch on to the imitation rule after three days, with several sessions per day. Although we weren’t flawless, we were about 90 percent by the end of the third day; nine out of ten times when I would perform the behavior myself, return to stand in front of her, and then give her the “Copy!” cue, she would perform the behavior.

We’re ready to start Phase 2 (generalization of the rule), adding three more behaviors that Bonnie already knows. These do not have to strictly on verbal cue – apparently that’s most important for the first three behaviors. After the next three are solid, we’ll move on to the very exciting Phase 3, where we will see if Bonnie can copy behaviors that she hasn’t previously been taught. Then we will copy behavior sequences. Woo hoo!

Fugazza believes that her “Do As I Do” method has great potential for application in training, with possibilities for quickly teaching dogs new behaviors, including shaping. Whether or not that proves to be true, it’s great fun to have a new training challenge for me and my dogs. I’m already planning to offer “Copy That” workshops in 2014. Can your dog copy that?

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