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Teach Your Dog a Moving Leave It (Video)

January 15, 2015

Leave it is a great tool to keep your dog from focusing on something in the environment.

From cars, to poop, to dead animals, a solid “leave it” can prevent your dog from pulling you down the street, lunging toward those things, eating crud, or barking. If you’ve already taught the basic leave it, and the advanced leave it, you’re ready to take leave it on the road!

Here’s how to start the moving leave it.

Start with a mildly distracting item.
Place it on the ground about 3 feet off to the side.
Put yourself between the dog and the item (this makes it easier for the dog to get it right)
Start with a few clicks and treats as you’re approaching the item.
It’s important to click and treat before your dog is distracted.
Say in a happy voice “Leave it” (or whatever your word is — ours is “not yours” for Levi).
Click and treat the instant the dog looks at your or leaves the item alone.
If the dog can’t look away from the item, you have two choices:
- Use a less interesting item or
- Move further away from the item
When the dog has been successful a few times, move a little closer.

Carry your clicker and your treats with you on your regular walks and cue the “leave it” when your dog is only mildly interested in something. You want to capture as many “you’re right!” opportunities as possible. You’re building a new habit! The habit is: when the dog hears “leave it,” he swivels his head and looks at your direction. The more times you can get success, the faster this habit will be built.

It’s really as easy as it sounds — as long as you practice and you set your dog up for success.

Your turn: what’s the craziest thing your dog has left when asked?

Advanced Leave It: Distractions (Video)

January 8, 2015

Teaching your dog a solid leave it can save his life.

Imagine that you’re walking your dog on the trail and you come upon an injured wild animal. You need your dog to stay away from the animal and remain focused on you. Or, maybe your dog gets out the front door and spies a jogger running past the house — on the other side of your busy road. You don’t want your dog to approach either situation.

Teaching your dog to leave something alone — not to take it into his mouth — doesn’t have to be complicated or difficult.

It’s a relatively simple process that has just a few parts. We started teaching leave it this way.

Add in distractions.

After you’ve gotten that task accomplished, it’s time to bring the leave it skill up a notch. Here’s how we work in some distractions. When you think about it, leave it isn’t really needed unless there are distractions around!

Start by making the distraction as slight as possible. In the video, you’ll see that I wrap the raccoon tail in my hand so the toy is physically smaller and the most distracting part (that bushy tail!) is hidden from Levi.

Side note.

This toy arrived in the mail less than 24 hours before we shot this video. Right before shooting the video, I ripped the toy out of it’s wrapping. Levi’s seeing the toy for the very first time on camera. I love watching his face throughout the video — he’s definitely in love with that thing! After the video shoot, I cleaned it up, wrapped it back up and gave it to the dogs as a Christmas present! They were just as thrilled with it the second time!

Talk back: What’s the best (craziest?) thing your dog has ever left alone on request?

Dog Training 701: Fluency – Get What You Want, When You Want It

January 7, 2015

The dog was huge.

An adolescent Great Dane (about 150 pounds) walked calmly by my side into the bustling restaurant. He was the largest service dog in-training I’d ever worked with and even I wondered if I could keep him out of the way of the wait staff and patrons. After we were led to our table, I laid his mat next to my chair, cued “Mat” and spent the next hour or so enjoying a lovely meal while the dog relaxed quietly on his mat and remained out of the way.

That’s fluency at work. The dog’s successful “mat” experience was due in part to his ability to do the behavior with distractions, for a substantial length of time, and with a great deal of precision (if he wasn’t squarely on that mat, he would’ve been a tripping hazard.

So what exactly IS fluency? Why should you care about it? And how can you improve your dog’s fluency? Before we go there, let’s look at fluency from another perspective that’s already familiar: language. You are fluent in your native language. For me, that’s English. I can read it, write it, speak it, understand jokes, come up with synonyms, antonyms, understand syntax, etc. I KNOW English. I don’t have to think about it – it’s a part of me.

I study German. I am nowhere near fluent in German. I have a small vocabulary, my comprehension is much better if I’m reading it. I have to stop and think about the translation if I’m speaking with a native. I don’t understand any jokes. If I’m nervous or scared, I forget everything. My German needs a lot of work. It’s passable if I am just trying to ask where the bathroom is located, but I’m not even close to being fluent. Just because I know some German doesn’t mean I’m fluent in the language.

The same goes with dogs and behavior. Just because they know how to sit doesn’t mean they can do it anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. Just like me with my German: I can’t hold a conversation about the latest political landscape simply because I know a few German words.

