Acclimation (by my definition – different trainers have different definitions!) means allowing your dog to satiate on the environment you want to play, train, work or trial in. Students often say their dog never satiates on the world, and that is likely true. But the environment you’ll be working in is much smaller than the whole world – so it’s not really a problem. Let’s imagine you live near the beach (because that’s what I found a royalty-free image of):
Royalty free image by “Pexels” from Pixabay – thank you!
Let’s further imagine you want to practice recall games in the red oval that I put on the image. In the oval, there are 4 palm trees and a bunch of sand. This is not the whole world – it isn’t even the whole part of the beach that is in the image. It’s 10 to 20m2 (about 100 to 150ft2).
Acclimation phase
In our example, acclimation would mean:
Keep your dog on a leash.
Walk the perimeter of the area you want to work in (walk along the border of the red oval in the picture above), stopping to let your dog sniff however much they want.
Repeat if there’s a lot to sniff until they walk with you looking bored, not sniffing anymore.
Go into the red oval and let them sniff every spot they want to check out. Let them pee on the palm trees. Let them pick up a shell if they feel like it. Let them roll in the sand or dig a hole. Zig-zag and walk, following their lead, around the surface area of the red oval until they have had a chance to investigate every square foot of it.
If they want to leave the oval, gently stop them with the leash: no need to acclimate outside the oval because that’s not where you’ll be training.
Walk around the small area you have defined for training, play or work until your dog is bored of it.
Engagement phase
ENGAGEMENT is started by your dog – not by you. As the human part of the team, your job is to let the dog investigate for as long as they need to. Don’t try to distract them from smells or other interesting stimuli and activities. As long as they sniff, pee or dig, they are not done acclimating.
Being done looks different for individual dogs. It might look like offering to walk next to you rather than looking/sniffing around, and maintaining eye contact. In the case of my Mals, it could either be an offered sit with 5 seconds of duration eye contact, offered heeling or personal play initiated by the dog.
Go with whatever engagement behavior your dog naturally offers!
Let’s imagine the behavior your dog offers is walking next to you and not paying attention to the environment. Define a specific duration they need to keep up this behavior for it to count as letting you know they are done acclimating. For example, you could say: when my dog walks next to me on a loose leash, occasionally glancing up at me, for at least 10 seconds, I get to start playing, training or working.
Warm-up/are you ready? phase
Before you go into more difficult work, training or play, gauge how your dog is feeling. A good way to ask this question is to invite them to play a simple marker cue game, like tossing 4 treats back and forth for your dog to chase. Observe them: do they stay engaged throughout those 4 treats (not distracted by the environment), eat every treat at once and turn on a dime for the next one? Great! Your dog is ready to start working/training/play!
Do they hesitate, get distracted or not eat a treat? Go back to acclimation!
Note that some dogs don’t need the warm up/are you ready? phase – they can go right from engagement into work/training/play. It is still useful to practice because a dog who doesn’t need a warm up in familiar environments may still benefit from it at a new, difficult or trial environment. Having practiced it means you can just pull it out your pocket, ready to use.
Work/training/play
Use the surface area of your oval to train or play whatever you were planning to for however long you were planning to … but make sure YOU are the one who ends the fun. We want our dog to stay engaged from the first step (e.g. first treat/first marker cue) of the warm up phase until you finish your session with an “all done” cue and end-of-session ritual.
Try this the next time before you train, play or work out and about! Observe your dog’s distraction level! Do they have an easier time staying engaged throughout the session? Perfect! This strategy is a winner! Do they still struggle? We’ll dig deeper and try something else!1
All done announcement and end-of-session ritual
Don’t just stop out of nowhere and go from full-on engagement to ignoring your dog – that’s rude! It’s as if someone walked away in the middle of a conversation with you and just left you hanging, or got up in the middle of a two-person meal in a restaurant without an explanation and walked out the door.
Instead, you’ll verbally announce to your dog that the session is over (I use “All done!” for this), and then follow it up with a transition behavior that helps your dog move from a working state of mind back into a just-being-a-dog state of mind. An easy option is doing a treat scatter after your all done cue (scatters are calming). Another option is personal play or calm petting.
Trying something else would, at this point, usually mean one of two things: giving the acclimation ritual itself more structure (for example with CU games or start buttons), or adding a longer and more structured “ready to work” routine after acclimation. Shade Whitesel shares a great example of a ready to work routine in this blog post. ↩︎
June 27, 2023: tugging at the park and dog interruptions
Here’s the text I shared in class along with today’s video:
I left a little of our dog interruption in because it‘ it‘s hilarious: they just keep coming! (Disclaimer: explicit language!)
The second short session at the same park was interruption free! My 50% estimate (half the time, we don’t get interrupted) seems pretty accurate!
I liked the last rep of tugging I did. What do you [Shade] think about that one? More or keep it this short and gentle for now? Should I name tug already? Should I let her have the ball I’m getting out for tugging without having her chase it around my body first? Or maybe keep doing a few more reps like the (better) ones in this clip?
June 29, 2023: nice tugging reinforced by fetch!
My proud-of-Chai comments to go with this video:
Look at that tug despite the interruption! Definitely getting stronger! To be fair, that dog wasn’t body blocking her – but still, how cool! Have I mentioned that I love this puppy?
July 1, 2023: trying to get a better strike
Shade’s comments on my last video:
“So, let’s start concentrating on her strike. […] When you are about to let her strike, make sure the ball is still. So, good “misses” look like: ball is still, dog locks on to target, ball is whisked away, repeat. Try that in your misses, so we can start teaching her to have a good strike. When she gets a good successful strike, she’ll like it more!“
Me:
I know exactly what you mean about “good misses” and then getting a decent strike after. It’s easy with tug toys and a dog who is into them! Turns out it is VERY hard for me to do the same thing with balls on a rope! Help please! Which one of the ones below – if any – resembles our goal? Watching the video I feel like I never really got the kind of still-ball-and-then-miss that I’ve gotten quite easily with other dogs and tug toys. We’re having fun though! And no interruptions today!
