Teaching your dog to shake

After sniffing the treat, Yogi stopped and gave me eye contact.  Asking "what do I need to do to get this treat?"

Shake a paw.  Everyone wants their dog to shake, right?  Strangers often walk up to dogs expecting them to "shake."  

Shake a paw is cute and very easy to teach a dog to do.  It can be evolved into other cute behaviors like high five and waving.  So how do you teach a dog to shake?  Patience, much like many other behaviors; you need to wait until your dog offers a behavior.  The best way to ingrain a behavior is for the dog to figure it out themselves.  That means no cheating.  No grabbing their foot and shaking their paw for them.  

The way that I teach the shake exercise utilizes both lure and shape training.  The lure is a piece food in the hand and the shape is waiting for the dog to paw the food.  

Sniffing the treat under my thumb

Here's how

• Put a small piece of food (not too high value) in the palm of your hand and cover it firmly with your thumb. 
• Place your hand on the floor near your dog with your palm facing up.
• You can break the exercise down into many baby steps but I normally prefer to wait for the pawing action.  But if a dog is easily frustrated I will then break the behavior down into baby steps (next blog) to avoid this. 
• Wait for dog to paw at your hand and immediately open hand, rewarding dog.
• Do this until the dog is reliably pawing at the hand immediately.
• Then remove the food from the hand and put it into your other hand and behind your back.
• Place the empty hand on the ground in the same position with thumb on palm and wait.
• As soon as the dog paws at the hand reward them with food from the other hand.  Repeat.
• Next paw attempt, hold your dog's paw gently while rewarding.
• Move hand up from the ground and remove thumb from palm
• Add verbal cue "shake, give me paw" etc. 
• Gently add a full foot handshake while rewarding.
• Be careful to never grab the dog's foot negatively (too hard, too long, too much shake).  This could create an unwillingness to continue. 

So there you have it, the shake.  

Yogi didn't get the shake behavior at my house on this day as we only worked for a few minutes on it.  I was showing his Mom what to do when she went home.  After a few moments at home working on it Yogi's Mom accomplished the highly prized "shake."  

Trying to nudge the treat out of my hand

You can evolve this behavior to the high five and wave by simply moving your hand slowly to different positions and rewarding.  

Dog training help now. Online Consultations!

No matter where you are...

"I need help, right now" the email said.  The woman was having some huge canine issues with her new puppy and needed HELP!!!!!!  I replied right away "I can help right now."  I sent her the questionnaire and we began immediately.  

The new canine guardian had been ready to pitch everything.  She was starting to regret ever getting a dog and was ready to give up.  Sometimes you need help right away; and that help can come in many forms.  One form of help that I offer is my online canine consultations and I have to say that "I LOVE IT."  I love being able to connect with people right away.  The ability to get them started on their very personalized remedy to their problem with their dog, instantly is wonderful.

So what does my online email consultation look like and who can benefit from this service?  First it is a very cost effective remedy to your canine behavior issues.   We work via email which enables us to communicate back and forth over a period of time.  This lets you, the canine guardian get to work right away.  We can span the emails out as far as you like.  As you and your dog make progress we walk through new things that arise until you have a handle on your problem.

And it doesn't matter where you live, which is the greatest thing EVER.  

Online canine consultations are geared to those who want to address their problems.  That means that I tell you how to help your dog.  Then you tell me how its going and we work on fixing more, until you are happy with your dog's behavior.  Sound good?  

I offer local hands on behavior modification but I'm not limited to local anymore.  I love helping people all around the world with my online canine consultations.  

Often a couple of emails are all that's needed for a canine guardian to be on their way to complete success.  And I might add, they did all the work; which I believe is essentially important for the best possible outcome.  This is because a guardian needs to understand what's going on. With the personalized give and take of an online consultation, that happens very naturally.

So wherever you are and whatever your canine problem, shoot me an email.    

Dog on a leash. Pay attention!

Fanny pack gone wild.  :)  I had to bring several balls with me to this beach in Connecticut.  Other dogs stole the balls all the time so I had extra bags to put the wet balls in.  

