It’s all about results, don’t you know!

Hello Dog Owners!

This is killing me! I’ve decided that I’m not going to talk about this subject any more as it’s a complete waste of time and effort.

It’s all over the place, non-consistent and an absolute nightmare. So from this day forward I absolutely refuse to speak about it.

“What is it?”, you may ask. Well…. It’s quite simply….

The Weather!

Moving swiftly on……

I’ve had a good couple of weeks since the last newsletter and one of the core things that has really raised my spirits is agility.

I’ve been taking little Joey (my little rescue, now 10 month old, Rhodesian Ridge-back X) to agility training, which at first was a bit questionable. Over the past couple of weeks though he is really starting to come into his own and is really enjoy it.

The more we just stick to our training and keep going over things time and again, the more it clicks and he gets it – me too!

For my clients, it’s about training them and it’s no different for me and agility. I’m being trained and at times it’s a challenge, for sure!

It’s so lovely though, being able to engage doing a sport such as this and even though we are training under the expert supervision of a fully fledged competitive agility instructor, we’re not taking things serious at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I take all dog training seriously, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and more often than not, if the dog isn’t doing it right, it’s the handler that’s usually at fault.

Yep, that’s me!

We’re both learning so much and having a heap of fun and it can only get more funner(?) from here.

Why not take some time to think about some of the things that you might enjoy doing with your dog that will increase your engagement, be really fun and bring your relationship up to another level?

I promise you, it’ll be worth it!

So, let’s get to it…

SO, YOU SAY YOU WANT A WELL-TRAINED DOG…

I was having a conversation with somebody the other day about people. Specifically about how people that he knew seemed to say one thing, but did something completely different.

To be a bit more specific, he had a group of people he knew who was talking with him over the space of a few weeks, saying how they were bored and sometimes found it hard to get out and about, so just stayed at home and watched TV for the most part. Especially at weekends.

They told him that they needed something to motivate them. Something to get up for. Something to get them out and about in the sunshine and fresh air.

Seeing as a fair few people had spoken with him about this over a few weeks and in light of the fact that the weather had cheered up a fair bit recently (Nope! I’m not talking about it!), he decided to arrange to go out for a stroll in the park and have a coffee and chat.

He thought it would help to give some of the guys a reason to get out of the house.

Did they?

Nope! In actual fact out of around 20 people who had shared their views with him, absolutely nobody – 0% of people – showed up! Nada, nobody.

He was fuming and we got talking about people, human nature and what people will actually do rather than what they say they will do, while we were out walking the dogs.

But here’s the thing – people do this all the time!

Whether it’s going out to the pub, or a wedding, a day out or just a coffee and cake, people always say one thing and do another.

And it’s the same with dog training.

A lot of people moan about how their dog pulls on the leash or has absolutely rubbish recall and then start following up with all the reasons why they think this is.

Well, it’s quite simple really. Your dog pulls because you haven’t taught it not to and it doesn’t come back because you haven’t taught it to.

More specifically, you as the owner of the dog, haven’t taken the necessary time to teach them how not to pull on leash. Instead, it is likely that your dog has been taught how to pull on leash due to lack of accountability and showing it what it is expected to do.

Similarly, you maybe haven’t taken the necessary effort to teach your dog how to come back to you when called. The facts could be that you have actually taught your dog how not to come back to you.

So how is this?

Well…

If you haven’t shown your dog how to interpret leash pressure and what to do when they feel it and they haven’t been made accountable for walking too far away from you, praised for walking with you and given clear and concise communication, then they have actually been taught to walk the way that they do.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t!

If you have called them to come back and when they refuse you end up going to them, put their leash on and take them away from the fun, then you have taught your dog that it doesn’t need to come back to you as you’re always there.

Anyway, why would it come back as it knows it’s going on leash and probably going to be taken home! Therefore, ending the fun!

What will it do next time, when it knows it’s going home? You guessed it….

Training takes effort and you need to show your dog what you want from it using clear methods.

Is it difficult? No, not really.

Is it hard?

Well, that depends on you a lot of the time. It can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be, for the most part.

Will your dog always walk on a loose leash?

Nope! A dog will always and repeatedly, test a boundary and it’s what you do when that happens that is vital to continued success.

Will your dog always come back when called?

Absolutely not! Instinct will always override obedience, but if you can maintain a friendly, well-mannered dog with 90%+ recall success, then you are doing better than 99.9% of all other dog owners.

That, my friends, is good enough for me!

In actual fact it’s super-fantastic!

There are a growing group of dog trainers around the world, that argue that all dogs should have 100% recall, 100% of the time in 100% of environments and the owner should be 100% in control of their dog 100% of the time.

Firstly, I prefer not to argue. Secondly, I prefer to live in reality.