July 2, 2023: trying out different ways to get that decent strike
Shade’s comments on my last video:
“[Y]ou are moving the toy in slow motion when you make her miss so that you don’t have enough time when she is far away to set the target.“
Me:
“The tricky part is that when I move it faster, the ball starts swining and I don’t have a still target anymore. Hmm. I need to experiment some more with this!“
The video below is me experimenting. I don’t think I submitted this particular video to class, but here are my thoughts on it:
I had the idea to hold the ball as if it was a tug toy! This may be our ticket to good strikes!
July 3, 2023: Shade’s advice
Below is the next video I submitted to Shade after reading their response to my comment about experimenting:
“Whisk it away quickly diagonal to a spot about 18 inches from your hip (if facing the still ball). Dog goes flying by you, which allows you time to turn and set the target again 2 feet from your belly button. You’ve got the good still target, but faster on the misses and away from her and diagonal to her path, not up.”
My response, going with the video submission below:
This is really helpful! Thank you! I was planning on this after reading your response this morning but ended up moving it to the side (or up again) rather than forwards for some reason.
July 4, 2023: more tug reinforced with “Chase” and some misses
Shade:
“[S]he’s going to get the string […], but I don’t know that it matters? […] Ask her if she needs the misses before the actual tugging.“
Me:
Okay, let’s decide it doesn’t matter! […] I’ve still got an upwards tendency on the misses, but am staying more parallel to the ground than before. The video shows the first of 3 tugging reps in this session. The first one sans misses, right as we started the session.Her tugging on that first one felt less energetic/weaker than usual (even though I’m not sure you can tell from the video).
After the session, I realized that I changed two variables on her at once: I’ve started these sessions with “Chase” rather than “Tug” up until now, and today I started with “Tug.” So there’s no way of knowing whether the tugging in the first rep felt less enthusiastic because I didn’t make her miss or because she didn’t get a chase before. I’m thinking I should do a chase first and see if her non-miss tugging looks any different tomorrow. What do you think?
Otherwise, I really like her tugging here. She’s MUCH more into it then when we first started! Still dropping her toy right away after because she knows that every tug rep will be reinforced with at least one “Chase,” and Chase is still her favorite toy game. But it feels like she’s having a good time tugging as well!
July 5, 2023: Cueiung “Chase!” while tugging
Shade:
“A couple chases, then ask for the tugging immediately after the drop of the ball and see if you can get the strike and the carry over of the chasing. Maybe alternate? One with misses, one just strike, that sort of thing.“
Me:
I experimented with this today and got stronger tugging without misses! I like the plan of alternating between tug with and without misses and will keep starting the session with “chase” for now.
Shade:
“It’s also worth noting that the dropping is getting reinforced by the chase, not necessarily the tugging itself. What you could start to do is cue chase when she is tugging the best she can tug. Then, when she lets go, throw the toy that she was tugging with. That way the tugging is directly reinforced.”
Me:
Did you mean cue chase while tugging and then I let go of the toy we are tugging with and wait for her to let go too? Or did you mean cue chase while tugging and I hold on to the toy we are tugging with until she lets go first and then I throw it?
I tried the latter version today; she didn’t let go on “chase” when I held on to the toy so I waited a second and then threw the second toy for her. I wonder whether throwing the second toy while she’s still tugging is even better than waiting for her to drop her toy anyways because this way, I really am directly reinforcing the tugging (rather than a drop)? Let me know what you think. Below is what I tried today!
Otherwise, I bet if I cue “chase” and let go of the toy I am tugging with, she will let go as well. She is used to letting go right after I let her win.
July 6, 2023: More tug reinforced by “Chase,” cued while tugging
Shade:
“Keep holding onto the toy you are tugging with while cuing chase. If she doesn’t let go, still hold on to it. Show her the other toy you have, wait until she lets go then, and then throw that second toy. The second toy in sight should prompt her to let go, but the marker cue happens when she is tugging. She’ll get faster and faster!”
C:
Let me make sure this is what you had in mind before I keep practicing! Hold the toy Chai is tugging on still after the “chase” cue and make the other one interesting?
July 8, 2023: … and even more tug reinforced by cueing “Chase!” while tugging!
Shade:
“Remember how we held the ball out to the side to get the drop? Do that immediately after cuing chase. That way she’ll remember the signal and likely think more dropping thoughts. Try to hold the one you are tugging with as still as possible-not an easy feat with the balls on ropes I know.”
C:
Is this what you had in mind? I put a “Chase” subtitle starting right when I say the cue in case you can’t hear it over the background noise.
I find it interesting that in this video, it looks like the game Chai would have chosen as I was holding out the second toy after marking “chase” was switching to a second tug toy rather than chasing!
July 9, 2023: the second chase/tug session of the day
I’ve been keeping sessions short and only doing one a day – I want it to be special, and Chai is not as pushy as my Mals (yet?). Today, I did two brief sessions before and after coffee-shop relax practice. Both were chases interspersed with 2 tug sessions. In the first session (not on video), she needed the visual cue of the second toy to let go for the first post-tug chase. In the second tug-to-chase rep, she let go on the verbal “chase” and predicted a chase, not a tug!
The second session (see video) also was chases with 2 short tug sessions in between – that’s in the video below. Both times, she let go on the verbal alone without seeing the second toy, and did not confuse it with “switch” (which is not yet a game she knows)! This is making me so happy! She’s also needing less misses in order to be exicted to tug!