I see ducking dogs everywhere.  Team after team stroll past Elsa and I; at the beach, the park, malls and street, ducking.  What do I mean ducking?  

Ducking - to avoid or evade a blow, unpleasant task, etc.; dodge.

Humans strolling along, walking their dog with their arms swinging back and forth.  Along with their arm swing is also the leash swing, perhaps a poop bag swing if you are one of those folks who attach a poop bag holder to the leash.  While the leash swings the dog ducks to avoid the constant and annoying leash and/or poop bag holder hitting them in the face or head.  

When I am working with a client on walking, loose leash walking or heeling, I'm all eyes.  I was trained as a youngster in obedience by a very strict obedience teacher.  She was unfortunately a harsh conventional method trainer but that was many, many years ago when there was nothing else.  She watched our every movement looking for things that would interfere with the robot like obedience we were training our dogs to do.  

The obedience teacher hated when the human students swung their arms about willy nilly.  She'd scream at you until you stopped.  If you held your body crooked, you'd hear about it.  Anything that was unlike a statue was not allowed.  So, although I hated the training method; movement was something that was drilled into my head.  To this day, the arm that holds Elsa's leash is motionless, typically held by my waist.  For those students who did not catch on to the "no flailing" rule; they were told to keep their hand in a belt of waist of pants.  

I see people walking along, not paying any attention to who is on the other end of the leash.  The leash can be whipping them in the face, their collar half pulled over their head, the humans hand even hitting the dog in the face as it swings.  So many dogs walk very far away from their human simply due to an avoidance behavior.  The guardian has no idea that their dog is not enjoying the walk because of the swinging.  

When you walk your dog, pay attention.  Yes there are times when something can happen for a moment and you might miss it.  But typically if you look down at your dog on a regular basis you'll notice this kind of stuff.  Does your dog strain at their leash?  Either sideways or backwards?  Well maybe they are trying to avoid the swing.  

The whole poop bag holder is a big thing now.  I don't understand attaching one to a leash, honestly.  I wear the very chic fanny belt; although it is not on my fanny.  ;)  I carry everything I need on a walk in it, poop bags included.   

So pay attention.  Ask someone to watch you walk.  Be aware of what your body is doing.  Along with the annoying face swapping, there could be other things going on that you have never noticed.  

What is your dog afraid of?

I captured this image shortly after the first feather incident.  She is clearly not herself and very concerned and other feathers in the area.  Poor girl.  

The other day I was discussing fears with my husband.  I thought long and hard about what I'm afraid of and came up with sharks, bears and alligators.  Other than that, there aren't a whole lot of things that would send me running the other way like Fred Flintstone.  

Fear - a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil pain, etc.  

Our dogs have fears as well.  Like us they are all different and what one might fear another will not.  Elsa has a very strange fear; although when I dissect it I can figure it out.  Nonetheless it is a fear and it is most definitely real to her.  Elsa is afraid of feathers, but not just any old feathers.  She is afraid of ones that have recently come off of birds that are lying around outside.

Today I tried to capture a video of her when she first sees or scents a feather, but I missed it.  Just about a week ago when we were out walking at the harbor, she had the biggest reaction that I have ever seen.  The height and distance that she jumped after locating the feather had me laughing, I couldn't help it.  She had to jump 3.5 feet in the air and about 7 feet in distance.  All in her attempt to get away from the feather.  

Once she has seen and labelled it a rogue feather then she is skittish on the rest of her walk. Luke had the same huge recoil when he saw or scented a snake skin which was also something I had not seen before in any of my dogs.

So what can or should you do about a fear?  React the way that you want your dog to react.  In other words, pretend like it is no big deal at all.  Our dogs watch us to see how we respond to things; so if you coddle your dog when they are fearful, the fear grows.  If you ignore the fearful trigger then you will be helping them to conquer their fear.  

The feather fear of Elsa's is a strange one.  I assume it is because it smells like a real creature yet just sits there frozen.  Frozen posture is a bad thing.  Feathers from a pillow or craft bag do not instill the fear, only fresh from a bird feathers do it.  So when it happens I just keep walking as if nothing happened.  Although I am probably snickering, which is a good thing as far as vocal feedback.  

