K9 to 5: Training Your Dog is a Full-Time Job

 "Repetition builds success and consistency speeds it up." - Unknown

"Prevent what you can not control and control what you teach." - Duke Ferguson 

    In dog training, there are no "days off". Once you've committed to creating a new behavior, or ending a bad one, it’s permanent. Think of it as a contract you signed with your dog to make a rule and uphold it in a fair and consistent manner. His side of the agreement is that he will always do the best he can with the information given to him so that information has to be the same all of the time. Your dog doesn't understand why he sometimes isn't allowed in the kitchen and sometimes he is. He can't connect the dots that he's allowed to jump on some people but not others. He doesn't know why sometimes he has to walk nicely on the leash and sometimes he can pull. Just because you can rationalize when some things are allowed and when they aren't, doesn't mean he can. To be inconsistent is to be unfair.  

    In order to be as fair as possible and increase our chances of success, we have to commit to insisting on a particular behavior 100% of the time. If she's not allowed to bark at the doorbell, then she's never allowed to bark at the doorbell. It doesn't matter if it's just the mailman dropping off a package and you are in the middle of cooking dinner. No barking means no barking and you have to be prepared to insist on correctness at all times. Every single interaction you have with your dog will either train or untrain them. If you allow them to make mistakes without correction, you can lose hours of progress. Unfortunately, unlearning a skill happens much faster than learning one. 

    Now, if you know you aren't going to be in a position to train at that moment, do what you can to manage the situation to prevent the wrong thing from happening. Maybe your dog has to go outside in the yard while you are cooking and can't train right then. Maybe you leave a sign on the door asking people not to ring the doorbell and call you instead. Both of these examples are ways of managing a situation to make sure your dog only ever receives good information from you.  

    What if you are tired after a long day at work and you just want to get the dog walked so you can focus on relaxing. You put the leash on a bouncing dog, open the door and he rushes out ahead and drags you down the steps, and then proceeds to drag you around the neighborhood until you've had enough and go home. This single interaction, which could've been as short as 15 minutes, has probably undone about 2 hours of work that you had previously done. Your next walk is going to require a lot more work than it might have previously because your dog has learned that the rules aren't always going to be enforced and therefore can be tested.  

    Dog training is a lot of work and can be hard to stay committed to when it becomes inconvenient. Through situational management and perseverance, you will reach your dog training goals and come out happier on the other side. 

The Permanence of Puppyhood

 Puppyhood is short-lived, but what about their puppy problems?

 Dogs should be allowed as much liberty as they can responsibly handle. The greatest gift of training is that it increases the dog’s ability to handle liberty." - Chad Mackin 

    Who doesn't love puppies? They are small, fluffy, and can be very entertaining at times. Raising a puppy can be really fun and exciting as you watch them learn about the world and experience new things.  

    But puppyhood is short and they turn into full grown dogs in a heartbeat. Suddenly, a lot of the cute, innocent puppy habits aren't so cute anymore. When your 5 lb. puppy jumps on you, or they bark that tiny little puppy bark, or chew on your fingers, it's just a "puppy" thing. Now you are facing a 40 lb. dog that jumps on guests hard enough to leave scratch marks, or barks all day long. Even if your dog doesn't grow up to be 40 lbs., these types of nuisance behaviors can be just as frustrating in small dogs as well.  

    How do you avoid running into this problem?  

    The answer is training. Start young and train often. Any puppy older than 7 weeks is capable of learning basic obedience. It is often challenging to be consistent when training a puppy, because you'll always have guests or family members who don't recognize the importance of training young dogs. They may even tell you that you are being too strict or "It's just a baby." Puppies need boundaries and a clear set of expectations just as much as an adult dog. They will learn that they can always look to you for guidance in a situation and be more relaxed and trusting with clear leadership coming from you.  

    This goes beyond just learning to sit or lay down on command. This type of training is more like molding the dog you want to have in the future. This includes learning how to greet guests appropriately, how to ask for what it wants in a polite manner, appropriate ways to play and interact with people, and how to respect the rules of the house. It also includes limiting the ability to rehearse undesirable behaviors by limiting access to some situations until the puppy is mature enough to make good choices. 

When getting a puppy, many people expect the typical training they might have to do. Everyone knows to train it to sit on command. Everyone knows they'll have to house-train it one way or another. What most people don't expect is how much work a puppy really can be. They require constant supervision and attention and don't really have an "off" button.  

    To create a truly well-behaved dog, it takes even more work and discipline. That puppy is always learning, whether you are intentionally training it or not. This is why it is so absolutely crucial to put the time and effort in when they are young so that you aren't having to untrain undesirable behaviors they learned they could get away with as a puppy.  It's not very fair to the dog for it to reach a certain age or size and suddenly all of the rules change.  