July 10, 2023: adding behaviors to toy play
Shade suggested I start adding behaviors to Chai’s toy play to introduce this concept early. I only have one behavior that is relatively reliable on a verbal cue outdoors, and it’s a hand touch. Here is me giving it a try:
Our conversation preceding the video and my thoughts as I handed it in:
Shade:
“We don’t have bring to hand for more tugging-but… we don’t actually need it.”
C:
Help me see the big picture, please! If I eventually want to use tugging as a reinforcer for obedience … would I just not let go of the toy/always combine tug with chase? I’m used to having the dog push back into me for more tugging when I let go of the toy we are tugging with – and then we continue.
Is this something you believe Chai will offer with time, or do you assume this just isn’t a behavior she is going to go with? In the latter case, how would you (in the future, way down the line) use tug as a reinforcer for other behaviors? Or would you stick to chase or a chase/tug hybrid game for good? Paint me a session picture, say, one year down the line, please!
Shade:
“So, our next step would be adding some simple behaviors in there after an offered drop, and reinforcing with chase or tug. I’d like to try that!”
C:
Sounds good! I just tried this. I only have one behavior I believe is fluent and generalized enough on a verbal to work under toy play arousal (I have positions on cue, but only reinforced with food and so far, I’ve only worked on them in the house – I don’t think they’re ready for toy reinforcers quite yet). So my one behavior, and the one I went with, is a hand touch.
I started with chase-es as usual – you see the last one in the beginning of the clip. Then at 00:04/05, my touch cue (I cue without my hand present, then bring out the hand). Chai does it but with her mouth open and a jump – I suspect that she expected me to whip out a tug toy from behind my back. That catches me off guard so my first “Chase” marker is super late. Ooops.
00:13-00:17, she is being goofier with the ball she just fetched than she usually is. I wonder if that’s a tell that the touch just before was HARD. What do you think?
00:30 The second time she returns the chase toy, she is back to normal: bring it back, drop, offer eye contact right away.
So I try another touch cue. She does not actually touch my hand at 00:32 but stops half an inch short of it, so I don’t reinforce that one.
00:36, I get the touch that I’ve trained: mouth closed, strong touch.
00:37 I marked a little late, but better than before. Trying to reinforce with tug this time and not presenting the toy as a good target to strike – I’ve got some practicing to do myself here! I’ll do some of this with Game to get my mechanics figured out and then go back to Chai. (So convenient to have an adult dog who knows all the toy games and will let me focus on my own mechanics!)
00:47 I cue “Chase” to reinforce good tugging, but I don’t get the immediate out on the “chase” cue. Again, I wonder if that’s a tell that this is difficult!
After the video ends, I did two chase-es, then a tug, then another chase. For that one, she was able to let go on the verbal alone again: I went back to just tug and chase and things got easier; she could do it again (is my interpretation).
I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts!
I suspect that the touch is a harder behavior here than a sit would be because my hand motion will remind Chai of the toy being whipped out from behind my back. On the other hand – it’s a great verbal discrimination exercise! Maybe just one touch per session to keep it fun? She’s good at verbal discrimination; I do think she’d figure out when I want a touch and when I want a tug within a few sessions. (Oh! Writing this down, I just realized “touch” sounds an awful lot like “tug”! Argh! Is that too much verbal discrimination to expect under toy arousal conditions? Should I try for it anyways? So many questions! Happy questions, of course. I love a good challenge! I apologize for today’s novel-length post!)
I didn’t save Shade’s response but remember the jist of it. Shade recommended I get positions on solid verbals out in the world and then use them in toy play, and suggested changing my hand touch cue to make it more different from my tug cue. (I’ve since done the latter – it used to be “touch” but is now “bump.”) I’ll practice and if/when I get stuck reach out for a 1-on-1 to keep going.
We haven’t practiced as much as I’d like since the class ended – but we do and are slowly but certainly progressing!
This video concludes the toy class series. Hope you had fun!
If you enjoy the series, take the class at the Gold level yourself! Shade does a truly fantastic job of tailering advice to the dog/student team in front of them – whether you have a drivey dog or a reluctant player!
Urban art clue #8: this is your last clue. Our art piece is 66 steps from A (the corner of the building), walking down b. If you are taller than me, you’ll probably need less steps. If you are shorter, you might need more. Found it and want tacos? Mail me a picture of the art piece you took and I’ll pay!
Before it got too, too hot, I experimented with Shade’s ideas of using either two targets or no target to encourage Chai to come back to me when tugging. The link above shows our two attempts. We’re not there yet and may have to keep experimenting – but we are having fun! What better morning exercise than a good game of tug?
Solo adventure
Friday is indoors mall adventure day! For the time being, every Friday, Chai and I walk there and then adventure our way through the mall.
Magic hands and R-
On the way there, we came across a scary construction site. Magic hands and negative reinforcement (distance) for the win!
Next stop: the elevator!
Chai did so well on the elevator today! A little bit insecure (maybe because we went on it soon after the construction corridor which had already used up some of her bravery – but once again, she entered voluntarily and stayed quiet throughout the ride (there are some signs of nervousness in her body language, but nothing big). If things are no harder than this, I will just go with repetition: once a week, we’ll ride this elevator until it’s a total walk in the park for Chai!
I also carried Chai up and down an escalator – her very first escalator experience!
On the way home, she waited patiently as I ordered and waited for tortas to go and then again outside a corner convenience store.
Left: waiting at an electronics store; right: foot-on-leash down cue as I’m ordering tortas.
