So if you’ve spent any time with your dog attached to a 20 foot cotton lead, in a nice little park in Webster Groves, running away from other dogs, you’ve probably heard my “guy walks into a bar” analogy. Yes, it starts like a bad joke that should be followed up with a priest and a rabbi, except it doesn’t really have a punchline. Seriously though, for those lucky ones who haven’t heard, you might ask what’s the significance? Often times I’ll break out my “guy in a bar” routine to help dog owners identify with how their dog might be feeling when faced with challenging situations and doggy confrontation. We’ve all had one of those days, right?… Maybe it’s a Friday morning and you’re headed into work. It should be an easy breezy commute being at the end of the work week, but instead, you hit a major wreck on 270 … Read More
The “Four-Legged” Approach to Good Behavior
Image courtesy of http://jonathanturley.org One of my most cherished bosses in the world once used the analogy that there are 3 “legs of the bar stool” of that particular company that supported our department and its efforts. Without one of those “legs” the entire operation would come crashing down. I love the first day of group dog training classes, where I get to share my philosophy on training and get students on the same page before they even bring their dogs to class. This is where I, too, get to use my own “bar stool” analogy when it comes to obtaining good dog behavior. Except in my version, there’s four legs to the bar stool. Let’s face it, when there’s something as unpredictable as dog behavior at stake, you want to make sure you’re on the most stable foundation possible… Leg 1 – Nutrition What you put in Fido’s mouth … Read More
Multi-Part Series: Loose Leash Walking – Part 1
In my professional dog training opinion, loose leash walking with your dog is one of the most difficult things you might ever have to teach your dog. If there was one key to training a dog well, it’s consistency, of course. Therefore, if you live with any other people in your home (like most of us do!) and those people aren’t 100% on board with your training, this might be a challenge. Sometimes the even bigger challenge is maintaining consistency with ourselves. Remembering to do the exact same thing over and over and over again can become boring, so we humans like to mix it up sometimes. This may or may not be a good learning technique for certain dogs. Also, as we begin to see success with our dogs, we tend to become more lax in our training criteria and the learning curve in our dogs can begin to … Read More
Giving and Getting Plenty of R&R
No doubt you’ve heard of the term “R&R,” as in “I just need some rest and relaxation.” And who doesn’t need a little R&R these days? We work too hard, sometimes we play too hard, and often in the end it’s debatable whether we’re any better for it. Well, your dog needs a little R&R in his or her life, too. I don’t mean rest and relaxation here, although it certainly is true that dogs do need those things to function properly, as well. What I’m really referring to is “Recognition and Reward.” More specifically, your dog or dogs need to be recognized for good behavior and rewarded for it, too. You may have heard this concept referred to as mark and feed, or click and treat, or maybe under some other term, too. Essentially, it means to identify the moment your dog is doing something correctly and then offer … Read More
To Click or Not to Click?
If you have ever looked into group classes or dog training, you may have come across the term “clicker training,” without really knowing much about it. Clicker training is a small, handheld tool that is used by many positive trainers to mark a dog’s correct behavior at the exact moment that it happens, and then follow it up with a reward or reinforcement, like a small treat. Clicker training can be an extraordinary method for teaching your dog (or other pets for that matter) both obedience exercises, as well as amazing tricks. I have to admit that I was quite dismissive of clicker training for a time, but only because I didn’t understand the proper technique and learning principles. Some of the most basic concepts of clicker training are: Being rewarded for a behavior causes an increase in that behavior. A lack of a reward, or removal of a reward, … Read More
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