Behavior Suppression Is Not the Same as Behavior Modification
By Jenny Efimova Reactive behavior is the tip of the iceberg. It’s what we see: the lunging, the barking, the snarling, the growling, etc. It’s what’s above the surface and it’s what we often want to stop. What we don’t see and what’s driving this behavior is the rest of the iceberg below: the fear, the anxiety, the stress, the frustration. So if we want the behavior to change, we need to look at the root cause, not just the symptoms. When we change how a dog feels about a… Continued
Dog Tired? When Exercise Wakes him Up Rather than Tires Him Out!
By Sue McCabe Many years ago, at a seminar in Edinburgh, I heard Patricia McConnell say that most dog walks wake the dog up, rather than tire the dog out. ‘But why is he not tired?’ I’m often asked. ‘I’ve taken him for a really long walk.’ We’re just back from a 10km walk followed by a sandwich in the sun. A good brisk march with plenty of variation from sniffing and fetching, meeting and greeting dogs and even swimming. Despite this apparent morning of stimulation, after we arrived home, Jellybean… Continued
How to Make the Transition to Full-Time Dog Pro
By Veronica Boutelle of PPG corporate partner, dogbiz If your dream is to work with dogs for a living but you’re still toiling full time outside the dog industry, or juggling a part-time business alongside your “real” job, you need a transition plan: A plan to get you from where you are now to working full-time in your own dog training or dog walking business. Here’s what should go into yours: Determine feasibility. Feasibility is a comparison of revenue to expenses. Is your business set up to make what you… Continued
How Long Does It Take to Train a Dog?
By Sue McCabe At puppy class recently, we started retrieve training. Students were shown this video (below), with the steps needed to train a reliable retrieve to hand. The video compresses quite a bit of learning (weeks of short sessions) into just under 2 minutes of demonstration. ‘How long did it take to train?’ they asked. I guess the answer is never straight forward and well, it depends. https://www.facebook.com/muttamorphosisDogTrainingandBehaviour/videos/1377284962322971/ ‘How long will it take to train my dog?’ is a common question trainers and behaviour consultants get asked. To understand what influences… Continued
10 Ways To Improve You and Your Dog’s Behavioral Relationship
Sometimes we get a little stuck in a rut, same old, same old – its easy, life is fast, time is hard to come by. Have you ever sat and thought about your relationship with your dog? Too often it’s only when things go wrong that we contemplate uh oh..what can I do here to change things! How often have you looked inwardly and actually evaluated the things you do, the way your dog responds and wondered if you’re happy with the things are or whether different options exist? 1… Continued
The “Invention” of Cues in Training
Once upon a time, there was a girl who decided to teach her dog some tricks. She figured out that if she gave her dog something he liked after he did something she liked, he was liable to do the thing again. So she taught him some simple tricks using food and play as reinforcement. As she went along, her dog started finding playing training games lots of fun in and of themselves. But she still used food and play. He liked earning his “pay” and she liked giving it… Continued
Does Your Animal Have Control?
By Karolina Westlund Ph.D. of PPG corporate partner Illis Animal Behaviour Consulting Many animal trainers, veterinarians and pet owners highlight the importance of controlling animals. Controlling them, as in restricting the animals’ movement, their choices and their opportunities to control their environment through their behaviour. Sometimes you have to, for safety reasons. Obviously. But often you don’t – and more often than you might think. Actually, the trend in modern animal training is to deliberately and strategically shift control from the handler to the animal, while still staying safe. Giving control to the animal… Continued
The Reality of TV Dog Training
By Niki Tudge and Susan Nilson In recent years, much creditable scientific study has been given to dog training and behavior modification methods and their respective efficacy and consequences. The preponderance of the evidence shown by these studies indicates that the implementation of training and/or behavior modification protocols predicated upon outdated “dominance theory” and social structures (“alpha,” or “pack leader”), usage of physical or mental force, intimidation, coercion or fear are empirically less effective and often create as a consequence “fallout” behaviors, such as fear, aggression, global suppression of behavior,… Continued
Dog Training: Why I Do It
By Joanne Ometz Eight people enter the room with five puppies. I encourage whole families to attend my puppy classes. “Let’s get everyone on the same page,” I have told them, so parents, kids, couples, and single puppy parents arrive, leading or being led by their puppies. All take their places, sitting and immediately beginning to lower treats to the floor by their young dogs, who begin to slow down, sit, or lie down, to settle. Soon, we have a room full of quiet people with puppies lying at their… Continued
Treats that Beat Squirrels!