On the way to the mall, I used the magic hands trick twice: once to walk across a manhole cover with holes in it and through a construction site, and once to walk past a trash can full of dog poop bags that were flapping in the wind a little. On the way back, she walked past the poop bags can without issues. The construction site had changed – there was no heavy machinery going – so we looped around it on the other side of the street. It was getting WAY too hot (over 30°C) to keep training.
I thought I’d use the heat to my advantage and work on the manners context in a new street, but Chai’s brain was as heat fried as my own and we went back to sleddog context after a futile attempt.
Tip: if something doesn’t work – don’t force it. Take a break and come back to it another time. (Especially if your city/country is experiencing a heat wave.)
Chai thinks Zane’s empty Corona can makes an excellent toy: yumm, metal!
June 17, 2023: Chapultepec fun and some hands-near-toy practice!
Alan, his girlfriend Vane and I took Kiba and Chai to Chapultepec today. They had a blast (and so did we, the humans!) Here’s a video, set to a song that is sad, but REALLY good – and it happened to be just the right length!
Left: spikey plants! Right: Alan is carrying a tired Kiba! I’m still working on this trick (Chai allowing me to pick her up this way). Thanks for the idea, Alan!
Chai at the busy swimming spot.May and June are the warmest – and June is really kicking our asses this year! Needless to say, the dog swimming spot is busy on the weekends!
Our beautiful girls: left – looking regal, right – being themselves!
We also took a two-ball video for Shade!
And here is Chai … trying to swim-fetch in the cutest way imaginable!
Because we are overachievers these days, we also played another round of the hands-near-toy game with a new element: let go of the toy upon food marker. (I already knew Chai could do that part, but I believe it was in Shade’s lectures.) Mostly, we went back to hands-near-toys.
June 18, 2023: be careful what you optimize for and a second bout of adolescence!
I’ve already told you that the other day, Chai started paying more attention to her environment – such as the goings-on outside the window. I’ve interrupted window-looking with scatters so far. However, I accidentally taught my dog to race to the window to look out in order to get more scatters (of course!) She’d keep putting her paws up on the window and then looking at me: “Treat me already!” Not the behavior chain I was going for!
So as of today, I’m implementing a more nuanced training plan.
Background details that will help you understand why I am choosing this particular plan for this particular dog:
+ I don’t mind window shopping. Unless a dog is clearly hyper-stressed by it (most dogs are not), that is the one advantage an apartment life has over a yard life: you get to see things going on outside anytime you get bored. The reason I’m adding this is that some trainers do not want their dogs to look out windows at all, assuming that window shopping by itself necessarily triggers stress.
However, I do not want to teach Chai to bark at everything she sees – quite the opposite. That’s again because I live in an apartment and I don’t want my neighbors to be disturbed by my barking dog.
The plan: + Randomize praise (and the occasional scatter) throughout the day when I’m home and Chai is NOT looking out the window but doing anything else I like – for example chill on the couch. + If I spot precursor behaviors to barking (e.g. lips or ears tensing up while looking out the window or staring at the door) – cue a scatter to prevent barking. + If I miss precursor behaviors and Chai barks, pick her up and give her a 2-minute time-out in her luxury kennel aka the bathroom.
I didn’t get to video any instances of barking, but in the first video below, you’ll see how fast window-lookingturned into a strong behavior because I had reinforced it with scatters. To soften the blow of extinction, I’ll still praise/pet/engage when she comes over after looking out the window – I just don’t treat. (Yes, Chai likes praise and attention – but I highly doubt that they are strong enough to maintain the looking-out-of-windows behavior).
What I accidentally optimized for was more looking-out-the-window rather than less barking. That’s the tricky part about gamifying or training anything: you don’t necessarily get exactly what you want by pushing a certain lever!
Stop on a regular basis, take a step back, look at the changes you’ve seen and ask yourself: if I was an observer and didn’t know the goal behavior – what would I believe was being optimized here? Sometimes, you’ll find that what you are optimizing for is exactly what you planned. Other times – not so much! That’s okay as long as you keep an eye on it. It doesn’t mean your training plan was “bad” if the results are unexpected: dogs are individuals, and sometimes, what we want to happen … doesn’t! Even if it might have worked with a different dog!
In the video below, you see the result of my original strategy (pre-emptive scatters during nightly window-shopping incidents): I have created a window-shopping addict who will look out the window and then ask to be paid all day long! This is in the morning. Chai went from only-at-night to all-the-time in 2 days. In the video, I talk to her now and then, but don’t give her more attention than that. If she came over, I’d pet her. No treats since in this video, Chai is not concerned about the environment – she simply wants scatters!
The video below shows when I DO feed: this is a compilation of moments I recognized precursor behaviors or precursor stimuli to barking. (Yes, I agree – Game looks extremely annoyed at the state of the world in this video! She can’t even be bothered to get up and collect her part of the scatters.)
… and our goal, of course: rest and relaxation inside while I work; occasionally wandering around or looking out the window without feeling barky or otherwise overly aroused!
Home alone practice: don’t let it slide!
Chai stayed home all by herself while Zane, Game and I all went out to Mexico City’s bike Sunday.
Hello again, adolescence!
I took Chai to Casa Bruna with me for some do-nothing practice. She was able to chill out beautifully for 45 minutes, but then a Border Collie she knows (tricolor puppy Juana) showed up at the next table over, and that was too much: Chai wanted to greet and started barking when I didn’t let her.
We are definitely having another bout of adolescence! Hanging out at Fresa Parque after Casa Bruna, Chai finally got to play with Juanita and an adolescent ACD. She was having a harder time responding to her informal pup-pup-pup recalls today than usual – another sign that both calm days and listening skills overall are getting more difficult in our second wave of adolescence!
We started the day with another trip to the furniture market where Chai voluntarily approached and got fed by two more strangers.
