Training and behavior theory Archives • Page 2 of 4 • Three Dogs Training

Leashes – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

Good leash skills come with awareness, practice, patience and a solid understanding of what a leash is meant to do for you and your dog.

Ask Professor Boo is our recurring, positive reinforcement dog training and behavior question and answer column. If you have a question that you would like to ask Professor Boo, please feel free to contact him.

A leash is to the Dog-Human connection like a seat-belt is to the car-driver connection. Both are safety devices and often mandated by law. Just as we never use a seat-belt to drive our car, we should not use a leash to “drive” our dogs.

A leash allows us a safe and effective connection to our dogs in case of surprises, emergencies, or situations where attention is hard to get or keep.

Once we have trained for attention and other skills a loose leash actually offers us the best control of our dog, and least frustration and stress for our dogs.

Just as we never use a seat-belt to drive our car, we should not use a leash to “drive” our dogs.

Your dog spends most of their time in the yard – Do you need to worry about a leash? There are many times when your dog needs to be on a leash – trips to veterinarians, groomers, walking adventures, classes, etc. Groomers and veterinarians are necessary for obvious reasons. Walking adventures outside their own backyard and classes are necessary too because dogs who don’t experience these things can be under-socialized which often leads to behavioral problems.

To use a leash properly we want to use the right tools wisely so we don’t do damage to our dogs or ourselves and we don’t want to inadvertently teach the wrong things:

The Good – Standard leash is a 6 foot nylon, cotton or leather leash (leather is easiest on human hands; avoid chains as someone usually gets hurt by these). Longer leashes are not standard walking leashes. They are used for training long distance commands.
The Bad – The Tight Leash – All too often the human-dog team becomes accustomed to constant tension on the leash = tight leash. A dog can be stressed and frustrated by a constant tight leash which can often lead to behavioral problems.
The Ugly– The Flexi Leash is almost always a constantly tight leash. In addition to stress and frustration for the dog it actually TEACHES the dog to pull. The Flexi Leash leaves the dog at risk for a variety of injuries and stress responses that can lead to behavioral problems. It also leaves the human at more risk of injury than any other leash.

Good leash skills come with awareness, practice, patience and a solid understanding of what a leash is meant to do for you and your dog.

The Comfy Chair It Ain’t

The Pet Safe Stay Mat has absolutely no place in positive reinforcement dog training.

Usually on the Three Dogs blog we like to bring you guys notices of classes, updates to the web page, and items of interest that may help you and your dog(s) live a happier, healthier life. However, sometimes we have to warn you about things and this is one of those times.

Imagine you have gone to visit your neighbor because you are new to the neighborhood.

They kindly offer you a necklace as a house-warming gift and they then proceed to go make some tea. You are sitting in a chair in the neighbor’s living room and notice something outside the front window. You get up to investigate the commotion out the window just across the room.

Suddenly, you hear a funny noise then the pain begins and at first you can’t tell where the pain is coming from. You begin checking yourself and find the pain is coming from the “necklace” your new neighbor just gave you. You try to get it off but it doesn’t come off. The pain is non-stop. You begin to run around to see it you can find something to help get it off, something to make it stop – something to stop the agonizing, confusing, scary pain.

As you are running, you brush the chair where you were sitting before this all began and for a brief second the pain stopped. That couldn’t be it – no. So you keep running; keep pulling at the necklace, now you are screaming and asking any deity to help you make it stop. You ask yourself, “What have I done to deserve this? What lesson could this possibly be teaching me?” But no good answer comes in the language you speak. The pain just won’t stop.

Unexpectedly the new neighbor grabs you and forces you back into the chair. You sit in the chair shaking and breathing heavily – afraid to move; afraid even to breathe too hard for fear it will start all over again. Even though the pain is stopped, the fear, the anguish, and confusion are all still there. What the hell was that???

It was the “Pet Safe Stay Mat”* brought to you by the people at Pet Safe who encourage shocking a dog into scared submission rather than easily rewarding them for doing what is fun and makes everyone happy around them.

Here’s their explanation:

The Stay! Mat functions by detecting your dog’s weight on the mat. If your dog leaves the mat while the unit is turned on, the mat will send a radio signal up to 6 feet in all directions. The receiver collar will receive the radio signal and produce a beep or beep and static correction until your dog returns to the mat. The correction type depends on the setting you choose. Once your dog returns to the mat, the beep and static correction will cease. (Two week training period required.)

In the words of Karen Overall, M.A, V.M.D., Ph.D from Clinical Behavioral Medicine for Small Animals:

“Shock collars are seldom used correctly, are more often overused or inappropriately used, can make any aggressive animal more aggressive, and may tell us more about the people who feel that they have to rely on them than about the pet’s problem…”

In the instructions for the cold-hearted “Stay Mat” it says there is a two week training period required but I can easily train a dog to hold a position on a mat for rewards in an hour or less. I can proof that behavior in a couple of 10 – 15 minutes sessions and have it reliable with distance and distraction in a couple days. So, why spend more time, more money and torment your dog in the process by using this device?

When looking at various training methods we have to consider what is the scientifically best proven approach – it is and always will be positive reinforcement because it has been proven to be both more effective and more humane than coercion. AND we have to ask ourselves: how would you like this done to you? Yes we are talking about dogs not people. But when we are talking about dogs we are talking about animals whose capacity to feel, emote, love, fear, and forgive is equal and sometimes greater than we humans can produce. And it is necessary to keep in mind that the way a dog’s brain and our brain processes pain and fear are almost identical – fight or flight. So it is valid to ask if this is something you would like to endure.

