Mistakes Your Dog Trainer Makes Part 1: Bear the Foster Dog

This is the first part in a many part series in which I’m going to discuss the mistakes I’ve made, what caused them, and how to prevent them in the future. It’s a great way to document training because only documenting my success would be 1) Uninteresting and 2) I would never give myself or anyone else the opportunity to learn from them.

The mistake I made this week has to do with a dog who is not food motivated.

I recently brought a foster dog home from my local Humane Society. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while and finally did the paperwork and attended the volunteer orientation to do it. The dog’s name is Bear and he is a German shepherd/Akita mix. They say he is 4 to 5 years old, but who really knows with the strays. He had major surgery on his front right leg so he needs a home to recover in.

The routine in my house for animals requires only a small bit of training. I like all the dogs that come into the house to wait at the door, wait for their food, and stay out of the kitchen. And as we all know by now, I want to use food to teach these behaviors faster than just brute forcing repetition.

Since we’re out relieving every 3-4 hours and I’m in the kitchen a lot, there are a lot of chances to practice. When he would walk into the kitchen, I’d walk over to him and he’d walk backwards out. I marked and gave him a piece of what I use to train Shimmer. He took the food, but without much enthusiasm. This continued for three days with the door and the kitchen. He just didn’t seem to be learning what I was trying to teach.

What was I doing wrong? Why does Bear not work with me very well? I came up with two answers.

The first answer I came up with is that I brought a shelter dog into my house, with no background information on him, and IMMEDIATELY tried to begin a training protocol with him. I didn’t take enough time to learn his needs and how he works best. Unfortunately, because of his leg, I can’t use play as a motivator, but that is beside the point. I didn’t let him get acclimated and destress before trying to get him to perform.

The second mistake, and I think the most valuable one to learn from, is that I actually trained him not to be motivated by the food I was offering. Bear needs 5 pills twice a day. I’m really familiar with just pilling a dog, but I really didn’t want to do it 10 times a day for 7 days. And because I don’t know Bear that well, that just seems like 70 opportunities for him to bite me. I decided to put his pills in a small spoonful of peanut butter to keep my hands out of his mouth.

Why is this a mistake? Let’s think of it like this. I offered him a ride in a Mercedes once a day, and then for the rest of the day he gets to ride in an old Ford with no a/c. One of them is extremely rewarding and is much more enjoyable than the Ford. The parallel here is that I know I’d rather just ride in the Mercedes once a day, and Bear would rather wait for the peanut butter.

How do I fix this? I narrowed it down to two options. The first option is that I can stop using peanut butter to pill Bear. I dislike this option, mostly because I’d rather use peanut butter for his and my sake (He loves it). My second, and prefered option, is that I use peanut butter, or something of similar value to train him. Every time I mark a behavior, I give him a lick or two of peanut butter from a spoon.

To generalize the lesson from this mistake, I did not properly assess what motivates Bear. Then I caught myself getting annoyed at myself that he wasn’t learning. Try to remember, 98% of the time, when your dog is not learning a behavior, there’s something wrong with the way you’re teaching it.

At the end of the week I’ll have an update with Bear’s progress.

Want to join the discussion? Leave me a comment, or shoot me a message on my Facebook or email me at Michael@concentricdog.com

Train Your Children to Train Dogs

One of the most fun things I’ve ever done, and unfortunately have had only a handful of opportunities to do, is work with children on training dogs. The children always love working with the dogs and the sense of confidence they get from having that sort of control over an animal is amazing to see. The children I’ve worked with definitely came out of their shells in just a few minutes to work with me and a dog for about an hour.

I think a part of the idea of family oriented training is having the children participate in the training as well. It is not just about molding your dog into a people person, it’s also about molding people into knowledgeable dog people. who are equipped with the knowledge to read a dog and know how to appropriately interact with and care for a dog.

We see on shelter dog evaluations is how dogs respond to young children. What this means is that there is special consideration taken with dogs around children. This is because children all bring different energy levels when meeting a dog and are often not aware enough of themselves or the dog to make good decisions.