The furniture market is great for puppy in-store training!
Food hand positions: a common vocabulary
Back home, I worked on the meaning of different food hand positions:
+ I use a particular hand position for luring that means “follow my treat until I release it.”
+ A closed fist means “stay away from the food.”
+ Food in open flat hand means “take the treat.”
Developing a common vocabulary about food hand positions makes a HUGE difference for future training!
… and more exciting things!
+ Both dogs worked on our platform game and Chai worked on positions.
+ Chai also went through the Walmart corridor and into a corner convenience store in the puppy backpack.
+ We practiced the “brush” announcment.
+ … and finally, we practiced passing the two Pitbulls who are tied up to the left and right of the street I have to walk in order to get out of the plaza I live!
Today was a BIG day for a puppy – I just wanted to get a few things in before dropping Chai off for her first overnight stay with Scarlett tomorrow! So today included more action than usual. More on passing dogs and overnight stays in a separate post!
Day 24 – April 30, 2023
Las Islas
Today Chai will go to stay a few days at Scarlett’s. We made sure to get the puppy crazies out by visiting Las Islas before dropping her off.
Left: the calm before the storm. Snuggly morning pups! Right: fun at Las Islas for Game and Chai.
Husbandry
The tired pup got her nails done before being dropped off: “Claws” announcement and clipping nails! The back ones were easier today.
Sliding doors!
On the way to Scarlett, we quickly stopped at Petco to pick up food for the week. It was a different Petco than the last time – but wow, Chai strutted in and out through those sliding doors like a pro! Go puppy!
Being looked after/spending nights with people who are not the dog’s primary caretaker in places that aren’t home: something to practice from puppyhood onwards!
It’s important to me that a foster doesn’t get too attached to me. Ideally, we’d be doing this with all our puppies, not just fosters: having someone we trust look after them for a few days now and then. If you don’t have that option, just dropping them off with a dog friend for a few hours or overnight is also enormously helpful. I am planning on repeating this experience in the future so Chai gets used to staying with other folks every now and then.
To set my puppy up for success, I will visit my friend or dog sitter WITH the puppy before dropping them off. That way, the dog gets to know the space as well as the person. Even if they only spend a little bit of time there, it will help them adapt. When I actually do drop them off, they will be coming back to a familiar place and see a familiar face rather than being abandoned with a stranger in a strange place.
As a rule, I do not leave my dogs with complete strangers (I would in an emergency, but that really is the only reason).
Scarlett’s dog sitting business continues to grow, and because I want to eventually adopt Chai out, I did NOT give Scarlett instructions of how to interact with Chai or how to handle her around other dogs she is looking after. Instead, I asked her to just do things her way. I want Chai to get used to different ways of being handled, and this is a fantastic opportunity for exactly that! After all, I don’t know who will end up being her forever home.
With my own dogs, I do leave precise instructions about how to work with them/walk them/treat them when I leave them with someone (and I only leave them behind if I absolutely have to!)
The dog training world is very campy. That’s bullshit, but it is the way it currently looks to me. This image is what I’m picturing when I say “left of center” or “right of center” in the podcast. It also shows you where I’d put myself, training-wise … and who I’d consider “my people”: anyone who’s not a campy extremist, really.
However, in an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a continuum at all. Instead, we’d have a menu of sorts, like a menu at a restaurant. On that menu, you’d find everything from BAT to Nepopo. We’d order the menu alphabetically in order to not play favorites.
Every training technique and system ever invented would be on the menu. And we dog trainers would choose one or two or three of them to study and become experts in by means of learning from the ones who came before us (standing on the shoulders of giants, as we always do).
We’d pick in terms of what we want to learn and teach; in terms of what feels good to US as individuals. Our picking would not be judgmental. It would be like picking the flavors of ice cream to go in your cone – not like picking a political party.
By picking your flavors of ice cream, you are not saying the other flavors are evil – you are just saying, these are my favorite flavors (these are the ones I want to learn more about and become an expert in). You can still be best friends with someone who chooses different flavors of ice cream. You can even talk about ice cream or taste their ice cream out of curiosity, and let them have a taste of yours. It would be encouraged rather than criticized: tasting each other’s ice cream is what friends do, after all.
That’s very different from choosing a political party: if you choose a political party, you are making an idiological (rather than subjective) decision, and you feel strongly about it being the “right” or “better” one – at least that’s how I feel when it comes to politics. I only have voting rights in Austria. Austria is a democracy with a large menu of political options. I oscillate between two of them, and have never voted for any other one: the Green party and the Communist party. I like both of them, and which one I will end up voting for is often a close call, and depends on the issues at hand and how they are handling it. I can’t see myself voting for any of the other parties, and some of the other parties (the ÖVP and the FPÖ, for example), I consider downright harmful to the planet, humanity, society and community.
In an ideal world, dog training would be like eating ice cream, not like voting. Thank you for coming to my TED talk!
Here’s a link to the podcast episode this post is riffing off of:
I wanted to add a little extra information to this week’s podcast – it has a funny background story.
Many years ago, as I was just starting out as a professional dog trainer, I took a year-long course for future trainers. I had selected it based on what I had read about it and the fact that I really wanted something in person (rather than KPA online).
The course turned out to be a disaster:it wasn’t at all what the description had me believe it would be. I knew this after 15 minutes of class, but wasn’t allowed to sell my spot to someone who actually wanted it (instead, that someone else had to purchase their own spot, which put us over the promised max number of students).
The teacher used learning theory terms incorrectly and was just really … insensitive and mean to folks. They were one of those people who love dogs and dislike humans. They were PETA-level-type animal advocates who basically thought dogs should live in large enclosures (like zoo animals), receive enrichment, and not be tortured by hikes, sports or clickers. This was not the trainer I wanted to be, and the course frustrated me over and over again.
