My first goal when I began teaching our dog Saffron commands was to keep her safe, so it was really important that she paid attention to me when I talked to her.  I knew someday it might save her life.  So first, I trained myself to not do anything that would cause her to not pay attention to me.

Tip #1   Don’t repeat!

This is an easy mistake to make and I see it all the time.  The person tells their dog to “sit” and when the pup doesn’t, the person keeps repeating “sit”—all the while, getting more and more frustrated.  Unfortunately, what they’re teaching their dog is that the command isn’t “sit”, it’s “sit-sit-sit” or even “sit-sit-sit-sit-Rover-sit-sit”.  So stop flapping those gums and just give the command once.

If Saffron doesn’t do what I ask, I give her a cue that she missed it.  (We use “whoops!”.)  And I wait.  If she still doesn’t do what I asked, I get her to refocus either by getting her to move or by moving myself.  For instance, I wanted her to sit before we ever crossed a street because when we first got her, she would walk right into the street if I wasn’t paying attention.  We would approach a corner, I’d stop & say “sit” and I’d wait.  If she didn’t sit, I’d say “whoops!” and I’d wait.  If she still didn’t sit, I’d get her focused again by turning us away from the street, walking in a small circle, and then approaching the corner again and say “sit”.  You can also move into your dog’s line of sight to get their attention.  Don’t jerk them or grab their face to get them to look at you.

Tip #2   Don’t babble!  

When you’re at the dog park or out walking your dog, don’t keep blathering on to your dog about everything, about how cute they are, about how you want them to behave, blah, blah, blah.  I certainly don’t mean don’t speak to your dog.  I mean put a cork in the verbal diarrhea.  If you just yammer on and on, your dog will start tuning you out, because she’ll quickly catch on that you aren’t saying anything of importance and anyway, that tree smells really interesting and that squirrel looks tasty, etc.  This especially goes for repeating your dog’s name over and over again.  You want your dog’s name to have a lot of power and meaning to your dog.  If you say your dog’s name with urgency, you want your dog’s attention to snap to you immediately.

Tip #3   Turn down the volume!  

This is one that came easily to me.  I tend to be a quiet person out in public and don’t like to draw attention to myself.  In the beginning when I was out with Saffron, I was self-conscious because I had a dog that was obviously terrified of everything.  I felt like we were already a spectacle, so the last thing I wanted to do was draw more attention to us by firing commands at her.  So I whispered to her.  We’d get to a corner and I’d whisper “sit”.  The result is she has to pay closer attention to me than if I’d been loud.  It also means that if I do shout, she knows it’s serious.  If I shout “leave it!” when she’s running towards a fight at the dog park, she puts the brakes on.  I can count on her to pay attention because I’ve avoided giving her any reasons not to.

Remember to think before you speak!

Now the process of integrating Bart & Sadie into their home started.  My parents aren’t really dog people—they have 4 cats.  They have inherited my grandmother’s Yorkie, CoCo, but she is nothing like these wild, semi-feral puppies.  So I had to get those rusty dog-training gears going again in my head and fast!

One of the most important things you need to do when you have a dog is manage their environment.  This is especially critical when you’re teaching your dog what they can and cannot do.  Dogs are explorers & opportunists and once they’re “rewarded” by some behavior, they’ll tend to keep doing that behavior as long as they get the “reward”.  In this case the word ‘reward’ means anything the dogs really like—chasing cats, eating garbage, stealing dirty clothes—not a treat that you give them.  So don’t lay out a banquet of temptations and expect your dog to resist.  Manage their environment and set them up to succeed.

For example, your kitchen trashcan holds awesome smells & tasty scraps, which your dog is likely to explore.  If, in that exploration, your dog tips over the trashcan and gains access to those smells & scraps, your dog is “rewarded” by that access.  The best way to keep your dog from learning they can get to the smells & scraps by tipping over the trashcan, is to prevent them from doing it in the first place by managing their environment.  The level of management depends on the dog.  Our dog, Saffron, gets spooked by things tipping over and loud noises, so our management strategy for the kitchen trash was a metal step-can with a close fitting lid—it’s heavy so less likely to tip over unless she’s really trying, the lid has to be lifted so she can’t just stick her snoot down in the can, & a close-fitting lid means enticing odors are less strong.  Other dogs may need to have the trash behind a closed door.  When it comes to managing a puppy’s environment, I think it’s best to assume the worst!  They’re likely to get into everything.