All of the dogs that I personally train were leash pullers. Within two or three 20-minute sessions they were walking nicely on a loose leash. After a few months, they are consistently successful in walking on a loose leash 95% of the time…ish.

How many people can say that about their dog?

So, after all this waffle, what’s my point?

Well, quite simply you need to ask yourself that poignant question, “Do I really want what I say I want?”

And if you do…. “Am I willing to put in the work and effort to get to the place where I say I want to be with Fido?”

In short…

“Do I REALLY want a trained dog and am I actually prepared to put the work in to do it?”

Many people say they do, but are absolutely not prepared to put in the work….

What about you?

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HOW GOING FOR A WALK COULD END IN TEARS

I will never forget that morning where I was walking along the promenade in my home seaside town with Jake, my then 2 year-old white German Shepherd.

He loved fetching stones – rocks some would say – but more realistically large round cobbled stones picked up from the beach that were sometimes double the size of a tennis ball, although not perfectly round.

Our routine was similar in the morning, as I took him out prior to going to work, so that he was exercised and worn out until I came home at lunch-time.

We walked from the house to the park, a short 2 minute stroll, then down on to the promenade and the beach. We had a swim in the summer months, together, before collecting stones on the beach to roll along the concrete promenade – and boy, did they roll!

He used to chase them until we got to the lighthouse, then it was on the beach for a play, then up along the roadway home – unless we were in an extra hurry or it was a particularly lovely morning, in which case we re-traced our steps along the beach and back to the park, sometimes running almost all of the way.

One particular sunny summer morning we got to the promenade and started rolling stones (Wasn’t that a rock group or something?) to chase. As usual he belted along the promenade chasing this one particular stone and then all of a sudden, BAM!

He hit the deck, let out a scream, rolled for a while and laid there briefly until he tried to get up – he couldn’t!

As I got closer I saw that there was blood everywhere. What the…..?

Then the picture became clear. Smashed glass bottles all over the place. Jake had run through the glass and sliced almost all of his pads in two….completely in two! Both the front pads and the back pads were affected, but the front ones were particularly bad.

So now I had a very large white adult German Shepherd that couldn’t walk and I had to get him home. Nobody else was about. Thinking on my feet, I quickly took off my shoes and socks and used my socks as bandages for his front 2 feet.

I tied them … tight.

His back feet would have to be fine. I just needed to get him home.

It seemed like a long way back.

It usually took about 10 minutes to get to that point, but carrying a large injured dog in my arms was a slog, a real slog. I rested for a minute here and there and eventually we were back home.

First Aid kit at the ready!

His feet were a total mess. I cleaned them best I could, padded them with cotton wool and gauze and then put some clean socks over them to keep them on, securing them at the top. The vet wouldn’t be open for another 2 hours and I had a half hour drive to get to the one that done stitching!

Soon enough he was all patched up, but healing was a long road. I had to carry him everywhere. To the garden, to his bed, to the car…everywhere. Oh, and I needed to take 2 weeks off work at a moments notice!

His poor little(?) feet bled for days and every time they healed a bit, he would get eager to walk and they would split open a bit again. Luckily the stitches held and after a month the worst was over, but the road to recovery was slow.

It was almost 3 months until he was fully healed!

In the last issue of DOT News, I covered How to train your dog to pull on leash, as a bit of a tongue-in-cheek article. It was all about not being engaged with your dog, not being present while walking your dog and spending the time walking your dog on the phone, listening to music or chatting.

Are you looking where you’re going?

Are you paying attention to where your dog is going?

As I walk along the roads, lanes and common areas around the town with my little lad, I am constantly seeing freshly smashed glass scattered all over the pavement. I think back to my experience and wonder how many little dogs have got split pads or slivers of glass stuck in their feet.

My thoughts always goes back to Jake’s horrific experience.

There was no way I could have known that there would be glass that distance in-front of me. I still felt guilty though.

But that’s how quickly a great happy fun-filled walk can end in misery, very, very quickly.

And the people who smash the glass?

They don’t care.

Kids more than likely, teenagers, who don’t even consider animals or even young children who may fall over. Nobody ever knows who they are and they are never held accountable.

I have often thought that if I had known who smashed the glass that Jake ran through, that I would force them to walk … no, run … bare feet through smashed bottles!

There are two additional points here; the first is that although you may be able to see larger pieces of glass, there could well be, and usually is, tiny needle-like glass slithers that can embed themselves in your dogs feet.

The second and worst thing I’ve seen recently? Smashed glass in long grass on a field where people let their dogs off-leash!

Stay engaged, stay present, enjoy the walks with your dog, keep an eye out for glass and give it a wide berth. If you can’t, then don’t trust your beloved pet will be OK – pick them up – if you can’t ask somebody to do it for you and if you can’t get past it safely then turn back and find a different way.