The person I was back then was definitely edgier than the person I am today. I was self-righteous, radically queer and angry at the world.
From this class, I have taken no dog training knowledge – but it led me to cross paths with two people I wouldn’t want to miss in my life today. It was over a decade ago, and yet, these two connections persist.
One of them is Kenne who I interview on this podcast. They did not even take the course themselves – their wife did; Kenne and I just connected over random parking lot conversations.
The other one is Chris (who happens to live in Graz as well) and who is to this day one of my closest and most trusted friends. We connected right away over a shared love of Standard Poodles (I had Phoebe, who could be Chris’ vicarious Poodle) and shared queerness, a fondness of biology and intriguing discussions of relationship dynamics. Chris, in case you happen to be reading this – know that love you and that meeting you made up for all the suckiness of this course. I can’t even remember or imagine not having you in my life.
Kenne sometimes showed up during class breaks to visit their wife Sarina, who was taking the course. But there was this one time that, I believe, is what caused me to (quoting Rachel) want to keep an eye on this person and what they were doing in their life. Low-effort to maintain, and yet feeling like it is a meaningful connection with someone I so appreciate having met. The person I am today still appreciates Kenne, even though I have probably chaged a lot (and so have they, I imagine. Change, and be ready to change again!) Even though we don’t talk all the time, I feel like if I needed a place to stay in Graz, I could just ask Kenne and they’d say, “Of course!” And vice versa, of course, wherever I am in the world. Some people are just warm and engaging and wonderful to connect with, and Kenne is certainly one of them.
Anyways, back in the day, Kenne happened to be sitting in on the class I was giving my end-of-class presentation in. The edgy, feisty Jack-Russel-Terrier Chrissi of days gone by used this presentation to drive home two points: one, I wanted to show that teacher how to teach an engaging class. How it was done! How engagingly, interactively and fun one could teach! I made people laugh, moved while I was talking and threw high-value chocolates to (at) everyone asking or answering a question. I believe I had even brought a pineapple (thanks for that one, Kathy Sdao!) to add some extra flavor to my presentation. I used big words I had heard used incorrectly over the course of that class, speaking fast-paced and keeping people on their toes. Nobody was going to fall asleep this time!
It felt satisfying. And yet, afterwards, on the parking lot, I realized that the message I had tried to get across had probably gone over most people’s heads. After all, no one teaching or taking this class was a native English speaker, but since the person teaching it didn’t speak German either, it was conducted in English. It did not go over Kenne’s head though. They approached me in the parking lot and told me I was a sexist genius. To the Chrissi from back in the day (flaming red hair and all), this was a big compliment and I loved it. It let me know that Kenne had both read the organizers and teachers as snake oil salespeople, and had been amused by my retort. And as long as one person got it, I was happy. I felt like I had reached my goal.
To me, that was the beginning of our friendship. From my point of view, had Kenne not made this comment that day, we might have drifted apart.
Before recording this podcast, I asked them why they thought we had stayed in touch. Apart from their wife and me, they aren’t in touch with anyone from back then either. And what Kenne said made me smile. It’s something that still resonates with the Chrissi I am today: Kenne said I was an authentic person and they played with my Poodle, so of course we stayed in touch. (Or that’s what I heard or wanted to hear anyways.) So you, Kenne, are also worth having gone through that ridiculous course for. I feel SO grateful to have met you and get to have conversations like this one! Thank you!
A friend (who already knows quite a bit!) asked me where to learn more about dog training without spending a truckload of money they don’t have, and I started putting this list together. It’s not complete (there are so many great resources out there!), and the order is semi-alphabetical: I try alphabetizing it, but I occasionally forget what letter comes when. I have not read every single post, listened to every single podcast episode or seen every single video on the Youtube channels below. If a resource is mentioned in this post, it is because it has caught my attention and I have found some of its content thought-provoking. I’m not familiar with every single piece of information the trainers linked to below have put out into the world. Even if I agree with some of their content, I don’t usually agree with all of it because I’m human, and different humans see things differently! There are many resources in this list that include opinions and approaches I disagree with or wouldn’t use myself, but still found useful and informative. This list is not restricted to any particular training philosophy. Go have fun!
If you have your own recommendations for FREE resources, leave them in the comments! I’ll remove advertising and recommendations for paid content. Apart from that—go ahead and share away! Add a link, what type of resource it is, and why you are sharing it!
… is not only a band worth checking out, but may also be your ticket to a relaxing walk with your dog. A few months ago, Denise Fenzi started experimenting with walking the dog in a circle around the handler in order to reduce leash pulling. Her method has since grown into a pragmatic approach that doesn’t only address excitement-based pulling, but also reduces reactivity and anxiety in some dogs.
I experimented with my own as well as my clients’ dogs, and found Denise’s circle method to make an excellent addition to my leash walking toolbox. It’s both simple and powerful, and it lends itself to being combined with and used in addition to other leash training strategies I was already using. Clearly, it needed to be part of the new FDSA class I was working on as well: Out and About already included several leash walking approaches for my students to choose from.
Three of my Gold students chose to use circles on their urban walks and nature hikes. Their dogs were very different, and all three of them uploaded multiple videos of their leash walking assignments. The circle method turned out to be helpful to every one of them. Here’s what I learned from further exploring it with my Out and About students and their dogs while also continuing to play with it in real life:
Most people find it easier to circle on a collar or front-attachment harness than on a back-attachment harness.
If your dog has a hard time allowing you to lead him into the circle, practice giving in to leash pressure at home. This seems to do wonders for the dog’s understanding – especially if you use the leash pressure game to walk your dog in a circle around your own body.