Why does fluency matter?

Fluency is how you get the behavior you want the dog to do, when you want him to do it. It’s the difference between the dog being able to sit in a quiet room and a dog being able to sit while visitors enter your house. Or the difference between a dog that sits almost before you finish saying “sit” and a dog who sniffs around, looks at you, then sits. Really, it’s about how well you taught the behavior.

What is fluency in dog training?

There are six pieces of fluency relating to your dog’s ability to “do” a behavior.

Precision – does the behavior look perfect (you get to define what perfect looks like)
Latency – does the dog start doing the behavior as soon as you ask
Speed – once the dog starts the behavior, does it happen quickly enough for your needs?
Distraction – can the dog do the behavior no matter what’s going on around him?
Duration – does the behavior last as long as you need it to?
Distance – can the dog do the behavior away from you?

Let’s look at these more closely. We’ll use the behavior of “mat” (dog goes to his mat and lies quietly) that started this article.

Precision: my dog needs to be squarely placed on the mat (not just partly on, but centered on the mat)

Latency: start the behavior within one second of being asked

Speed: complete the behavior within 3-ish seconds

Distraction: can do this anywhere (ballpark, airplane, dentist office, restaurant, etc.

Duration: 60 minutes is reasonable (typical dinner out, doctor visit, etc.)

Distance: not a big issue for me as I’ll be with the dog; I do need the dog to be able to stay while I walk away, however.

Your criteria for each aspect of fluency might be different – these are totally customizable to whatever you need.

But wait.

Before you start to work on fluency, you need to make sure the behavior is “on cue.” That means you have (1) taught the dog to do what you want and (2) have developed a signal to let the dog know when to do it. For my example, the cue is the word “mat” (and of course, the mat needs to be there for the dog to lie on). For more information on cues and cueing, check out this article.

Improve fluency.

So let’s assume the behavior is on cue already. Where do you start? Start with precision because you want the behavior to look right first, then you can worry with other things like does it happen quickly enough.

Work on one aspect of fluency at a time.

If you’re working on precision, you don’t care how long it takes the dog to do the behavior, if he can do it with distractions, or any other aspect of fluency. What matters is this: does the behavior look like it should. If it does, click and treat the dog regardless of if the other aspects of fluency were met.

If you’re working on the “mat” behavior for example, and you define precision as: “dog lies centered on mat,” then you shape the behavior [See Dog Training 301 article here for more about shaping and how it’s done] until it meets your criteria.

After you’ve reached your goal for precision, set that aspect of fluency aside (just temporarily, don’t worry) and work on only latency. The precision you worked so hard to get will likely deteriorate a bit while you’re working on latency – that’s ok. Let it fall apart. You’ll get it back, I promise.

Why one aspect at a time?

It’s really hard on the learner when requirements are stacked. Let’s go back to the German language example. If my German teacher wants to improve my pronunciation (precision of how I speak the word), we’ll focus on just that, and we won’t care that my rate of speech (speed) is quite low. We also won’t worry about how long I need to think about how to answer a question (latency) – we’re working only on pronunciation (precision). Imagine how hard it would be for me to stack those requirements on one another: that after I get pronunciation down, my teacher adds on rate of speech (speed) while still holding me to the original high level of pronunciation. And then, he stacks another requirement (length of time it takes me to pause before answering a question – latency) on. How soon do you think I’ll quit taking German?!

The smart and efficient way to teach is to work on only aspect at a time. Master each individually, then come back and start pairing them together.

You’ll do the same thing with your dog: work on each aspect of fluency until your dog has achieved success at each level, then begin pairing them together.

Next month’s article will go into detail about exactly how to improve each aspect of fluency. Until then, make a list of the behaviors you’d like to improve, [print this template, if you wish] and get ready to perfect your dog’s behavior!

Talk back! Leave a comment and let me know what behavior(s) you might work on with your dog and what needs improvement.

Supercharge Your Dog’s Paw & Shake Skills (Video)

December 4, 2014

“Shake” and “paw” are pretty cool tricks, but your dog is capable of so much more!

Wanna supercharge your dog’s paw or shake skills? Teach your dog how to use his paw to touch different things.

Here are some of the cool things paw targeting can get you:

Ring a wireless doorbell to go outside (or come inside)
Turn on a push-light
Play a kid’s toy piano
Give you a high-five (or high-ten!)
Knock a cup over to reveal hidden treats
The sky’s the limit!

