Train your dog and keep your fingers, too! Tips on how to teach your dog to take a treat nicely.

When I was at the AASPCA today, some of the dogs I was working with had yet to learn how to take a treat nicely from a person’s hand. I figured it would make for a good topic to discuss right here on my blog.


The problem.

I’m reminded of an owner whom was in one of the classes I was helping with when I was training to become a pet training instructor at Petsmart. Whenever the owner would offer her (huge) dog a treat, the dog would lunge at the treat (and the owner’s hand). The owner would then basically drop the treat and snatch her hand back; it was very obvious that she didn’t feel comfortable offering her dog a food treat for fear the dog would accidentally eat a little bit of her hand in addition to the treat.

If this happens to you, then this is a great post for you to read! No owner should have to be afraid that their dog is going to accidentally bite their hand. When you’re training your dog, you want to be focusing on the training, not on the safety of your hands.
So if you have a dog that doesn’t take treats nicely, the first thing you need to do is stop trying to train your dog to do anything else! Let’s get this problem solved first. It shouldn’t take long.


Why do you need to take care of this problem now, rather than later?

Because every time your dog lunges for a treat and is successful at getting it, the dog has been rewarded for the lunging behavior and will only continue to repeat this bad behavior in the future! Ah! That’s not what we want!

So from now on, the rule is: dogs don’t get treats unless they take them nicely.


The solution.

The first thing I do is I make sure to hold the treat in the flat of my hand—I sort of hold it between the sides of a couple of fingers. When I do eventually let the dog have the treat, I give it to them with the flat of my hand towards their face. I’ve found that this leads to fewer incidents of accidentally bitten fingers due merely to the fact that they can’t fit their mouth around my hand when it’s in this position.

The next thing I do is offer a treat slowly. As soon as I see the dog start to lunge for the treat, I pull my hand away. They know the treat is in my hand and will learn that the longer they hold still, the closer the treat gets to their face (dog: “yay!”) and closer to their mouth (dog: “yay!”). And eventually they’ll learn that when they sit still and don’t lunge, they actually get to eat the yummy treat. (dog: “YAY!”).

When I finally do give the treat to the dog, I prefer to (gently) pop it in their mouth instead of letting them take it from my hand (some dogs are just a little too rough with their teeth when they try to take the treat themselves).

My dogs both take treats very nicely these days (I’ve even had people comment on how nicely they take treats), and it’s because I follow this simple rule: dogs only get treats if they take them nicely!

Happy training for happy tails: "Don't Shoot the Dog" discusses the merits of positive reinforcement and clicker-training

If you’re a person who is interested in training, whether it be training your dog or training in general, I recently finished a book that I recommend you read.

It’s called Don’t Shoot the Dog and is written by former dolphin trainer and clicker-training enthusiast Karen Pryor. You might have heard of the book—it’s been out since 1984 with a revised edition in 1999. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s worth checking out.

What’s the book about?
Don’t Shoot the Dog discuses training methods in general, but emphasizes on and argues for positive reinforcement as a more successful training method in most situations. The book also discusses what’s been come to be known as “clicker training” and the methodology behind it.

This book is fun as well as informative due to the many interesting examples described. Did you know that you can train just about any animal using positive reinforcement? Dogs, fish, chickens, horses, cats, and even we, ourselves, respond well to this method.

Some other interesting things I learned from Don’t Shoot the Dog are that people have been known to improve their own squash game just by positively reinforcing themselves whenever they made a good play, and brushing off instances when they made bad plays.  I also learned that you can teach creativity to animals. Positive reinforcement tends to encourage animals to figure out what we want of them, which gets them to think and try new things.

I love the idea of fast and effective training methods, but what really got me excited was when I read that animals trained using positive reinforcement tend to be happier. The author gives an example of a police dog that was clicker-trained and now wags his tail the whole time it’s on patrol and out catching “bad guys”.
When Leopold was in puppy school his teacher talked of clicker training.  Up until I read this book, I dismissed the use of a clicker because I didn’t like the idea of having to always carry around a clicker—it just wouldn’t be possible! This book cleared up that qualm, though, stating that the clicker is only important during the initial training of a behavior. The clicker is basically a tool to help communicate with a dog (or other animal). After the clicker has been “loaded” (you have first teach the dog that the “click” sound means they did something good), it is a very fast and precise way to reinforce your dog’s behavior. And since timing is important to the success of positive reinforcement, the clicker is an ingenious way to maximize both you and your dog’s effort.

