dog training Archives - Page 11 of 15

Dog Body Language: How to Tell if a Dog is Happy, Frustrated, Scared, Annoyed

March 21, 2012

I don't have the luxury of watching "feel good" segments or programs that contain dogs. Because I "do dogs" for a living, I see all the little signs, the communication signals a dog is sending, and nothing is ever cute anymore, but rather just filled with warning and distress signals from dogs.

Take this morning's "feel good" segment on The Today Show for example. It piqued my interest because it was about a service dog for a little girl who is connected to an oxygen tank 24 hours a day. The family procured a service dog to carry the oxygen tank for the three-year old girl.

The anchors on the show, the parents, and the little girl were oblivious to the many signs from the dog that he wasn't a happy camper. Based on all the publicity Kyle Dyer, NBC anchor in Denver, received when she was bitten on the face by a dog live on the air, I was hopeful that people had started to pay attention to dog body language.

Sadly, I was wrong. Below is the segment. Watch it once without reading the warning signals I've listed below. Then watch it again, looking at the specific minute and second spots.

Some things to know before you take a look at the video. The red bandana is used to cover a prong collar on Mr. Gibbs, the service dog. A prong collar is a collar fitted with special barbs or prongs, that lie against the dog's neck. When pressure is put on the collar by pulling on the leash, those prongs dig into the dog's flesh around his neck. The pain from the prongs are supposed to be a correction to the dog so he won't do whatever it was again.

1:24 – Mr. Gibbs ignores the girl. Girl pulls hard on the leash. Those prongs are now digging into the dog's neck.

2:39 – Girl is pulling Mr. Gibbs with the prong. Pause the video here and you can really see the pulling.

2:42 – Mr. Gibbs tries to go with the trainer (instead of the girl) and he gets a BIG yank from the girl. Do you wonder why the dog doesn't want to be with the girl?

2:56 – The first sign of stress from the dog: a lip lick and a look-away. These are both classic stress signals from a dog.

3:13 – "He gets beat in the head," the little girl says. Apparently she likes to swing a lot, and Mr. Gibbs cannot get out of her way. The father repeats the little girl's sentiment and laughs a little sheepishly.

3:30 – "What do you say to him," the anchor asks. The girl answers "Down!" and "At ease." Both are dog training cues — not "I love you!" or "Good boy!"

3:32 – Hit pause here. Is this dog looking to interact with the girl? Does he even acknowledge her?

3:34 – Slight "whale eye" from Mr. Gibbs. The whale eye is another sign of stress. This happens when the girl is laying on the dog. The dog has no escape, no say in whether or not he can get out of the situation. This is a recipe for disaster.

4:11 – We're now in the live interview with the anchor, parents, child and Mr. Gibbs. Pause the video at this spot. See the girl tugging on the prong collar? Every tug on the collar brings discomfort to Mr. Gibbs.

4:14 – The girl gives a double-tug on the prong collar, hard.

4:18 Another tug from the girl. The father finally rescues Mr. Gibbs from the daughter's tugs by placing the dog back onto the couch. I wonder why the dog was trying to get down in the first place?

4:54 – Mr. Gibbs looks to the father for help out of the situation.

5:01 – There's a big lip lick and a yawn. Two classic signals that the dog is stressed and would like to leave. He keeps trying to get down off the couch.

5:15 – Another lip lick from Mr. Gibbs. The signals this dog is throwing are increasing.

5:17 – Mr. Gibbs turns his head away from the girl to try to break off contact, but she just gets closer to Mr. Gibbs. He's trying very hard and his patience is admirable.

5:57 – Mr. Gibbs is resigned to his fate.

6:15 – Girl squeals, maybe there's a little bit of a squeeze by her, Mr. Gibbs tries again to get up and leave.

6:20 – Another head turn by Mr. Gibbs — another attempt to break off contact with the girl, but again she follows.

6:35 – Girl grabs Mr. Gibbs' head, pulls it down, and grabs his eyebrows.

6:41 – Girl grabs Mr. Gibbs' prong collar and pulls off the bandana covering the prong collar.

6:45 – Pause it here and just look at the picture. Is the dog happy about his circumstances?

6:53 – The girl is now pulling the bandana back onto Mr. Gibbs, getting it caught in his mouth.

7:01 – Mr. Gibbs is nearing the end of his attempts to get out of the situation and/or get some relief from this girl from the other people in the room. Finally he lies on the girl as a last ditch effort.