Please tell Pet Safe, PetSmart, and others who are carrying this product; tell your friends, your neighbors and anyone who will listen – this is not the way to teach an easy settle command. But it is a great way to torment your dog, teach them fear, and break down any hope at a trusting relationship with them since you will be the one putting them back “into the non-comfy chair.”

The Three P’s of Dog Training over on Dogster!

Patience, persistence, and and accepting that perfect isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be are the bedrock of compassionate dog training.

As part of the festivities surrounding A Dog Named Boo, I put together a guest blog post for my friends over at Dogster.

It’s about what I call The Three P’s of Dog Training: patience, persistence, and perfect-is-not-all-it’s-cracked-up-to-be and how they can help in your training.

Head on over and check it out!

Here’s a link!

Things Your Dog Will Love: Twist ‘n Treat

The Twist ‘n Treat is a great positive reinforcement tool to control speed eating in dogs as well as to keep them cognitively challenged.

We want to keep our furry friends cognitively exercised, and a variety of different puzzle toys will keep them on their toes.

The Twist ‘n Treat is very similar in concept to the Atomic Treat Ball. It is a puzzle toy filled with food and it’s up to the dog to figure out how to manipulate it to get the food out.

While the Atomic Treat Ball is our go-to puzzle toy to slow down speed eating (or to just keep one of our dogs busy), if it’s the only puzzle we give them it’s going to become less and less stimulating over time. In short, the name of the game is to not allow them to get bored.

It might seem as if both puzzles are exactly the same. However, the Twist ‘n Treat is much easier to learn and is usually the best first puzzle toy, especially for puppies.

The Atomic Treat Ball and the Twist ‘n Treat work differently enough that it keeps our dogs on their toes. We need to remember that canine cognition does not generalize well and that the two wildly different shapes of the toys essentially makes them two completely different skill sets for the dog.

Shaped like a flying saucer, the twist in Twist ‘n Treat refers to the rubber screw inside the toy that you twist to open in order to load the kibble or treats.

While the loading is more complicated than the Atomic Treat Ball, the fact that you can customize the size of the gap that dispenses the food means you have a lot more options in terms of what you can put in it and it makes for a great starter toy since you can make it easy at first then more difficult as your dog gets the hang of it.

While the Twist ‘n Treat is all upside for dogs, the thick rubber it’s made from tends to bounce pretty well and the shape causes it to roll – so don’t be surprised to find yourself hunting for it underneath furniture.

As with so many of the puzzle toys out there, the Twist ‘n Treat is not meant to be left alone with your dog – especially if they are a hard chewer.

Those minor quibbles aside, the Twist ‘n Treat is a really nice addition to your dog’s positive reinforcement cognitive toy box. And for those of you whose dogs have not quite mastered other puzzle toys, this is a good learner-toy.

Things Your Dog Will Love: Infini-Tug Dog Toy

If your house is anything like ours you’ve probably got dog toys everywhere on the floor in every room. Dogs love toys so much that they’ll make anything into a toy given enough time, boredom, and lack of supervision.

Puppy Pax’e making toys out of everything!

Toys are also one of the most powerful tools to have in our positive reinforcement bag of tricks and there’s always been one that I keep hidden away – only pulled out on super-special occasions – whose value at the moment I take it out is almost as good as a bag of hot dogs.

Teaching self-control with a rousing game of tug!

When I need to go nuclear with dogs to distract them, direct them, reward them or (my favorite) teach them self control, I push the button with the Infini-Tug Dog Toy

The Infini-Tug Dog Toy is deceptively simple in its design, which is essentially a three-foot length of braided fleece wound through a ball at the end.

I started using the Infini-Tug Dog Toy at a shelter with a dog named Wesley who had some resource guarding issues.

I know it sounds crazy to play tug with a resource guarder, but we only play according to the rules and only began once he had a pretty good drop-it command.

The magic of this game was that he didn’t have to guard it: he knew that he could drop-it when asked and he’d get it back again. It has done a great job in helping me reinforce simple commands for him and a great job at teaching him that many things just don’t have to be guarded. (Stay tuned for more on crazy Wesley in future posts.)

When puppy Pinball came to live with us, I was in the middle of writing A Dog Named Boo and had to devise a game that he could play while I typed. Tucking the tennis tug securely under my foot or thigh – when sitting – I could work as he tugged away.

I can’t tell you why you would want a Infini-Tug Dog Toy, but I will tell you what I use it for:

With Wesley at the shelter, because he got the Infini-Tug Dog Toy for good behaviors I was able to begin whittling away at some pretty big issues in return.
If Pinball is in one of his “I’m young and have a lot of energy so why not eat the pillows?!” moods, I can redirect this level of energy to the Infini-Tug Dog Toy which wears him out and saves my pillows.
Finally, if the dogs have been really, really good I’ll give them the Infini-Tug Dog Toy for a couple of minutes just for fun.

The Infini-Tug Dog Toy is a great dog toy that’s cheap, pretty durable for a tug toy (remember to put it away when done), and I think your dog would get a blast out of it. Mine certainly do.

Remember: this is a supervised toy. Do not leave it with them alone because they will tear it apart (after all that’s what tug is all about)! Always put the toy away when the game is over.