What exactly is a clicker?
It’s a small plastic box w/ a piece of metal inside that makes a loud “click” when you push it. It’s a very simple device and you can pick one up at most pet stores for cheap.  You can see one in the photo at the top of this post.

Want to know more?  
Grab a copy of Don’t Shoot the Dog if you want to know more on the ins and outs of how positive reinforcement and clicker training works, or if you just want to read something interesting. Check out your local library to see if they have a copy, or you can always buy your own copy on amazon.com here: Don't Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training.  Or if you live near me, you can just borrow mine ;-)
You can also check out Karen Pryor’s website at www.clickertraining.com

And if you want to give clicker training a try, you can pick up a clicker at most pet stores, or you can just get one from amazon.com: Petco Dog Training Clicker.  (At the time I made my links, the Petco brand was the cheapest option, but prices seem to fluctuate over time, so look over your options!)

Convenient Product Links:

           

Communicating with dogs: making “sense” of things.

Humans tend to largely use sounds when it comes to communicating with each other. One person talks, another listens (ideally, anyway). So it’s no wonder that we often try to verbally communicate with our dogs as well. “No!” “Sit” “Come here” “Don’t eat that!” and so on. And while dogs are smart enough to eventually pick up on some of the sounds we humans make at them, a dog’s primary means of communication is not based in sound. Yes, dogs do bark, but they tend to get their information from other dogs (and their world) by smelling first, seeing second, and hearing third.

It makes sense to me to try to communicate with a dog in a way that they’re most apt to understand. Unfortunately I, just like all humans, have a relatively awful sense of smell and therefore I have absolutely no idea how to communicate with my dog that way.  I’m left with visual and audio means of communication. Dogs, relying more on sight than sound to communicate, actually tend to understand visual commands better than verbal commands.  To help your dog learn a command even better and faster, double up a verbal command with a visual command.

Some common hand signals in the dog world are:
 

SIT—hand flat, palm up	STAY—hand out, palm to dog	DOWN—point down to floor
WAIT—form a sort of “C” with hand and move it from left to right

Of course, you can always make up your own hand signals. I taught Leopold to bark on command using a hand signal—making my hand into a “mouth” and snapping it shut.
I also use a sweeping motion towards me to mean "come", and I hold my hand, palm up, down and out when I want my dog(s) to give me a paw.




You can see me use some of these signals in this video:

Knowing this, adopting deaf dogs isn’t such a daunting task. Because dogs understand hand signals so well, communicating is easy. When I worked at the SPCA back in the fall, we had a deaf dog. Whenever I introduced the dog to interested, potential adopters, I would demonstrate that the dog knew how to sit using the hand-signal; some people thought I was doing magic! But it wasn’t magic at all—just sign language.

Training tips for some bad doggy behavior: Jumping

The bad behavior.
Leopold, at one point, was a jumper. He would get excited when we or other people first walked through the door and would jump up on us with enthusiasm. It’s true, we didn’t always mind and none of our guests got angry about the behavior (some would even explain that they have a dog and it was ok). But I was worried that someday Leopold, weighing over 65lbs, would jump on someone like say Grandma and knock her to the ground. Or what about a small child? I decided that the jumping behavior had to stop.

The training.
Jumping, it turns out, is one of the easiest bad behaviors to correct. Jumping is really an attempt by the dog to get attention, and any petting done by the human is actually a reward, making the dog successful and the behavior more likely to occur next time. So, to stop the jumping, you need to ignore the dog. Absolutely no attention. Turn your back and ignore the dog. You can even cross your arms and look up to really let them know you’re not paying attention to them. If the dog tries to walk around and jump on you again, you turn your back to them again and continue ignoring the dog. Don’t push the dog off with your hands, as that could be seen as “play” by your dog and might be encouraging rather than corrective. After the dog stops jumping or maybe even sits, THEN give them the attention that they’re after. You’ve just rewarded polite, four-paws-on-the-ground behavior! Using this method of behavior correction, Leopold stopped jumping up on people after only a couple weeks. We haven’t had a problem with him since. Instead, he greets us at the door excitedly wiggling his body in every direction, but his paws never leave the ground. We did the same training with Halo as soon as she joined our household and was trained out of the bad jumping behavior in a similarly short time.