Here’s how we managed Bart & Sadie’s environment to get you thinking about strategies for your own dogs or if one shows up on your doorstep:

• We immediately began crating the puppies & kept them closed in the utility room.  Limited access to the house and being kept in a smaller space means they’re less likely to have accidents while house-training because of their instinctive aversion to eliminating in their “home”.  Otherwise they’d learn the “reward” of emptying their bladder or bowels whenever they want.
• We removed shoes, a trashcan, things with power cords, and fishing rods to keep them from learning the “reward” of chewing on these things.  We did underestimate them on a few things which met their demise—venetian blinds, a straw hat hanging 6ft off the ground, a yard stick  We provided Bart & Sadie with suitable things to chew on instead.
• We put the pet food bins on a top shelf out of reach, so they didn’t discover the “reward” of chewing them open and eating the food.
• The puppies kept escaping when we opened the utility room door and were “rewarded” by getting to run around the house, so there’s now a “airlock” created by an ex-pen that encloses the door on our side.  They may slip through the door, but they can’t get past the ex-pen.
• Bart & Sadie wouldn’t come when called yet and were being “rewarded” by getting to play, sniff, and find dead crabs at their leisure, so we started only taking them out on leashes.
• We didn’t want them to get the “reward” of chasing the cats, so we kept the puppies on leash when in the house.

No matter what your situation, you can take steps to manage your dog’s environment.  It takes some thinking, but managing like this makes teaching a dog so much easier.  My parents won’t have to unteach chasing the cats or chewing up shoes, because the puppies aren’t having these unwanted behaviors reinforced and “rewarded”.  I’m so happy to say Bart & Sadie are well on their way to becoming wonderful members of the family—they couldn’t have found a better home!

Amazon now has a dedicated site for pet products—Wag.com.  I wonder if this will have an effect on the specialty pet sites (like PetExpertise.com) I like for finding progressive training tools and books.  I hope it means more people will have accesses to quality foods, tools, and information!

(Note: I’m not connected in any way to either site, other than having ordered products from PetExpertise and Amazon.)

Here’s Episode 106 - Vet Visit:

Learn the steps you can take so your dog is less anxious when visiting your vet.

Click below to play.

You can listen to it here and or on iTunes.  We also have an RSS feed you can subscribe to if you use an RSS reader.

Check out these topics mentioned in the podcast:

• DIY Green Little Cat Toy
• Thunder Shirt

In this case, a woman was walking 2 dogs down our street—down the middle of our street.  Just as they came along side a parked car, a man in the car hollered out the window to someone.  One dog was very startled and became fearful.  How do I know?  The frightened dog had it’s ears pinned back, the whites of her eyes showing, a tense face, and she was desperately trying to get out of the street.  As they got to the sidewalk, the fearful dog kept looking back at the man in the car and getting underfoot, so walking was difficult.  The woman’s response was to loudly scold, “Get over it!” and to jerk the dog.  All the while, the second dog is just walking along normally.  Next, the woman stood at the corner of a busy street for a long time waiting to cross and the dog’s anxiety only increased.  The fearful dog was lifting one foot & then the other, looking away, ears back, with whites of eyes still showing.  Finally, the woman dragged her into the street to cross and they went on their unhappy way.

The problem here started before they ever left the house.

1. The fearful dog needed someone working with her on her fears.  From the little I saw, I think she’s scared by traffic, loud noises, the woman walking her, possibly men and cars—even parked cars.
2. Walking her in the street when she’s not ready to do that heightens her anxiety.
3. Hurrying to keep walking after the dog was startled by the man shouting may reinforce her fear.  The dog might interpret it as “My person is hurrying from the thing that scared me.  It really must be dangerous.”  More stress.
4. Loudly telling the dog to “Get over it!” isn’t going to help the dog’s fear.  All it tells her is that in addition to the “danger” they’re hurrying from, her person is also angry at her.  More stress.
5. Jerking the dog by her neck doesn’t help the dog.  Now physical discomfort and another startling event has been added to the situation.  More stress.
6. Waiting a long time at a busy street only adds to the fearful dog’s anxiety.
7. Cap it all off with the woman dragging the dog into the street and it doesn’t look like these two have a very good relationship.

So what would work better?

1. Some basic understanding of canine body language would be a start.  Being able to recognize when a dog is stressed makes all the difference in being able to do something about it.  I don’t think this woman was aware of how frightened her dog was. (Want to learn more about your dog?  Check out Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide, a favorite of mine.)
2. Short, relaxed walks so there’s time to work with the dog on her fears, to accommodate her needs when her stress is too high, and to watch her reaction to things .
   • When the dog was startled by the man, the woman could have helped by slowly & calmly walking towards the car, pausing before they got too close for the dog to tolerate, praising the dog, and then calmly turning back to their walk.
   • Instead of walking down the middle of the street (which seems stupid anyway when there are sidewalks on both sides), she should stick to the sidewalk.
   • And rather than waiting a long time at a busy street, the woman needs to work up to exposing the fearful dog to traffic that frightens her so much.  I had to work with our dog Saffron on the same fear and I started by walking with traffic (so she wasn’t facing cars coming at her), walking with her on the side away from the street, and alternately walking 1 block on a busy street and then on quieter streets.  Gradually, I lengthened the time spent on busy streets until Saffron was ok with it.  And we had fun doing it!  This woman and her 2 dogs were not having fun.
3. Sometimes the presence of a calm dog helps to reassure a fearful dog, which is great.  But, I do think this dog would benefit from some walks just one-on-one so the human isn’t distracted and can focus on what stresses the dog.