Stay vigilant!

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RESULTS: THE 4 QUICKEST AND EASIEST WAYS TO GET THEM

So you’ve just started doing obedience with your dog and you want to know how to get results fast!

Here, we’re going to cover some really simple strategies and pointers that will rocket you ahead of the rest and get your dog on-track with their training.

TECHNIQUE

Before you can start any training you need to have a clear idea of the technique(s) you are going to use to get you to your goal. Rather than re-invent the wheel, it’s easier to use the same techniques and strategies others have used to reach success.

This makes them Proven Techniques.

REPETITION

Putting in the reps with obedience training is akin to putting in the reps at the gym. Just doing one rep every time you went wouldn’t see you getting results any time soon.

Having said that, it’s important not to drill your dog.

Trying to get them to perform the same behaviour time and time again, one after the other leads to boredom and frustration for the dog and it will soon give up and refuse to train.

Not only that but a dog that has been “trained to dislike training”is a dog that’s difficult to train, as it can ruin the dogs view of training.

Especially if the owner gets frustrated and starts shouting and man-handling the dog – how is that ever exciting and why would the dog look forward to the next training session if this was a thing?

Performing the same techniques a few times in different sessions, in different places, using different rewards (food, toy, praise) and mixing things up with play, can keep training fun and puts in the required reps.

But stay vigilant! See how your dog is responding and take that into account.

If your dog did just one perfect rep and you praised it just at the right time, leave that exercise be and move on to something else. If the dog seems unmotivated, maybe consider working on slower things like position work (sit, down, stand, place, stay).

However, if your dog is in a super playful mood and you can get loads of reps into that play session, absolutely do that too!

CONSISTENCY

This is the bit that people fail to be for duration. We are all fallible and when we can’t see enough progress we tend to lose motivation and give up.

But it’s a battle of wills and if your will wins, then you will see massive changes in your dog, fast!

This doesn’t mean being nasty though, but it does mean showing up and doing the work.

As long as you know that the strategy you are using works, keeping with it and going over it the same way each and every time, will have your dog trained in no-time.

It goes without saying, if there is more than one handler/trainer then it is imperative that you all do exactly the same thing, otherwise … forget it!

CLEAR COMMUNICATION

Another thing that is important, is to be able to communicate to your dog what it has done right, so that it can repeat that behaviour and what it has done wrong, so it can stop doing that behaviour.

You could say that you are teaching your dog right from wrong and really, you are!

Once you have a good method of communicating these points to your dog effectively, then both behaviour change and behaviour shaping are firmly on the cards.

There are a number of methods of communicating these things to your dog and we shall look at some of them over the comings weeks.

In the meantime, keep putting in the work and don’t give up – you’ll be well ahead of others that do.

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ENGAGEMENT: RUN-WALK-RUN

I love having ideas and this one is a fun one to try if you feel like a challenge.

If you’re into running or fitness then you may be familiar with the “Run Walk Run” method of training and I thought this would be a good idea for dog training too.

I have always done this with the dogs that I train and it’s marvellous in keeping your dog engaged with you while out on a walk or in a training session, as it keeps them guessing.

Unlike the “Run Walk Run” method though, we won’t be using a beeper or keeping to timed intervals, instead we’re going freestyle!

THE METHOD

This is sooooo easy it’s silly.

All you need to do when walking along with your dog, is suddenly start jogging, running, sprinting, or just increase your pace slightly.

Why not do all of them at different times?

After you have been going along for a short while at a faster pace, go back to walking normally and even maybe a little slower.

There you go, it’s that simple and a lot of fun for your dog.

Dogs pick up patterns quite quickly, so be sure not to keep to the same number of steps for each interval. If you do, you may just find them predicting your next move!

Why not take it up a notch and teach your dog some new commands?

• Just before you increase your speed (about 2 seconds prior), say “Quickly!”, then increase your pace.
• Just before slowing down to your normal walking pace, say your “Heel” command.
• Say “Slow” just before slowing down to a snails pace, and…
• “Ruuuuun!” just prior to a sprint!

In a very short time you have a whole heap of new commands you can use when walking, to speed up and slow down your dog!

Of course, you don’t have to say a word and you can just change your pace readily. This will make your dog even more attentive as they need to keep a close eye on your new unpredictable and erratic behaviour!

If your dog doesn’t keep up on time and runs out of leash … just keep going. Don’t stop for them, otherwise they’ll never learn.

Be fair though and don’t sprint with a dog that has short legs or a squashed up nose – they won’t be able to keep up!

That’s it for another issue, I hope you have uncovered some useful training tips that you can get going with today!

Until next time,

Happy Training!

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

– Stuart