Now, after finishing reading this article you decide to go through with training your children to train dogs, I still don’t feel like leaving young children and your dog unsupervised is a good idea. It’s up to your discretion and good judgment, but it just seem to me that it would cause more anguish than anything.

With all of that out of the way, let’s get into the mechanics of training children to train dogs. You’ll find that the most effective way to train dogs is often the most effective way to teach people (not just children). What you’ll do is keep everything positive and set up in a way that your child will be successful. Constantly berating the child for not getting right even after what you perceive to be “clear” instruction will only deter the child from ever trying again.

Does your dog know how to sit? Awesome, try having your child work the dog on commands he already knows. This way the dog gets treated easily, which will be nice for him, and your child will get a sense of accomplishment. Everyone is happy and that will make them want to continue to work.

After the initial stage of the dog and child getting comfortable with one another, it’s time to actually give your child a goal. A reasonable goal would be to get the dog to perform a slightly more elaborate version of a command he already knows. Have you taught your dog target training yet?(LINK). If your dog is small enough, have your child teach the dog to crawl between his legs. Or maybe even have your child teach the dog to sit in a chair. Any small thing that adds a bit of depth to an existing command/behavior.

While your child is working, it’s your chance to teach and analyze how he/she is doing. What’s great about teaching dog training, even if you don’t think of yourself as the best trainer, is that you learn how to be better by teaching.

What are you looking for? The two big things I watch for are 1) tone of voice and 2) body language. When giving anything instructions, even our friends and family, we tend to bark them rather like a drill sergeant. Not only will this meanness cause the dog to shut down, but I don’t see it as a good idea to instil that sort of behavior in a child.

Luckily, children’s voice are naturally higher than an adult’s, which normally means that dogs will respond with at least some attentiveness. Encourage your child to keep using that high pitched voice. Avoid sharp, laser like commands. Even though the pitch is high, it can still be smooth and relaxed, just like your child’s body language should be.

The first few things I learned when I got serious with my dog training skills were to relax my shoulders and relax my grip on the leash. Someone pointed out to me that my knuckles were turning white and this was due to my fear that my dog would run away. Then I was told my dog was pulling because I was nervous. I relaxed my body language, and while it didn’t solve the loose leash walking problem completely, it did remove one factor contributing to the pulling.

Now with that relaxed body language, your child could even hold the dog’s leash on walks. Freeing your hands up for other children or even your loved one. Everyone gets to enjoy each other’s company a bit more.

Family oriented training means everyone is involved and included. 

Do you have any strategies for working with your children and dogs together? Leave me a comment here, on my Facebook, or email me at Michael@concentricdog.com.

Learning How to Learn: Teaching Your Dog New Tricks

What does learning how to learn look like? Let’s consider this situation. You are opening the bag of treats and your dog immediately sits. Your dog is offering a sit in exchange for a treat. He has learned what gets him the treat. The next time you go to give your dog a treat, just hold it and wait to see what he does. What I most often see is the dog will scoot and sit closer to you. He’ll whine or growl. Maybe he’ll jump or offer a paw to shake. This is what it looks like for your dog to learn how to learn.

Other than watching your dog do a little dance of frustration to get a treat, teaching your dog like this is useful for adding new behaviors, like tricks. What we’re doing is waiting for the dog to offer a behavior and then rewarding it. Waiting for the behavior requires patience and attention to detail. It’s not just patience from the human, it’s patience from your dog as well. which is not only making your dog smarter, we’re giving him better manners too.

I mentioned using this to teach tricks. Let’s say you want to teach your dog how to sit in a chair. We get to use your dog’s frustration to our advantage. Hold a treat above a chair. What is the first thing your dog does? I do a lot of jumping type things with Shimmer, so her first instinct would be to jump up on the chair with her front two legs. That jumping behavior is in her repertoire of behaviors to get treats, which means she has learned to offer those behaviors first. She has learned the best way to process the information given to her. Is there a treat above my head? Then I must jump to get it.

Let’s examine this quick video of getting Shimmer to jump up on a chair. It went about exactly as I suspected it would. What you’ll notice are three distinct phases in the process. 1) Figuring out what is being asked of her 2) Frustration and offering behaviors to unlock the next treat and 3) Figuring out what I’ve asked of her.