Here’s the To Do List:

1. gradually work up to what frightens your dog, don’t flood them with it—you’ll only make them feel vulnerable
2. pat attention to what scares your dog, how anxious they are, and what calms them
3. don’t yell or physically punish your dog, you’ll only add to her stress
4. don’t drag your dog—I think it’s a pretty good rule of thumb that if you have to drag your dog, her anxiety level is too high

There’s a happy ending to this story.  Weeks later I encountered a friend walking the same fearful dog.  Without thinking, I mentioned I’d seen her being walked by someone who was clueless about how scared the dog was and I found out my friend shared responsibility for the dog with the woman I had seen.  My friend asked if the woman had been harsh with the dog and when I said yes, she said she’d speak to the woman.  But, my friend did better than that—she made the woman realize the dog would be better off with my friend, so know the fearful dog has a much happier life with someone who understands her and works on her fears.  Yea!

These guys are awesome—so creative.  (Remember the treadmill video?)  OK Go has a new video for their song, White Knuckles.  This is also a single-take video, which is amazing.  They used dogs from Talented Animals, in Corvallis, OR. One dog, Bunny, belongs to lead singer, Damian Kulash.  Bunny got a training crash course so she could be in the video.  She’s the small, brown dog with a black nose.  This is a great article on the shooting of the video. One of the things that’s neat about the video is the dogs act like dogs, which it turns out was intentional.  All professional dog trainers are in the business of getting something to happen once very sharply. We wanted them to act like dogs, Damian Kulash said

One of the first things we taught Saffron when we got her was “Go see Sarah” & “Go see ‘Mr. Fire’”.

(‘Mr. Fire’ probably needs some explanation.  I asked my husband how he would like to be referred to in my blog.  I had already vetoed ‘The Husband’ & ‘The S.O.’  He shot down ‘Mr. PetProject’ and ‘Mr. P.I.C.’ (Mr. Partner In Crime).  I then suggested ‘Mr. McBurny’ and he piped up with “Call me ‘Flame’!”  Really?  “Yes, call me ‘Flame’ or maybe ‘Mr. Flame’.”  ‘Mr. Flame’ sounds like you’re flamey in a gay way, and though there’s nothing wrong with being flamey in a gay way it might confuse readers who know I’m a female married to a male.  [At this point I'm tempted to look at why, semantically speaking, adding 'Mr.' to 'Flame' makes it sound flamey in a gay way, but then I'll really have digressed from what is supposed to be a post about a dog training tip.]  ‘Flame’ was his choice because lately he has really gotten into making biofuel stoves. In the evening, we’ll be hanging out on the couch and he’ll say, “I’m going to go burn stuff.”  To which I reply, “Okay, let the dog come if she wants.”  So he’ll be out there in the dark with a head lamp testing new stove designs.  Sometimes I get a call that I should come check out the awesome flame. So I tried to write this post using ‘Flame’, but I just couldn’t do it.  Because of the nature of this post, I had to keep writing Flame-this & Flame-that.  So I asked if he really wanted to be known in perpetuity as ‘Flame’, to which he conceded perhaps he did not.  Thankfully we settled on ‘Mr. Fire’, which is somehow a little more dignified, though I have no idea why.)

So, if you’re still with me, back to the training tip!  Here’s why you might want to teach your dog “Go See Jane”:

• it’s a good way to start teaching “Come”
• it’s a good way to start teaching “Find It”
• it’s a great for exercising your dog
• it’s super handy for redirecting a bothersome pup

How to do “Go See Jane!”:

1. you need at least 2 people & some good treats
2. person ‘A’ (me Sarah) stays in one room with the dog while person ‘B’  (Mr. Fire) goes to another room within hearing distance of Sarah
3. Sarah says, “Go see Mr. Fire!” and Mr. Fire immediately calls the dog to come & gives a treat when the dog comes
4. then Mr. Fire says, “Go see Sarah!” and Sarah immediately calls the dog to come & gives a treat when the dog comes
5. repeat, and reinforce by doing it every few days at random times
6. the dog learns “Go See Jane” and gets reinforcement for “Come!”, of course you need to work on “Come!” by itself to have a good recall.

“Go Find Jane!” variation once your dog knows “Go See Jane!”:

1. you still need 2 people & some treats
2. Sarah stays in one room with the dog, while Mr. Fire goes & hides somewhere in the house, but not too hard a spot to start out with.  The dog needs to succeed in order to learn what “Find it!” means.
3. don’t let the dog leave the room until you say, “Go find Mr. Fire!
4. Mr. Fire stays very quiet in this version.
5. if the dog doesn’t find Mr. Fire quickly, Mr. Fire makes a little noise to give the dog a hint.  Give treats when the dog comes.
6. then Mr. Fire says, “Go find Sarah!”.  From then on each person find a new place to hide.
7. repeat, and reinforce by doing it every few days at random times

We use both of these commands at the dog park to make sure Saffron gets some good exercise in.  She LOVES running from one of us to the other, especially if we hide.  I use it to redirect Saffron when she’s bugging me while I’m working.  And we find it very useful when we have guests—we just tell our guest to send Saffron to one of us if she’s bothering them.  Very handy!