It looks very cute, but in reality, Mr. Gibbs lays on her in resignation — not enjoyment.

There are reasons why most service dog agencies won't let a young child have a service dog. Unfortunately, this segment highlights the many reasons why. The child is far too young to have the responsibility of caring for a dog, her parents haven't taught her how to kindly interact with a dog, and everyone is ignoring (or doesn't recognize) the dog's many pleas to be removed from the situation.

Three Ideas for Getting Your Dog into Therapy Work

February 13, 2012

therapy dog, assistance dog, labrador, lab, yellow lab, dog training, dog obedience, clicker, Smart Dog

Tango’s a therapy dog and his job right now is to listen to kids read.

Kids who might not read as well as their classmates, they might have a little bit of a speech problem, or maybe they can’t tell the difference between a period and a comma.

Reading in front of classmates who may snicker, giggle, or poke fun at them actually inhibits their reading skills. That’s where dogs enter the picture!

Dogs don’t care if the kids skip a word, if they can’t quite get the punctuation correct, or if they stutter a bit.

Dogs just really like it when a child sits on the floor with them, softly rubbing the dog’s fur as they struggle with each word on the page. Dogs don’t judge. Dogs don’t snicker. Dogs just eat up all the attention and will even offer an encouraging lick to the struggling reader.

Interested in getting your dog into therapy work?

You’re not limited to elementary schools and kids. Your dog could visit nursing homes, help relieve stress on a local college campus during stressful final exams, or visit wounded soldiers in the hospital.

Here are some ideas on how to get your dog ready for therapy work.

Good Manners Are A Must

Therapy dogs don’t bark. They don’t jump. And they aren’t rough with their mouth. Get your dog into a local positive reinforcement (clicker training) class that specifically teaches good manners behaviors. [Good manners are Smart Dog U’s specialty! We offer Canine Building Blocks to help teach your dog good manners!] You might need to go through your training class more than once to really solidify those good manners. Good therapy dogs are on their best behavior no matter how much the kids giggle and squirm, how roughly their handled by well-intentioned seniors, or how distracting the buzzes and beeps are on the hospital equipment. It takes time and practice, for sure.

Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Test

The bare minimum requirements are the CGC credentials. The CGC is a 10-item test and it covers behaviors like walking on a loose leash, coming when called, reaction to distractions, and sitting politely for greetings. Take a look at the full list of CGC test items. A more advanced test may be required if you and your dog wish to visit schools, detention centers, psychiatric facilities, and hospitals. The more advanced tests can be administed by The Delta Society and require that both you and your dog are tested to ensure you make a good team.

Join A Local Therapy Dog Group

Most communities have local therapy dog organizations that serve as an umbrella for coordinating all the visits and testing of therapy dogs. For help in finding your local organization, try searching for your town name and “therapy dog.”

Not every dog would enjoy being a therapy dog — two of my dogs at home wouldn’t enjoy work as therapy dogs. Nemo is a bit wary of strangers in unfamiliar circumstances and Lily is not good if other dogs are present (your dog must be good with other dogs — and by good I mean neutral [not good as in “Let’s PLAY!”]). Even Tango has his limits: one of our visits is with a class of 8 special education students who can be noisy, (unintentionally) rough, and unpredictable. One hour is Tango’s maximum in that environment — I make sure that we’re there less than an hour to ensure that Tango’s never pressed to his limit. So be sure to take your dog’s personality and preferences into consideration when you’re deciding whether to give therapy work a shot. Honor your dog.

Who’s Afraid of the Clicker?

January 24, 2012

I spent part of last week in sunny Orlando, Florida, at the 2012 North American Veterinary Conference (NAVC). The NAVC Conference set a new attendance record for its 2012 conference. More than 6,000 veterinarians and more than 1,400 veterinarian technicians attended the conference in Orlando, Florida. Nearly 900 students from veterinary schools across the world were also in attendance.

I was there to talk with the veterinarians, technicians, and students about force-free training. I met hundreds of people and, with the exception of one, they were all enthusiastic about either learning more about clicker training or in implementing it in their practice.

A retired veterinarian, who looked to be in his early 80's, stopped to chat. He looked at our material and with a sly smile said "I've found that a rolled up newspaper works really well." I laughed and answered "Yes, sometimes we do recommend that the owner use the newspaper to whack himself smartly on his head!" He laughed and leaned in to tell us a story about his son's dog.