What is slightly unfair about this example is that I’ve been working with Shimmer since I got her three years ago. What about if you dog is brand new to this sort of training? Then I don’t think it would be reasonable to teach him to sit in a chair right off the bat.

Here are some easy, non-standard things to teach your dog to learn how to learn. I won’t go over the exact procedure for each of them, so I will try to provide a link with more information. There’s no sense in covering a topic that someone else has covered so thoroughly already.

1) Target training

2) Shake. This can be transitioned into Wave (Just a Shake without you grabbing the dog’s hand)

3) Crawl: This is great for getting your dog to learn hind leg awareness. There are also many different factors, such as keep their body low to the ground, how fast they should crawl, distance, etc.

What these tricks have in common is that you are not forcing your dog to do anything. In the books, they’d call this sort of training shaping/capturing. What it does is forces the dog to think independently and create strategies for solving problems. It gets your dog to recognize patterns and apply previously acquired knowledge.

My favorite thing about this style of training is that it instills more confidence in your dog, both your confidence in him and his confidence in himself. I need and use this a lot because Shimmer is an anxious, not-so-self-confident dog. She’s always at her best whenever she’s learning new things.

My final note about this style of training is that when you mentally stimulate your dog, he’ll be less likely to destroy your house/property. I own so few things of value as it is (computer and guitar really) that I  want to protect those things as much as possible.

Feel like I got it all wrong? Don’t know how to apply this directly to your dog? Leave me a comment here, on Facebook, or shoot me an email at Michael@concentricdog.com

Boredom and Monotony in Training

My training style tends to be a little bit slower than I think most of my clients prefer. I like working on commands and proofing* before moving onto more complicated things. I think what this process does is equips the dog owner with the knowledge to train commands on their own because I will not always be there. Regardless of my justification, and regardless of how well trained my client’s dogs end up being, I still receive complaints of boredom. And understandably so. Clients don’t want to work on loose leash walking by standing still in their house, then at their front door, then one step at a time, then a few steps at a time. It can be legitimately monotonous to wait up to 4 weeks to walk a dog five steps of loose leash.

*Proofing a command or behavior means working on it in a way that makes it so the dog will perform under any circumstance and level of distraction.

Here’s my justification for boredom and monotony in training and what I have clients do when they express concerns.

I want dogs to not only learn a command. I want them to learn how to learn. This to me is the mark of a good dog trainer. When we teach a dog to learn how to learn then we make it easier and faster to train dogs. The grunt work for this process is not easy or fast though, and that is one of the reasons why it feels boring. It takes a lot to lay the foundation, but once it is there learning happens rapidly.

Another way I justify the boredom in training is that in order to train well, we have to repeat the same stuff all the time. And repeating stuff is boring. There’s nothing to do about that. It’s unfortunate, but it’s a fact of life and of dog training. For the sake of our dog’s and our own quality of life, I think it is necessary to suck it up from time to time. More often than not, training sessions don’t last for longer than 15 minutes anyway.

I cannot prevent boredom for my clients. It’s such an individual and subjective thing. My go-to for helping alleviate boredom is simple trick training. For this, I do not give much direction to my clients. It’s their time to figure out what works and what does not. I’ll tell to try to teach their dog how to shake, roll over, nose their hand, or any number of easy, one-step procedures.

What we get with these easy commands is something new with a quickly achievable goal. Getting a dog to shake is not a month long process. This takes a week at most (generally). The sense of satisfaction that comes with teaching a new command fuels the training for the seemingly less glorious things.

Not only is it boosting morale, it also gets my clients more involved and into dog training, and thus builds a better relationship for the client and their dog. It all comes back to family oriented training. Everyone gets to be together under positive pretenses and everyone feels closer and more connected.

If you have anything you’d like to add to the conversation, leave me a comment here, on my Facebook, or shoot me an email at Michael@concentricdog.com.