Show your dog how you want them to react by reacting calmly in response.  Even if you have to fake it big time.     

Runaway Dogs

"Is she a bolter?" the sitter that I was interviewing asked.  I probably turned my head much like Elsa does at the question, what?  "Will she take off out an open door?" she asked, rephrasing her question.  "Oh no, no" I replied.  "But you'd want to be careful anyway," I said.  The whole idea of dogs that run away is so strange to me.  I've never had one that would, just take off.  Jessie was probably the closest thing to a runaway but it was just her terrier trigger that got the best of her sometimes.  

My dogs have always seemed to have a magnetic pull to our home.  Let out of the car and the door is where they head.  I remember a very long time ago someone left a gate open at the side of the house.  Luke was a youngster at the time so he went out and around to the front door.  My neighbor saw him standing at the front door and rang the bell for him.  I opened it up and there he was, wagging to come in.  What a guy.

There are things that will draw a dog away, a distraction, something interesting to go see; but taking off and running away is entirely different.  Why do dogs run away?  There are many reasons that a dog will runaway.  Being scared is a big one; they are often not even in a normal state of mind when this happens, they are just running.  A lack of exercise.  It feels good to run free and let out all your ya ya's.  A positive reinforcement can fuel your dog to run.  If they get out, have a great run around, maybe meet someone else or find some food along the way, presto...you have the desire to run.  

A lack of bonding can also cause a runaway.  Is everything out there better than you?  Does your dog think that the grass is greener elsewhere?  Maybe it is, you need to look at your relationship if you have a runaway.  You should be the most important thing in your dog's life.  This takes time, commitment, trust building and fun.  Even if you have a couple or more dogs; you should still be the most important thing to all of them individually.  

How do you become the most important thing in your dog's life?  Bonding.  Time spent together, training, feeding, grooming and trust building.  All of these things make you important.  In the beginning it is food, treat rewards that are worth hanging around you for.  Then with time comes the connection that grows.  You need to be present in your dog's life to become that special someone.  The one that your dog turns to for everything.  

Runaway dogs are no fun.  If you have one you need to figure out why they are running and fix it. 

Dog problems - asking for help

One of my many covers over the years. 

Imagine for a second...your dog is chasing cars, you hang on tight and hope not to be taken for a ride as you brace yourself.  Maybe your dog is systematically clearing off the counter each and every time you turn your back.  You sit with your head in your hands wondering "how am I suppose to fix this?"  

So many people go so long living with issues before asking for help.  Humans are not born with the ins and outs of the canine brain.  Yet somehow we think that we should know how to fix it; after all it is our dog who we live with day to day.  I have been called for help with so many "canine problems" that are actually easy fixes.  But if you don't know the solution to a problem then it is not easy.  

Dog brains do not work the way that our brains do.  The ideology that we can fix it with our human specific remedy is part of the problem.  We often see a canine "issue" as very human, we put it into human terms and human reasoning; this is call anthropomorphism.  

Anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to an animal or object.  

When our dogs act out we  understand it in human terms unless we are experience in canine behavior.  It has to be talked about in human vocabulary but the actions that they are displaying are far from human.

I remember standing in a dog park hearing a woman say "oh look he's hugging that dog."  As I turn to see what is going on it is very clear that there is a fight just around the corner if a human does not intervene.  One paw up on the back of another strange male and there could be a problem.  The woman saw this as a loving hug, but dogs do not hug like humans do.  That is unless you have pack members that like to lay together so close that they appear to be hugging.  ;)  A hug in human terms is usually a nice thing, not in dog terms. (Which is why you should NEVER hug a strange dog)

Asking for help is not a weakness but a strength.  When you do not know the answer to something is always a great thing to ask.  How many people feel that by asking a question they are somehow lesser of a canine guardian.  I wish that there was a mandatory Canine Guardian course that everyone had to take before adding a dog to their family, but there is not.  