Going back and forth over familiar terrain – for example, walking the same short loop two or three times rather than walking one longer loop – helps highly excited dogs calm down.
If your dog speeds up, trying to get out of the circle and pull as soon as he gets close to his starting point, add another circle immediately. This tends to slow the dog down, and decrease his speed even on the first circle.
If you’re on a trail that’s too narrow for you to get a radius of more than a few inches, walk ellipses rather than circles.
Walk at your normal speed – don’t run just because your dog would like to go faster. Channel his energy into the circles until he has learned to adjust to your walking speed.
If it makes sense for your dog, combine the circle method with food (food scatters; treat magnets; mark/treat for auto check-ins; the LAT game; counterconditioning; eating as an alternative behavior etc.). While the circle method doesn’t require food, treats can make a big difference if your dog doesn’t “just” pull, but is also reactive, fearful or anxious.
Unless your dog is circling, always encourage and allow sniffing. Most dogs find sniffing to be relaxing, and I’ve seen it reduce both pulling and anxiety.
Acknowledge your dog’s checking in with you! You can mark and feed, or simply praise your dog.
Speaking of circles: Denise’s Cutting Corners webinar will be offered for the third time on Thursday, May 23, 2019. Check it out!
I’ve been too busy to blog, but I recently finished translating a second sample chapter for Nur Mut! (click here for the first English sample chapter). Here’s a sneak peak at one of the protocols from chapter 8.3 Early interventions for fearful puppies. Part 1 is my protocol for proximity. Part 2 will be the protocol for touch.
While these are sample chapters from a geeky book about working with fearful puppies, the protocols are relevant for fearful or insecure adult dogs as well.
Protocol for Proximity and Touch
[…]
Part 1: Protocol for Proximity
Before diving into the protocol itself, you need to establish how close you can get to your puppy without causing a stress reaction. No matter whether her threshold is 3 feet or 15 feet – add 2 steps to this distance. This is your starting point – a point where your puppy is perfectly relaxed.
Click – Treat – Retreat
Choose a time your puppy is resting calmly on her bed or another comfortable spot, but not asleep. Walk up to your starting point. Mark her relaxed body position with a click. Throw a treat to her. Turn around and retreat.
Retreating is an important part of this protocol. Not only do you pair your approach with food (classical counterconditioning), but you also negatively reinforce your puppy’s relaxed position by means of removing yourself – a potentially stressful stimulus – from her space. Wait 15 seconds, and repeat the exercise. Again, you will walk up to the starting point defined above, click, treat, and retreat. Keep your session to 5 minutes or less, and give your dog a break. Then, start the game again by means of walking up to your original starting point, treating, and retreating. You are explaining to your dog that you are playing the game she already knows. All she has to do is keep relaxing and wait for you to throw her a treat. What a great deal!
Do not walk closer to your dog until you are convinced she understands that your approach predicts a treat. Watch her body language: does she lift her head and start wagging her tail when you walk towards her? She is beginning to understand that something good is about to happen!
Once your dog is clearly happy about your approach, you are ready to walk one step closer your next rep. Click, throw a treat to your dog, and retreat. Stay at your new click point for at least 5 reps. Does your dog look equally relaxed and happy about your approach as before? Good! Walk another step closer in rep number 6. Click, treat, and retreat! Stick to your new click point until your dog looks forward to your approach. Then, walk one step closer again.
Depending on your starting distance, you may already be standing directly in front of your dog at this point. Avoid leaning over her and looking into her eyes. Dogs can find this typical primate posture threatening. Instead, look at the floor between you and your dog – right at the spot you are going to drop the treat. Make sure to not let your session run over five minutes before giving your puppy a break.
If everything went well, start your next session one step behind the final starting point of your last session. The first rep of this new session is just a little bit easier than the last rep of your last session. Gradually work your way closer again, just like you did before, until you are standing right in front of you puppy. Is your puppy perfectly comfortable or happy and curious? Excellent! Bend your knees just a little before you click and drop the treat. Straighten up, turn around slowly, and retreat. Again, wait 15 seconds in between the individual reps.
Can you do five reps of walking up to your puppy, bending your knees, and dropping a treat between her paws with her looking perfectly relaxed or happy to see you? (Review the body language chapter if you need help reading your dog!) You are ready to raise criteria! In your next rep, you will squat down completely, click, and reach towards your puppy’s front paws with your treat hand. Do not touch her paws, but drop the treat in between or right in front of them. Get up slowly, turn around, and retreat. Repeat this step several times, waiting 15 seconds in between each rep. Your puppy should look perfectly relaxed or happy to see you – anytime she appears concerned, move your click point back one step!
Cold Trials
Before we raise the level of difficulty again, it is time for a cold trial. You are going to test whether your puppy has really learned that you squatting down in front of her and reaching out with your food hand is not a threat – even if you do not gradually work your way closer. Choose a time when your puppy is relaxed, but awake. Walk right up to her and squat down. Does your puppy appear just as comfortable with you being close as before? Great! You are ready for the next step.
Does she cower, retreat, bark, growl, snarl or snap? Freeze your movement the moment you notice her insecurity, and wait for your puppy to calm down. Count to five in your head: “One good puppy, two good puppies, three good puppies, four good puppies, five good puppies.” Then retreat and give your puppy a break. The reason I am asking you to freeze and count to five before retreating is that we do not want to negatively reinforce the potentially operant behavior of barking, growling, snarling or snapping by means of rewarding it with an increase in distance. Instead, we give the puppy five seconds to calm down or stop barking, and then reinforce her calm behavior with an increase in distance. Anything that doesn’t resemble offensive behavior does get reinforced by your retreat. In either case, try to avoid the need to use this kind of extinction of unwanted behavior in the first place. Ideally, all your training sessions will take place well under threshold. If your puppy hasn’t calmed down after 5 seconds, retreat either way.