Story Time: The Woman Who Almost Got Her Customer Bit

With how much Shimmer likes to chew, I’m constantly looking for a great deal on chew toys. Luckily, my local Humane Society has really great prices and they don’t charge sales tax. I don’t know how they can do it, but they’re normally about $2 cheaper than PetSmart. At 2 new toys a month, at $15 a toy, this adds up.

My mom was in town for the weekend so we went to the store together. We took our time looking around, checking out the dogs and cats they had there. We also like to people watch and eaves drop. The things people say about their pets are really endearing, even if they are over the top.

We heard a woman talking with the employee at the store about a dog she just inherited from a deceased family member. The customer was asking for training advice because she has no idea what to do about the dog as it was causing problems in her life. She listed problems with nipping and aggression. These sounds like standard problems from an older shepherd mix with no previous training. What I heard next astounded me.

The employee suggested that the woman “grab the dog by the scruff, pin him to the ground with your elbows, and stare him straight in the eyes. You have to show him who is in charge.” To the customer, a mom of at least 2 children under 10 (they were with her in the store) this sounded like an amazing solution to her problem. She was so excited to go home and show her new dog who is in charge.

I’ve been trying to avoid speaking about the usefulness of dominance theory in dog training. I feel like the topic has been spoken about so much that I’d be beating the dead horse. Dominance based training is dangerous and unsafe and can border on animal abuse when used improperly. I guess my concern for the safety of the mom and her kids inspired this.

Here is a list of all the problems with what the employee said to the customer:

1) She is a storefront manager, not a dog trainer. Even if she was a dog trainer, she was giving advice outside of a dog training setting. The liability of giving information is one of the reasons why doctors don’t give medical advice outside of their office/appointment. This situation is no different. Why do you think most trainers carry some sort of insurance? We’re protecting ourselves.

2) The customer is going to get bit. Or her children will get bit. At her new dog’s current state, the dog is dangerous and already proven liable to bite. What’s going to happen when the mom acts violent towards an already violent dog? The dog is going to become more violent. It’s only going to inspire an angrier dog that’s going to bite more. This is going to lead the mom to call the dog aggressive, when it is just defending itself, and she’ll end up putting the dog down for “safety” reasons.

3) The advice of pinning the down is abusive. When I have problems with my friends or family I don’t get to just hit them in the face and expect everything to solved. The world doesn’t work that way. I’d get the cops called on me and my friend wouldn’t speak to me ever again. What I did was abuse my friend and what the employee is telling the customer to do is that same thing. And it becomes even worse when pushing the dog around is used more to relieve frustrations than it is to train the dog.

And finally… 4) Dominance style training blames the victim. Very rarely is a dog born inherently violent or just mean spirited. Those sorts of traits have to be bred for, more often than not. Dogs acquire these less than desirable behaviors because, even without the person knowing, they are rewarded for it. The customers dog, somewhere down the line, was rewarded for biting at people. The dog was trained that way and, if the employee had her way, would punish the dog for doing what it was trained to do. Imagine getting smacked in the head for using the toilet. You were trained to do it all your life, but now, all of a sudden, it’s not okay and you must stop.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about dominance style training, leave a comment here, on my Facebook, or send me an email at Michael@concentricdog.com

The Cost of Owning a Dog

It’s about a month before most colleges start again. During this season, it seems as though students like to turn their lives even more upside-down and (hopefully) adopt or buy a dog. I think this is a great idea. My opinion stands contrary to a lot of other trainers and that is mostly because I’ve recently been a college student with a dog. Having a dog, and doing it right, I feel adds more stability, more maturity, and a more accurate representation of what life outside of college is going to be like. Emergencies come up, scheduling time can become a nightmare, and sometimes caring for another living creature can be exhausting.

When I talk with someone about what it takes to own a dog, I’m normally faced with lifestyle and training questions. These questions are really important and having a conversation with anyone, not just a professional trainer, will illuminate you to so many ideas that you never even considered. And what’s even better about these conversations is that emotionally, you get in the zone of dog ownership. Phrasing getting a dog as “rescuing” really get’s the emotional blood flowing.

There’s one catch to this conversation: how much does it cost to get a dog? And I’m not talking about licensing, shots, and adoption fees. I’m talking serious long term costs for food, boarding, training, time, equipment, and toys.