A training hurdle and how to (politely) jump it.
Over the years, I’ve found that the hardest part of training a dog is actually training all the people who come in contact with the dog. A dog is going to learn a lot better if everyone who interacts with it is on the same page. It only takes one household member to ruin a dog’s training or at least severely stymie progress. In our house, Chris and I have discussions about dog “rules”—rules on how we are going to react when Leopold or Halo exhibit a certain behavior. Of course, it’s easier to be on the same page for members of the same household, but what about the rest of the world? For the rest of the world (ie, guests), we would explain to them before entering the house that we were in the process of training Leopold to not jump. I’d warn people he might jump on them, and that they should turn their backs and ignore the behavior—to act as if jumping dogs don’t exist. Guests were always obliging and their help sped Leopold’s training along.

Training a dog TO jump.
I’ve heard some people say “I don’t mind if they jump on me” but then yell at the dog when it jumps on other people. How can a dog tell when it’s allowed to jump and when it’s not? I understand that it can be fun to have your dog jump up and place its paws on your hips or belly and then give you kisses; it’s almost like being hugged by your dog. I allow my dogs to jump on me, but only after I’ve given them a signal that it’s ok. I make them sit first, then pat my hips and say “up”. When I’m done giving affection, I put my hands in the air and say “off”. If you want to train your dog to do this, it’s a good idea to wait until your dog has first learned to keep its paws on the ground. And if you see your dog start jumping on people without being given a command, go back to no jumping at all.

Halo graduates!

Halo graduated from beginner level school on Tuesday night at PetSmart! The evening started off with an exam: Halo had to show off all that’s she’s learned, including sitting on command, coming when called, and walking nicely on a leash. I’m pleased to say she passed with flying colors!  Of course, the real students in this type of training class are the humans.  My boyfriend, Chris, took lead of taking Halo to training classes and learning how to work with her at home.  Of course I helped, but Chris led the charge and he did a wonderful job with her!
I am a huge advocate for training classes. Whether it be a puppy, newly adopted dog, or old dog you’ve had a long time, I believe that training classes are always beneficial.
For dogs you’ve already had a while, training classes are just a lot of fun. They’re a chance for your dog to get out of the house and do something interesting and new; its good mental stimulation, which will help your dog stay sharp and be happy.  It might also be a chance for you and your dog to work on some of the bad habits they might have developed over the years.
For new dog owners, taking your dog to training classes is a great way to bond with your new furry friend. Training classes are fun—for you and your dog, and are therefore a positive experience that will help form a positive relationship. Training classes will also give the dog owner some understanding of dog psychology and behavior, providing insight to how your dog’s mind works and why it’s doing the things it does. Understanding your dog and helping your dog to understand you is a great foundation on which to start a doggy-human relationship. Training classes may seem like they might just be a way to teach your dog “tricks”, but what you’re actually learning is how to communicate with your dog and how to teach your dog to communicate with you.

Halo receives her certificate of graduation!

Now, I’ve been through beginner classes with Leopold.  And not long ago I even started training to become a pet training instructor (before landing my job at the emergency vet clinic), so I feel confidant that I can teach a dog a thing or two on my own. However, I insisted that we take Halo to training classes despite. I insisted on classes because Halo needs socialization, and doggy school is a great way to help socialize a dog. Being in a class with other doggy students means a chance to interact with those dogs (and their owners!) in a positive setting. Better yet, taking classes in a busy store (we took Halo to PetSmart) means that there are also a lot of other people and dogs around besides those in the class.  When class is over, you can walk around and continue to meet new people and their pets.
Training classes may seem like a lot of money for some, but I find the money to be well spent.  Its a small price to pay for a happier, better-behaved dog!