His son's dog peed everytime the son came into the house. The son would yell and holler, chase the dog around, then put him outside when he finally caught the dog. Upon hearing about the trouble from his son, this veterinarian's solution was textbook perfect, delighting me. (The solution: carry food [delicious food] and ignore the dog upon entering. After a few minutes, toss a piece of food to the dog, still ignoring. The dog quickly changed course and quit peeing when he saw the man.)

Clearly, this man knew intuitively how to work with animals. He hadn't learned it in school (in many veterinary schools, behavior is still an elective!), he simply learned by experience.

Contrast this veterinarian with another who stopped by the booth. "You can't tell me that you train dogs without any punishment," he began. I smiled, hoping he was a kidder like the previous gentleman, and said "Yessir, that's exactly what we do!" Things turned south there, and it was clear that he came here for an argument. I love to teach people about positive reinforcement, but unfortunately, this man didn't really want to learn, he only wanted to argue. He told me tales about how he taught his son's dog to "respect him," and laughed at how the son "babied" the dog by using food in training. Here's the irony: if that veterinarian had attended any of the sessions at that conference on behavior ( there were many), he would have learned very quickly that his outlook was outdated and not recommended by veterinary behaviorists.

Neither veterinarian had any experience with clicker training. But the second one clearly had a bias against the clicker — against positive reinforcement training in general. Perhaps because he didn't want to learn. Perhaps because he was afraid of what he'd learn by using it. I'm not sure of the reason, but I'm glad he was the lone exception.

Happy Dogs, Happy Veterinarians

January 13, 2012

I took little Miss Caysun to the vet today to get her up-to-date on some vaccines. It was going to be a quick in-and-out visit — shots and then we'd hit the door. As usual, things don't go as planned. The shots went ok, don't get me wrong. But I mentioned, in passing, "she's got a little bit of mange on her nose," the veterinarian took a look and immediately said "that's not mange."

What? Of course it's mange. Mange is easy. Mange is common. Mange requires little treatment. It's got to be mange.

Nope, he said, mange isn't raised like that.

Crud. Which is funny because that's both what I thought and what her nose looks like.

Because I have the best veterinarians in the world, they made a little time for me in the schedule (I didn't need an appointment to get the vaccinations, since we'd just been in the week before for a wellness check and forgot to get the updated vaccinations…). And they had to do a little needle aspirate in her nose to see what's doin'.

I say that as if it was no big deal: just a little needle aspirate. That's because it wasn't being done to me. What that means is that the vet has to stick a needle into the rough, cruddy part of her nose and draw out some cells to look at them under a microscope. Yes, needle into nose.

Ouch.

It looked as painful as I'm sure it felt. I had to turn my head, I'll be honest. Little Miss wasn't a happy camper. After a couple of pokes, she decided she was done with all that nonsense. Thankfully they got enough goop off of and from inside the crud that they didn't have to fool with her too much more.

The veterinarian and vet technician were terrific. They had some squeeze cheese spread all over a tongue depressor stick to keep Caysun's mind off of the needle in her nose. They went slow and easy, they let me feed her while it was going on.

But there was a needle going into her nose! She wasn't happy. The moral of this story is: because she wasn't happy with what went on, I need to do some remedial veterinary work with her. I will be taking her back to the veterinary hospital when there isn't anything scheduled for her. I want her to have at least 5 visits that are exceptionally good. Visits where stuff like this happens (and only this):

the veterinarian and the techs come out and play with her in the lobby
the veterinarian and the vet techs come out and feed her sirloin (that I bring, of course) in the lobby
she gets to practice already known (and favorite) behaviors in the exam room and earn delicious salmon, sirloin, etc.

Why spend time going back to the animal hospital and working on these things? Isn't that a waste of time?

Because Caysun's just 6 months old. She'll be seeing a veterinarian for another 14 years I hope. I want all of those vet visits to be easy and fun for both the dog and the vet. And if the dog's not happy, ain't nobody happy, especially the vet because it's hard (and dangerous) to examine a dog who doesn't want to be examined!

So it's well worth those 5 or so "un-vet" visits to help dissolve this one unpleasant one. 15 minutes here and there are invaluable for when she's got an emergency and she needs to be calm while the veterinarians and vet techs make her better.

My vets and techs are great. They're willing to spend the few minutes playing with and feeding Caysun when I drop by. They know it's a good investment of their time, too.

Transitions

October 31, 2011

We've been raising service dogs since 2001. That handsome dog on the left is the very first dog we raised: Rocky. He died earlier this year, sadly. He was loved by two families: ours and the family who needed him as a service dog. It was quite a life.