By Yvette Van Veen Treats that Beat Squirrels! What if I told you that tiny little treats could beat a high level distraction like a squirrel? It doesn’t seem to make sense. The distraction is clearly more desirable than a paltry pea sized biscuit. It would be like saying that people would choose to work for a strawberry rather than sloth by the pool with a six pack of cold ones. The temptation to sip the more appealing beer holds greater value than a four calorie berry. It seems reasonable to conclude that beers would… Continued
Dispelling the Myths: Tuggy, Retrieve and Safe Play
By Sue McCabe I still regularly hear from clients that they have been told they shouldn’t play tug with their dog. It causes aggression; it creates a hard mouthed dog who will damage game (if you’re into that sort of thing); you’ll never get a decent hold if you teach tug. I still hear the only way to play tug safely is to make sure the human always win the game. Would you really want to play with someone who always wins? Let’s get things straight. It is possible to play tug and allow… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: The Journey of a Crossover Trainer
By Nichola Marshall This is going to sound like an Oscar acceptance speech and it kind of is because I feel like I have won something very special – a change of perspective. So before I start crying I want to say, “thank you” to all of you for sharing your experiences and being supportive, thank you for being tolerant of my “noobie” questions and comments, thank you to the late PPG steering committee member Anne Springer and, most of all, thank you to whoever it was who said, “Don’t… Continued
Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Started Training Dogs – Gus, the Dominance Myth, An Alpha Roll, and a Damaged Relationship
By Don Hanson In a recent interview, I was asked a series of questions about how to choose a dog trainer. One of the questions was “What would you like to have known when you started training dogs?” In the spring of 1991, I had a new 12-week old Cairn Terrier puppy named Gus. I had no knowledge of dog training, but a desire to learn. I started to learn by reading two of the most popular dog training books at the time; How to Be Your Dog’s Best Friend and Mother Knows… Continued
The ‘Quick Fix’ – Not So Quick After All
In today’s society, it seems everything has to happen ‘now.’ Results are expected instantaneously and I think, sadly, this notion has to a certain extent worked it’s way into how we think, feel, and live our lives with our dogs too. Time is precious, and we haven’t always got space for ‘issues’ our dogs may throw at us or, if we have, there must be some quick solution. I am very fortunate in that the majority of dog owners I work with, truly understand that to achieve the results you… Continued
Teach Your Dog to Cooperate with Grooming and Vet Visits
By Debbie Bauer Brushing, combing, cutting toenails, being held for vet examinations and treatment – these things are a part of life for our dogs. These aren’t events that will happen once and never again. Instead, these are lifelong skills that our dogs will need to learn to deal with as ongoing events in their lives. Yet these are also things that some dogs get very stressed about. The good news is that we can teach our dogs to think more positively about all of these activities, and we can… Continued
The Last Trip To the Vet: What If Your Pet’s Last Breath Is on the Operating Table?
Alex in the foreground, with Rusty and Andrew behind him—photo from 1993. Yes, they are in a bathtub. Many years ago I lost Alexander, my dear, dear cat to stomach cancer. This was before veterinary medicine had the technology that’s available today. It was also before I took as proactive an approach to my animals’ health and welfare needs as I do now. I knew nothing about training or socialization. My cats were not crate- or carrier-trained. I didn’t know to use counterconditioning, desensitization, and habituation to teach them that… Continued
Skipping Reinforcements? Rethink That
By Yvette Van Veen We’ve all heard it. “When do the rewards stop?” The knee jerk reaction by many, especially on social media is to cave, to placate, to give the client at least some of what. ” Variable reinforcement, skip rewards. It will actually make the behaviour stronger!” Not….so….fast. Skipping reinforcements (rewards) does make a behaviour more resistant to extinction. Think of constant pay as a soda pop machine. Put in coin. Get a soda. Broken machine? You walk off pretty fast. You’re unlikely to put in another coin, at… Continued
What Makes a Pet Fence Humane?
By Jennifer Smith of EasyPetFence.com, a PPG corporate partner Dog trainers, animal shelters and pet owners alike choose to fence-in yards for several reasons. For one, pet fencing allows dogs and cats to exercise; play; and socialize with other animals. Fencing is convenient for pet owners that may not have nearby dog parks to visit, or much time to take their dogs on adventure hikes or lengthy jogs. And, pet fencing keeps domestic animals secure and protected against potential wildlife attacks. While there are many types of pet fence on the… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: Changing a Dog’s View of the World
By Kathleen Godfrey As a trainer, my goal is to help to help both dogs and their guardians have the best possible life together. New client Angie heard about me through a friend I’d helped the friend work with a rather “wild” foster dog (he was truly a good dog, he just had no idea what behavior was expected of him and so we had to teach him). The dog did a 180 degree turn and is now happy with his forever family. But back to Angie and her dog,… Continued
‘Spring Clean’ Your Relationship!
Spring’s here (almost), the weather’s improving, the mud’s drying, the morning’s are getting lighter and the day’s longer and you just feel better. So why not use this time to think about how you and your dog work together? It’s a great time for positive change! NEW WALKS It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut, we all live busy lives and time is always of short supply. Dogs love to use their extra special senses to good advantage, so think about where’s local that you haven’t explored yet… Continued
Portland Blog Competition: Conflict vs. Cooperation
By Marie Selarque At the time of writing, Bix was almost 8 months old and was staying with me for board and train. The focus of his training was jumping and biting, but the truth is, he taught me as much as I taught him. Silly me though, I did not initially get quite enough information about his undesirable behaviors and was caught by surprise in the middle of the first night of his stay when he had vomited and I got up to clean it. I saw his “worried”… Continued
Herrnstein’s Matching Law and Reinforcement Schedules
When we bake cookies, some reinforcement is on a variable interval schedule. Have you heard trainers talking about the matching law? This post covers a bit of its history and the nuts and bolts of what it is about. I am providing this rather technical article because I want something to link to in some other written pieces about how the matching law has affected my own training of my dogs. In 1961, B.J. Herrnstein published a research paper in which there was an early formulation of what we call the matching law… Continued
An Allegory: What Happens if a Dog is Punished for Having a Phobia?
By Sandra Machado Johnny is five years old and he is a great kid. He is loving, does very well in school and absolutely adores his mom. One day he was playing in the park and was badly bitten by a spider. He was never afraid of them before until he got bitten. He became so fearful that every time he saw one he would cry, tremble and have a panic attack. He would sweat and almost faint. Almost all physiological signs of fear were present at the mere sight… Continued
Treat Value: What Should You Use?
By Yvette Van Veen Which Treat Value Is BEST? It depends. There’s so much variation in how food reinforcements are used that we have to look at the objective of the training. Generally there are two styles of training. We can primarily work in classical conditioning or we can primarily work in operant conditioning. It is correct that Pavlov is on your shoulder and Skinner is on the other. Hopefully we have a plan when training. Our plan should be clear as to which strategy we are using in the moment. You can’t… Continued
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