Take a deep breath. Have a cup of tea and think about something else before you go back to training. Frustration and disappointment don’t make good teachers. Remember that all behavior is information. Now you know that your puppy isn’t yet ready to stay calm when you walk right up to her without gradually decreasing the distance. That’s okay. Go back to your last successful click point, and explain the game to your puppy again. Gradually work your way closer, just like you did before. End the session squatting down and dropping the treat between her paws.
Take a longer break, and then do another cold trial. Does your puppy stay confident and relaxed this time? Excellent! If your puppy struggles, be patient and explain the game from the beginning. If your puppy still struggles the third time you do a cold trial, find a competent trainer or behaviorist to help you develop a plan for your puppy to learn to tolerate and even enjoy your approach and touch (See chapter 10.6 Finding the right trainer or behaviorist).
Chrissi runs Chrissi’s Dog Training in Guatemala, and teaches online at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. In April, she will be teaching Out and About at FDSA – a class that is about a passion of her own: taking your dog on urban walks, nature hikes, and other adventures while having fun and staying safe. Registration opens today – come join me!
The pictures featured in Nur Mut! and in this post were taken by Olga Maderych of Gadabout Photography.
A while ago, I read an article by Veronica Boutelle (1) that really resonated with me. As pet dog trainers, what keeps our clients coming back is not the amount of fun they have in class, it’s not the heeling skills they master in the training space, and it’s not the praise you give them for their pretty dogs. Rather it’s the real-life relevancy of what they learn. As Veronica puts it, the most important skill we can teach in a pet dog class is how to adequately judge situations.
This seems obvious, and yet it’s rarely common in basic manners classes. I have to admit, with the exception of one-on-one classes and specialized workshops (reliable real-world recall workshop, beyond the backyard class), I myself haven’t focused on relevancy in the real world, either. Rather, I focused on giving everyone a good time. And while having a good time is great, applicability in everyday life might be even more important.
So I taught the the last two classes of my beginners’ group with the idea of real-life applicability in mind. Real life is messy, and unexpected things happen all the time! Real life is nothing like the training room we work in.
We had already worked on how to get basic behaviors like sit and down, come and loose leash walking, and how and when to put them on cue. So in the last two classes, I created a number of stations inside my training room. People got to draw a piece of paper out of a hat that told them what station they got to work on. The stations were:
Walk a cone slalom on a loose leash. (You’re taking your dog for a walk, and there are obstacles in your path. You want your dog to learn to pay attention to you and keep the leash loose even as you curve.)
Karl is leading Charly through the cone slalom, helping Charly to keep the leash loose!
Put your dog on a sit/stay next to you and make coffee! (At home, you might want to cook without your dog begging or bothering you.)
Andreas learns how high his rate of reinforcement needs to be if he wants Lagotto Kira to stay sitting in the hoop while he makes coffee!
Get your dog to walk around a table, using only hand-touches. (Real-world application: your dog’s trigger is close by, and you want to lead them past it without them getting distracted or reacting to it – focus on you!)
Guide your dog around the table using only hand touches!
The students sit together around a table at a coffee house, and while a waiter (me) serves them drinks and asks for their wishes, they have to keep their dogs in a sit or down. The challenge is not to reduce reinforcers as much as possible, but to learn how often and in what situation each dog needs to be reinforced in order to hold his position.
The students are practicing visiting a coffee house – and keeping their dogs well-mannered!
To wrap up the class, we took a brief walk around the neighborhood where I gave tips on loose leash walking and reading the dogs’ body language as we met a person and walked past a dog behind a fence. Karl learned that his little dog’s lifting of one front paw showed his insecurity: it meant that he wasn’t sure how to deal with a situation; he felt overwhelmed. I showed Karl how to make Charly feel safer, and how to see when Charly was ready to receive a cue – and when he wasn’t. Andreas learned what to do when Kira wanted to visit with another dog, and how real-life rewards (walking forward, sniffing) could be used to reward loose-leash walking when she was relaxed. He also saw in what situations he still needed a stronger reinforcer than the real-world rewards, and when Kira should get tasty treats for keeping the leash loose. We took a brief break at a grassy area, and I showed them how to let their dogs sniff out the world and only give a cue when they offered voluntary focus – a good opportunity to explain the benefits of sniffing (relaxes the dog, resembles reading the newspaper), and how we want to create a training relationship where our dogs ask us for work rather than us having to beg them to comply. The best moment to give a cue is when the dog is ready to receive it!
Walking around the block – beginners out and about in the real world, and doing great!
From my doggy preschool sessions, these were the ones that received the best feedback so far. It wasn’t about building behaviors step by step in a systematic fashion, it was about how to deal with real life. Real life doesn’t wait until your dog is ready to throws passers-by and dogs behind fences at you. You want to take your dog places like shopping of coffee shops even before he has a solid down/stay on cue. You want to know how to deal in the real world if behaviors are in danger of falling apart.
That’s exactly what we did the last two times – and it was a lot of fun!
(1) Boutelle, Veronica: The Business of Curriculum. The Dog Trainer’s Resource 3: The APDT Chronicle of the Dog Collection. Dogwise 2014.
If everything went well, start your next session one step behind the final starting point of your last session. The first rep of this new session is just a little bit easier than the last rep of your last session. Gradually work your way closer again, just like you did before, until you are standing right in front of you puppy. Is your puppy perfectly comfortable or happy and curious? Excellent! Bend your knees just a little before you click and drop the treat. Straighten up, turn around slowly, and retreat. Again, wait 15 seconds in between the individual reps. 
