Place:

• Place is a command where you really don’t want to rush through the steps. If at this point your dog is not offering to get on the bed without assistance from you, they are not ready for the next step. Just keep working on the 1st steps until you get it.

• Remember, repetition is key here. If your dog is getting on the bed automatically, go ahead and start luring them into a down as soon as they get on the bed. Again, do not use commands at this point, just help them to be successful. Aim for 30-40 repetitions a day of on the bed and immediately into a down.

• Make sure to use that release word EVERY TIME. Don’t forget.

Settle:

• Kick back, get comfortable again and ignore those dogs. At this point they should be offering the calm down quicker.

• Just keep at it. Aim for 5 reps this week. I know this is tedious. Just keep at it. I promise it is worth it.

Leave it:

• Goal this week is to pick a new NON food item every day. Remember to have your dog leashed and that leash tight enough that they don’t grab it right away. Remember, you can’t reinforce this behavior without a leash. Let your dog get close enough to be interested in the object, but not close enough to snatch it. Tell them firmly “Leave it” and immediately create distance from the distraction. The dog should never be allowed to grab the distraction off the floor, so be paying attention. Use this to your own advantage. If your dog chews socks, shoes, gets on the counter, etc, use this as your “item”.

• Aim for 10 reps a day.

• Remember, don’t jerk backwards on the leash when giving your Leave it cue and no repeating yourself.

Doorway Manners:

• Keep having the dogs wait at the door. Your goal this week is to get the door partially open and then closed without the dog breaking their Wait

Loose Leash:

• Start fading the lure and expecting more than one step in position. Reward at random intervals, while giving a reinforcer as they stay in position. Continue to assist back them back to heel for inattention and pulling and add in a verbal correction just prior to the redirection.Try to start each session with our “Drunk Walking” exercise.

• Drunk Walking:The goal here is to change directions at a fast, unpredictable pace so the dog learns to pay attention. You can walk forwards, backwards or side to side. Try not to take more than 3 steps in any one direction and make sure to praise when the dog is paying attention. The positioning of the dog doesn’t matter in this exercise, just the attentiveness. When done correctly, this should resemble someone stumbling about.

Games:

• Sprinkler Game:

  • Toss your dog a few treats on the ground off to the side of you, one after another, alternating sides. Then pause and wait for your dog to look at you to see why the treats stopped. Immediately resume this back and forth treat dispensing waiting for eye contact between treats. You can use your clicker here to mark the eye contact. Do this for about 10 repetitions and then start turning your back to the dogy. As soon as they come around to look for more treats, mark and toss another treat on the ground. Turn your back to your dig and repeat. The goal here is for them to engage and seek out eye contact. If your dog doesn’t follow around you, move back to step one, or try catching their attention with kissy noises or pat your thighs. Avoid saying their name.

Talking Points:

• Speeding Tickets:

  • Do you speed in your car? What an odd question, for a dog class isn't it? Why am I asking it? Everyone speeds sometimes. It may be 5mph over the speed limit or 20mph over the speed limit. Sometimes it's intentional and other times it's not. What alters your behavior however is the consequence of speeding.

    • - If I drove 10mph too fast on the same road, every day because I know there is no police that'll catch me, my behavior won't change. I'll keep doing it.

    • - If I drove 10mph too fast on the same road, every day but get pulled over every day and let off with a warning each time, my behavior may change once, but then I'll carry on speeding. My behavior won't change.

    • - If I drove 10mph too fast on the same road every day, get pulled over and get a $2 fine, I'd be annoyed. but I would probably not stop speeding most of the time.

    • - If I drove 10mph too fast on the same road every day, get pulled over and get a $1000 fine, I'd never speed again.

  • In the last scenario the consequence outweighed the benefit of the behavior. The same goes for dog training. Except in dog training, we call these corrections. Plenty of trainers nowadays will say to you 'corrections are terrible and cause fear, we should just reward our dogs or ignore the behavior and it'll go away'. That's simply not true for a lot of behaviors dogs do. Do you think someone would stop speeding if you just ignore them? I would bet good money that the answer is no.

• Arousal/Over-excitement behaviors:

  • A group of friends get together for a fun day at a football game. Lets say they decide to carpool and as each new person gets in the car, they get a little more amped and rowdy. By the time they get to the stadium they are all very animated, amped up and loud. They get to their seats, the game starts and now they're cheering and yelling loudly with the crowd. Lets say a fan in front of them makes a negative comment about their team. Now they're all yelling, angry and a shoving match begins. This then escalates into a fight. Security is called and everyone is escorted out and cops are involved. High arousal. high excitement escalates into behavior that caused these people to make bad decisions that they normally wouldn’t have made on a regular day. The fact this group continued to get more and more amped and excited without any regulation caused them to make poor choices. The same can be said for our dogs. Let’s use a dog park as an example. Say our dog is super excited to go for a car ride and are bouncing around the car barking, whining and panting. We pull up to the park and immediately leash the dog and let them out. They then proceed to drag us all the way to the first gate and we let them in, take the leash off and let them barrel full speed into the second gate and into the park with other dogs. Our dog then immediately runs up to a dog at Mach speed and a fight ensues.

  • Can you pinpoint what went wrong here? We let an excited dog out of the car before it was under control, let it drag us to the gate which further amped it up, then let it right into the park without it being calm and making rational decisions. Our dog then rudely ran right up to an unknown dog with absolutely no sense of appropriate behavior, body language, manners, which can easily set off a dog.

  • In an ideal world, we would have hung out in the car until the dog was calm and appropriately waiting until released, then loose leash walked to the gate, even if we had to return to the car a few times to let the dog get focused enough to walk appropriately, we then should have asked for a wait behavior at the first gate, and then waited until the dog was calm again at the second gate before releasing into the park. All of these would have allowed the dog some time to get back under control so we weren’t escalating these over-excitement/arousal behaviors until our dog isn’t capable of making good choices.

• Situational Awareness:

  • When talking about situational awareness with your dogs, we are talking about being aware of our dog’s behavior, triggers, and environment so that we are helping our dogs to be successful.

  • If we aren’t paying attention and our dog is allowed to stare and fixate on things that may be triggers, or are not paying attention and our dog has too much leash out or too much freedom and they are encroaching on others’ space, we are potentially causing them to amp up or cause problems. A dog who is allowed to stare at a squirrel in a tree and then start screaming or barking at it is 100% not going to be able to follow commands or pay attention to it’s owner. Same goes for dogs who are reactive. If you let them stare and fixate on triggers, or drag you over to one while lunging, your chances of getting that dog redirected back to you is pretty low. But if you acknowledged the trigger early and had a timely redirect before your dog had a chance to amp? Way better chances of a redirect and a dog who is able to make good choices and follow commands.