Anyone and everyone can get a dog.  Sadly a fraction of people who are canine guardians know nothing about dogs.  Even people who have had dogs for years can know little about them if they have not taken the time to learn how dogs work.  

Being a canine photographer I have been out to many "big breeder" homes.  I use to shoot for all of the big dog magazines out there (all of which are not gone); so I was always on the hunt for breeders.  When I put on my photographer hat in lieu of my trainer hat, it was hard work.  I had to turn all of the "trainer/behaviorist" in me, off.  Some of the moments I spent at these "breeder" houses were the most eye opening.  I assumed that if you've had many dogs over many years that you would understand dog, wrong. 

Learning dog takes time and if you aren't interested to understand then you will not learn.  If you do want to learn then do some research.  If you are having problems that you cannot figure out, ask.  Asking for help is always a good idea.  

Listening Part #2

So much being said.

This is part #2 - a continuation from my previous Really Listening Part #1 blog.  

As far as we humans are concerned, listening (although few people actually listen) is what we rely on for communication.  There is a great deal that can be heard if you read between the lines of what is said and watch as well.  Even though we depend on verbal communications for our preferred way of communicating; there is more to communication than words.

Dogs, on the other hand use body language first so listening to your dog means watching.  Of course canines use vocal communication but it is not their prime means of getting a message across.  Do you listen to your dog?  Which means do you watch?  

I love watching dogs.  So much is said within a few seconds and if you are not watching intently and clearly understand what you are seeing, you'll either miss it or misinterpret the message.  When Elsa has a play date with a canine friend, I find it hard not to watch 100% of the time.  I find it fascinating, so much information is shared between our dogs that we never even know about if we aren't paying attention.

Isn't it funny that we think that our dogs are so amazing at knowing what is going on with us.  "How did she know we were having friends over?"  "How does your dog know when you aren't going out?"  They watch, it's what they do and they know.  They know when things are good and when things are bad, they just know. 

If I am out and about I love to watch dogs and their constant communication.  I have tripped many times while turning to watch an interaction on my own walk.  It is what I love. 

Humans tend to take what they see in canine content and turn it into a human behavior.  When dogs communicate it is not in the same way that we do at all.  We have to explain it in human terms so that we mere humans can understand it but they don't do human things unless they are trained and asked to do so.  

Understanding canine communications is completely alien to us; that is unless we take the time to learn about it.  

Humans misread canine interactions on a regular basis, I see and hear it all of the time.  I see videos where people think that dogs are playing so cute; but they are just on the verge of a fight.  Photos of people allowing children to hug or sit on a dog and think that the dog loves it, sends chills down my spine. 

An extremely relatable example is guilt.  Humans often, far too often see submission as guilt.  "He knows he should not poop on the floor," is a common statement as an owner is yelling at their dog.  "Look how guilty he is," they say as the dog hangs it's head, averts eye contact and shrinks in submission.  The dog is reacting to the human behavior, not the guilt from what they have done. 

If you live with a dog or dogs you really should learn how to understand them.  

Dog Training - Interference in Learning

As I watched, I tried to remember it all.  The movements, the body language and the sound.  I was  at a training appointment to help fix some canine/human issues.  I watched the woman trying to hold her dog back when I entered the home.  I stood still, seemingly not watching but taking it all in.  "Let him go," I said.  He immediately calmed, not completely but much better than when he was in the trap of his guardian's arms.  

There are a lot of things that can interfere in the canine learning process.  Touch, sound and distractions can all factor in on learning.  But if we humans learn how a dog can learn, it works much better.  The woman with the problem dog who wanted to dive on everyone who came into the house was a prime example.  All she knew to do was restrain, but her restraining was backfiring.  Her touch, talk and body language just revved up the crazed behavior.

Another good example of too much interference was a German Shepherd and it's guardian trying to learn "stay."  I had been at an obedience class with another trainer for a photo shoot but the dog trainer in me was dying to step in as I watched.  It was not my place so I just surveyed from the sidelines.  The guardian repeated and repeated the "stay" while putting her hand up, then down, up then down.  She fidgeted with the leash and basically made it impossible for the dog to know what the heck was going on.  