We turned Ike in yesterday to Hero Dogs. He's now onto the second leg of his journey in becoming a service dog. He'll stay with Hero Dogs for another six months or so, receiving advanced training, then he'll go onto be paired with a service man or woman who needs Ike's assistance.

At each turn-in, I think a lot about the dog, naturally. I wonder if we're doing right by the dogs. They didn't sign up to become service dogs. They don't know that when we leave them at the agency, their life changes immediately. It's not like we tell them as puppies "This is just temporary. Don't get used to it. There are big changes for you, buddy."

My husband tried to console me with the thought that NO DOG chooses his home, his people, his environment. Neither do horses. Or cows. Or any animal, really. And he's right. Of course he's right. Transitions are just tough, no matter how you frame them.

It's a grand job, really, being a service dog. I think it's a much better life than the average pet dog has, to be honest. The service dog has a purpose. He's mentally stimulated every single day. He's more than loved, he's needed. He gets to go everywhere with his person. And that's pretty darn cool.

But of course, I'm a little melancholy around turn-in time. It makes me want to invent a way to communicate with Caysun so I can tell her that we've got big things planned for her. That in another year, she, too, will move on from our house (and from our dogs) to a brand new life.

But because I will fail in my quest to invent a new dog-human communication device, I will simply raise Caysun the best I can: give her lots of love, teach her to be flexible, and to enjoy change.

Ike (left) excels at flexibility. That dog is happy anywhere there are people. Or dogs. Or birds. Or wind. Or food. Or…whatever. He'll be happy wherever he lands, as long as there's a friendly hand to pet him.

We bid Ike farewell yesterday. We'll see him again – we've been invited to stop by Hero Dogs whenever we need an "Ikey fix." Which makes us feel good and soothes the sting of turn-in just a little bit.

Like every other service dog we've raised, seeing Ike with his new partner will be the medicine that will cure this melancholy. Rock on, Ikey! We'll see you soon, Boggy Doggy!

Housetraining 101: A Day in the Life of a Puppy

September 20, 2011

Housetraining a puppy is pretty simple. Simple, yes. But not necessarily easy. Here’s the simple part: get the puppy outside frequently, limit her house freedom to only the room you are in, watch her like a hawk, and make liberal use of the crate when you can’t watch her.

Here’s Caysun’s (almost 11 week old, Labrador pup) daily schedule:

5:30a Up and outside for a long pee.

5:35a Back in the crate for a snooze.

7:15a Back up and outside for a quick pee.

7:30a Breakfast time. (Fed in the crate while I shower).

7:45a Outside for pee and poop.

7:50a Play hard with Ike, running, jumping and wrestling. In the same room as me, where I can watch her.

8:10a After 20 minutes of play, time for another pee break.

8:15a Kitchen time with me and the other dogs while I drink tea and eat breakfast.

8:45a Another pee/poop break.

8:50a More play time with Ike in my office, where I can watch her.

9:30a Naptime!

11:00a Outside for a pee and poop break. If you’re keeping track, this is the 6th time outside this morning! Every pee/poop session has been productive. And better yet: no accidents inside! Yay!

12:00p Lunch fed to Caysun in her crate. Then naptime!

2:30p Awake and ready to go! Outside for pee/poop break.

2:35p Play time in my office with Ike.

3:00p Pee break!

3:15p Play, play, play!

4:00p Pee/poop break outside.

5:00p Dinner in her crate. Naptime in her crate while I prepare dinner.

6:30p Out of her crate and outside to pee/poop.

7:15p Pee/poop break outside. Then Play! Where we can watch her.

8:00p Pee/poop break outside. Then more play time.

9:30p Last trip outside to pee and poop, then down for the night, in her crate.

2:00a Sleepy trip outside to pee (she wakes me by whining in her crate).

That’s 14 trips outside for pee breaks. Some days I’m out of the office more, and then she’s crated while I’m gone. She’s been ok for 4-hour stretches, as long as she’s crated.

The moral of this story: get your puppy outside a lot! As much as possible for structured pee/poop sessions. What’s a structured session? You take your pup on leash to the bathroom area of your lawn. Stand there and wait for him to go. Don’t wander the yard with him. Don’t take him on a neighborhood walk. Stand there and simply give him about a six foot radius. When he goes, praise him and have a little puppy potty party! Then play with him outside. Celebrate your success!

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