Let’s break it down to the different phases of dog ownership. For ease, we’re going to have three different phases. Phase 1 being bringing your dog home, Phase 2 being learning your dog’s needs, and Phase 3 being meeting your dog’s needs forever.

Phase 1: Bringing Your Dog Home

This is the cost to walk out the door of a shelter with a dog. I will talk about shelter dogs exclusively because I feel in most cases, a person should adopt a dog from a shelter. Here are the costs for walking out the door of a shelter with a dog. I will be using information from my local shelters and rescue groups to inform this budget.

Adoption fee:         $50

Licensing Fee:      $16

Total:                     $66

So now you’re out the door. What do you need for your dog at home?

Leash:       $10

Collar:        $10

Toys:          $30

Bowl:          $5

Kennel       $50-$100 depending on size

Food:         $40 (we’re not buying Old Yeller brand. Pick a good food)

Total:          $145-$195

Our grand total to minimally provide for a brand new dog is between $211 and $261. Of course you can find used or hand-me-downs to reduce these costs. Either way, you’re looking at $200 just to get a dog out the shelter door and into yours. Once your dog is in the door, give him some time to settle and learn about each other for a few weeks. Then move on to phase 2.

Phase 2: Learning Your Dogs Needs

At this point, your know your dog pretty well. If he’s like most shelter dogs, he didn’t come out of the box perfect and needs some training. Maybe he needs a special diet or only like special toys. This is also a great time to get him to your favorite vet and get him checked out. For the information here, I’m going to use training costs from my business and average procedure prices from my local vets over my years of dog ownership.

Here is what I feel a price list for a year will cost:

Training:                                               $360-$640 depending on length of time the dog/owner                                                                                   needs to learn

Food (This cost never goes away):    $480

Vet Visit:                                               $40 to walk in the door

Tests:                                                   $50-$150 depending on what the doctor orders

New Toys:                                            $40

New Leash:                                         $15

New Collar:                                          $15

Bath Supplies:                                     $10

Bed:                                                     $20

Total:                                                    $1030 - $1410

This phase lasts about a year. The sticker shock here is enormous. The average price, $1220, spread out over a year is about $102 a month. Granted you could try to learn to train your dog by yourself, he may not need new clothes or a bed, and a hose off in the backyard may be just fine. But I know a lot of dog owners and their children are all spoiled rotten. It also feels good to buy these sorts of things for our dogs.

If someone can make it a year without taking their dog to a vet for some sort of illness, then your dog must be the healthiest dog on the planet.

So far, just after 1 year, a dog can cost anywhere from $1241 to $1671. But the good news is, you have your dog! You have a relationship with another living creature and you get to share that excitement for a long time. Now that begs the question, what about the rest of your dog’s life?

Phase 3: Meeting Your Dog’s Need Forever

My favorite age for dogs is between 2 and 3 years. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is amazing to watch and I feel it’s where most of the bonding and growing happens in the person and the dog. Now what does it cost you to keep him for another 10 years?

Food $40/month/year:            $4800

Vet visits once a year:            $1500

Toys:                                       $500

Beds:                                      $200

New clothes:                           $200

Total:                                       $7200

What’s unfortunate about this number is that it can vary so widely. I gave you what I feel to be the minimum. This number does not reflect possible emergency vet visits ($500 minimum), boarding (most places charge from $30-$50 a night), more training ($240 or more), or even treats.This number reflects the bare minimum to own a dog.

I hope this does not frighten anyone away from dog ownership. It’s just a reality people need to face before their emotional high of rescuing and saving a life gets destroyed faster than their bank account.

I think the hardest financial burden of owning a dog is not how much it costs, but how much it costs at one time.That’s to say, you can’t spread that $150 vet visit over a couple months, it’s due right then and there. If owning a dog was a monthly payment of $75, i’m sure that would be a lot easier for some people than all the money at once.

Make sure you and your wallet are ready for a dog. Their lives are dependent on yours.

If you feel I forgot something or want to join in on the conversation, leave me a comment, send me an email at Michael@concentricdog.com, or find me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/concentricdogtraining.