Being quiet, listening and watching as our dogs learn is a big learning session for ourselves.  Learning how our dogs learn best is a win win for everyone involved.  But much frustration surrounds the act of teaching when we do not teach ourselves first.  How on earth can we teach our dogs if we don't understand how our dogs learn?

Most canine guardians do not understand how to teach their dogs.  There is much reliance put on the physical act; collar grabs, pushing, pulling, swinging arms and talking up a storm.   

Our dogs constantly watch us.  Their whole world revolves around watching and listening.  They rely on body language for the bulk of their communication so making our body communications clear and precise is extremely important in the learning curve.  The more we throw in the more complicated it gets, making it far more difficult for a dog to learn.

• Touch is a huge interference.  
• Sound is an interference.
• Body movement can be an interference.  
• Environmental stimulus can be an interference.  

If we as canine guardians take the time to learn to teach, we can accomplish so much more.  It is a win/win for the canine/human relationship.  

Genetics vs. Environment in Canine Temperaments

Personally, I want to see a wiggly, wagging little butt coming my way.  I'm looking for the puppy who says "HELLO human, I love you;" delivering kisses while squinting.  Dropped ears is an extra bonus. Choosing puppies from a litter of adorable little bundles of fluff is tough.  This is one reason I feel very strongly about a breeder doing the job for prospective puppy buyers.  That said there are breeders who don't know what they are looking at and cannot place puppies correctly.  

The first and most important part of puppy temperaments is genetics.  I've met a lot of not so friendly puppies over the years.  When I delve into the genetic make-up, it is clear that the apple does not fall far from the tree.  One specific puppy I remember who was extremely aggressive at a scary young age had an almost identical Mother.  When I asked the owner about the parents she told me "no we couldn't touch the Mom."  Oh...was all I could muster up.  Although I was thinking "really?  and you took a puppy anyway?"

Genetics is not everything, but it is definitely there.  What a breeder does with their puppies as far as socialization is huge.  But even still genetics can come creeping up through the litter.  Sadly many breeders overlook temperament; when in fact it should be at the very top.  I have juggled with temperament/health and soundness for years and have finally decided that temperament is #1.  Sitting close behind at #1.5 is health then soundness.  

Why is temperament #1?  No matter how gorgeous and correct a dog is; if no one can live with it, that's a fail as far as breeding.  Temperament should NEVER be pushed down as an afterthought.  If a breeder is breeding companion dogs then they should come from good companion parents.  Meaning that the puppies are going to be fairly easy for any prospective puppy buyer.  Are the parents friendly?  Are they biddable? Of course each breed has it's own version of friendly, friendly can be relative. 

Every person is different, every puppy is different.  Matching the correct puppy to their special person should be much like match.com  :)  Not with the creepy guy on the advertisements though, leave him out of it.  I hate seeing puppies chosen at birth, two weeks of three weeks.  You have no idea of what you are getting.  

If you want a good match as far as your next puppy, wait.  If the breeder wants you to choose quickly, move on.  If you have to take what comes out with regard to color, sex or deposit number, move on.  If your breeder does the matching through temperament and drive; make sure that your breeder is knowledgeable in doing that.  Perhaps puppies placed in previous litters can be given as reference, if you aren't sure.  

I know that Elsa was chosen perfectly for us.  I had to absolutely rely on my breeder to be my eyes because of distance.  I ask an insane amount of questions because I do temperament testing and I know what I am looking for.  Elsa fit like a glove in our home.  She came out of her crate saying "hey there, my name is Elsa," wagging like crazy and was happy to meet each member of our family, canine and human.  She is a lot of dog but I am a lot of Mom, we fit.  :)  

Finding your next canine match is worth all the research and work.  It is not easy and there is much to weed through.  My one top word of wisdom is to NOT purchase online when you choose a puppy by clicking on the pay button.  And if they are set up in the cutest little settings with flowers and stuffed animals that tempt you to buy, MOVE ON.  

Elsa and her breeder have set the bar high; but that's where it should be.