    The overarching theme here is the idea of freedom and the long game. They see a small fluffy puppy that has to follow a very defined set of rules they are expected to follow and say that its not fair to the puppy. They say that they just need to be free to be a puppy and do what they want and that's how they raise their puppy. But how long is puppy-hood compared to adulthood? Two years later, those same people are watching you let your dog off leash to run around an open space or go swimming in the lake or at the beach while they can't take their dog off of its leash or it might not ever come back or worse, end up in a dangerous situation. What about having guests over? Your dog has learned to sit quietly and wait to be greeted and gets to enjoy all of the attention. Meanwhile, the other dog has to be kenneled in another room when guests arrive because it will jump on everyone or it won't stop barking. Which dog has more freedom? How many more years of freedom will your dog have, including the 10 or so months "without freedom", compared to their dog, who may never get to have those experiences?  

    I want every dog to have as much freedom as possible. There are so many great things in life that you can share with your dog if they are well-trained, like becoming a therapy dog and visiting sick children in the hospital, hiking through the mountains and sticking to the trail with you, or going with you to dog-friendly restaurants and stores. These are just a few examples; there are so many more.  

    Building that foundation as a puppy will set you up for so much success later on in life and it's my hope that everyone can put the time and effort into molding their puppy from the start so that they can live out their lives with as much fun and freedom as possible.  

The Quick and Easy Way to a Perfect Pooch

Surprise! There isn't one! And that's okay!

 When it comes to success, there are no shortcuts. -Bo Bennett 

    Owning a dog is a lot of work. Dog training is hard. Behavior modification is extra hard. This isn't something that gets talked about much. There are a ton of articles and videos about how to teach your dog to walk on a leash or how to sit on command. What's hard to find is how to stay motivated as an owner when the task ahead seems daunting or even overwhelming. 

    Watching an instructional video on the internet, spending an hour with a trainer, or reading books or articles about training are the easy part. The real work comes in after the trainer left or when the video has ended. It's thousands of repetitions throughout the dog's life. It's finding new ways to motivate yourself to push forward when it feels like you are stuck. It's all of the hours spent molding your dog into a perfect citizen, who makes you proud every time they demonstrate how all of that hard work paid off. These victories, which can be small or large, are incredibly rewarding and affirming for owners. For some, victories happen quickly, and they rack up new skills like levels on a game. For others, however, initial success is rapid and then begins to take more and more time. After long enough without a big victory, owners tend to lose hope that things will ever get better.  Some owners have the patience to put in those long, slow miles. Others start strong but eventually lose patience and give up. Sometimes, it’s the same owner who is pushing forward with one skill and giving up on another. It's okay to feel stuck in the mud sometimes. It happens. Ideally, you can find a training buddy or a group class who can help hold you accountable and provide encouraging words to push through the tough times. Unfortunately, owners don't often have that type of external motivation and either give up completely or start looking for a quicker way. This is where they will run into problems.  

    There are no shortcuts in dog training, period. It takes consistency and repetition. Even once you get the desired behavior, you'll still need occasional refreshers with your dog to make sure the undesirable behavior doesn't come back. It gets even harder when you have a dog breed that's predisposed to certain nuisance behaviors or is prone to stubbornness and independence. It takes the time it takes and that's all there is to it. You can buy harsher training devices or attempt other shortcuts, but you'll find that you either end up with new problems or that the behavior returns the moment the training device is removed.  They become a crutch on which you will always lean until you can put the proper training in place.  

    I feel that training through punishment or excessive force is a bit like playing the video game, Guitar Hero, and thinking you are playing guitar in real life. It may look comparable at first glance, but ultimately, it is an illusion. If you suddenly had a real guitar and had to play on stage, the truth would come out. 

    

    The same rule applies to dogs. A behavior that occurs only under threat of force or pain is not a behavior that can be relied on. Do you have a dog that only comes back to you when he has a shock collar on? What happens when that dog accidentally slips out the door and is running through the neighborhood? If his collar isn't on or he isn't in range anymore, do you think he'll come back? It's a coin toss. He might or he might not. And because you don't have that solid recall foundation that comes from hours of practice, you don't really know if he will come when you call. The distraction of cars passing by or a squirrel running across a yard may prove far more enticing than you. So of course, in a very controlled situation, it looks like he's got good recall, but out in the real world, his missing education becomes apparent and that could lead to dangerous situations. 

    The best thing you can give any animal is an education. A well-trained dog will get to experience more of life, have less overall stress and anxiety, and be much less likely to end up in a dangerous situation. It's hard work, but in the end, your dog will be so much better off because of it.