Now, doesn’t “shake” seem kind of boring?!

What you’ll need:

clicker
treats
large indestructible target (large margarine lid, plant “coaster”, 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper, etc.”

Here’s how to teach your dog to use his foot:

Gather your dog and the supplies above.
Place the target on the floor and wait for your dog to walk on it with his paw.
If your dog is sitting or lying down, toss a treat to get him up and moving first. (It’s hard to put his foot on a target if he’s still.)
Click the instant your dog’s paw touches the target, and toss the treat a little bit away so the dog moves off the target.
Continue to silently wait for one of your dog’s paws to touch the target, clicking and treating each time.
Once it’s clear that your dog understands that touching his foot to the target means he gets a click and treat, start adding the cue just before the dog touches the target with his paw. Click and treat every correct response.
After 10 – 15 repetitions, begin to say the cue about one second before the dog touches the target with his paw, clicking and treating correct responses.
Continue to gradually move the cue earlier, clicking every correct response.
Then, begin to remove the target and ask for a different behavior (like sit, for instance). You’re helping the dog pay attention to your cues.

We’ll go further with paw targeting in future videos, so get your dog’s foundation targeting skills ready!

Talk back! How do you (or could you) use paw targeting with your dog? Leave a comment below and let us know!

Teach Your Dog to Close Cabinets and Doors (Video)

November 27, 2014

It’s the simple things, sometimes, that make a big impression.

If you’d like a little help around the house, use nose targeting to really up your dog’s “around the house” value. If your dog is good at the basic nose touch, and you’re gone on to a little more advanced targeting, you’re ready for the big leagues. You’re ready to “real life” this behavior. I say real life because that’s how I refer to behaviors that are actually helpful in real life, not just in a training session.

When you real life a behavior, you take it out of the training room and you put it to use in a helpful way in your real life.

Here’s how you’re going to real life nose targeting.

After teaching your dog how lucrative it is to touch your hand with his nose, and after transferring the touch to another target, you’re ready for the real life targeting. Here’s how:

Put a large target on a slightly open cabinet door. Targets can be clean margarine lids or even a couple pieces of painter’s tape.
Click and treat your dog when he touches the target with his nose, whether the cabinet door closes or not.
If you think the noise of the cabinet door closing will startle your dog, you can catch the door before it closes (be quick!), or put a towel between the cabinet and the door to help soften the noise.
After the dog is reliably touching the target on the open door, refine your criterion so that you’re clicking only when the door actually moves. Always click and reinforce, of course.
Continue to systematically raise your criterion so that the dog eventually earns the click for actually shutting the cabinet door.
When the behavior is solid, meaning when you’re ready to be $100 that the dog will do the behavior, go ahead and put that behavior on cue.
Invite your friends over and show off your dog’s brilliance!

Talk back! Tell me (or show me with a video!) how you’ve real life-d targeting with your dog!

How to Transfer a Cue (Video)

November 14, 2014

Wanna see what it looks like to transfer a cue in real time?

In November’s newsletter, I featured an article about how to transfer a cue.

I’m on business travel and was browsing through my iPad video library and ran across this terrific, albeit short, video, I took when I was in England earlier this year.

It’s such a great example of exactly how to transfer a cue. (Transfer cue = changing the way you ask for a behavior.) It was timely, too, so I thought I’d take a break from my produced videos this week and show you some training done by a regular dog owner, in real time.

Our students in England were regular dog owners; they aren’t trainers or professional handlers. Several months ago, when I began the Dog Training 101 series, I asserted that dog training isn’t rocket science. It is definitely science, but it’s easy to learn the nuts and bolts and this video proves my point.

If you recall from the newsletter article, to transfer a cue, you give the new cue first, then the old cue

Click and treat when the dog gets it right. After several repetitions, begin to separate the new cue from the old cue by a second. When the dog gets it right, click and treat, of course.

When done correctly, the process can happen quite quickly. The video shows just how quickly you can transfer (change) a cue for your dog.

When you watch the video, you’ll hear two different clickers. We had several dogs and trainers in the room working on transferring cues. It’s a bit distracting, but it’s easier if you watch the woman more and listen to the clicks less. There are also a few conversations happening while I’m recording, so again, pay attention to just what the dog and the woman are doing (as opposed to trying to make sense of the audio).

What I love about this video is how quickly and easily this woman teaches her dog to sit when she holds up a piece of paper with “SIT” written on it, even thought he already knew (very reliably) the word.

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