Teaching Manners, Behaviors, and Relationships
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!
Some trainers will tell you to make a specific sound like a dog growl or make a snake-like hiss as if these sounds are dog training magic.
However, there is magic in dog training. Eight-five percent of dog training is science, ten percent is gymnastic dance, and five percent is the dog training magic.
It feels magical when we see our dogs understand what we’ve said, and we feel like we understand what they’ve said. We build that magical connection on the simple and powerful premise of A-B-C. All of us learn behavior through this process:
A = Antecedent – the thing that requests or triggers a behavior
B = Behavior
C = Consequence – the result of the behavior (good, or not-so-good)
The (A) can be a sound that we make, a gesture, something in the environment (like a door bell), the actions of another animal in the home, a bicycle on the street, the funny look I give my dog when she is barking, etc.
No matter what our antecedent is – it only becomes magical when there are consistent consequences that follow the behavior and build understanding.
If a dog jumps on you and you respond with a subtle sound, look away, fold your arms tight to your chest, and continue no interaction until the dog stops jumping, you have offered clear immediate consequences. There is no reward and no attention for jumping.
Maybe the dog jumps again because jumping is a self reinforcing behavior. And you offer the same sequence of No Reward and No Attention. Dog will learn that the (B) behavior of jumping doesn’t get paid for – an unwanted (C) consequence.
So, the dog chooses another behavior – maybe sitting or standing next to you. This is dog training magic step one, the dog has chosen a different better behavior that we like. So, we move to step two.
When dog chooses another behavior (B) besides jumping, like sitting or standing quietly, you MUST offer a consequence (C) that dog likes. This could be food, toys, butt scratches, etc.
This is where the magic happens and communication begins. The dog starts choosing something better and we reward that better and then ask for even better choices.
Some might suggest the dog is training you, but in reality it is a dialogue between two different species.
The Thundershirt isn’t a dog toy but it is something they’ll love you even more for if they suffer from anxiety or other phobic behaviors.
The Thundershirt isn’t a dog toy.
It’s not something that dispenses yummy treats.
It isn’t even something that you’d think that your dog would like, but if they experience anxiety from storms, company coming, or crazy human holidays your dog will absolutely love the Thundershirt.
What the Thundershirt is, essentially, is a body wrap that helps the dog become less reactive to anxiety-causing stimuli using deep touch pressure.
Research done in the latter half of the Twentieth Century by Dr. Temple Grandin, amongst others, demonstrated that deep touch pressure had significant positive benefits for individuals on the autism spectrum and those with ADHD. Dr. Grandin’s background with autism inspired her initial research with animals and it was discovered that they can receive the same positive results as seen in humans.
I initially began using the Thundershirt in my own home because Porthos, our black lab-mix, can display 
episodes of high anxiety related to his OCD, blood sugar fluctuations related to his diabetes, and stress from his other diseases. I also witnessed how well it worked after I suggested that we begin using Thundershirts at ARF, an animal shelter were I consult in Beacon, New York. While we did see similarly positive results in the even more chaotic and reactive atmosphere of a shelter we also saw some Thundershirt eating (more on that below).
So, why would you want a Thundershirt for your own dog?
Well, you wouldn’t if you don’t live in a place that has thunderstorms, high winds, holidays with fireworks, holidays with kids in spooky costumes knocking on your door at night, hunters in the woods behind your house shooting guns, etc. I think you get my point.
The Thundershirt is a great tool to add to our positive reinforcement training bag of tricks and it fills all my personal criteria:
One suggestion we have come across – especially in the shelter setting – is to remember that even for kids on the spectrum this kind of pressure has a limited time of effectiveness. Therefore remember that your dog’s Thundershirt will probably only be effective for an hour or so at a time. Simply remove it, give your dog something great to do, and a little while later it can be put back on them.
I find the Thundershirt to be a really good investment for anxious dogs and I think you will, too.
(Please note: if your dog has high anxiety please see a behaviorist before trying things out on your own.)
The Twist ‘n Treat is a great positive reinforcement tool to control speed eating in dogs as well as to keep them cognitively challenged.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
