Foundations Module 5
FADING YOUR DOWN LURES
If you worked your adding verbal commands you might not need this step at all as most puppies will start beating your lures and will just start offering the position when you say the down cue. If not, if you still need to help them down with a treat this a video to show you how to work on fading that lure away.
SET YOUR REWARDS DOWN
As we move to teaching our puppies how to further understand all of our foundation behaviors we want to be very conscious of how we start to change up how our rewards happen so that we don’t end up with puppies that only listen when you have a cookie in your hands. We want to have a systematic approach to how we are going to move our behaviors forward and keep them consistent and prevent problems from arising for when we start to fade rewards or maybe we simply run out of them or forget and leave home without them. If you have a way of changing up what the reward process looks like and keep it changing and evolving this helps to prevent your dog from being able to predict the process which helps keep them doing behaviors even if you don’t have them in your hands or pockets.
You may have noticed by now that in none of the videos do you see me wearing a bait bag. Guess what? I don’t even own one. Why? Because I move so quickly to the concept of delayed rewards, to using play and affection for rewards, to using bridges and markers so that I don’t have to have the food on me all of the time. This helps to create a training atmosphere that has the pups focusing on my eyes and hands, not my rewards. This is one of the BIGGEST steps in that process. Getting the rewards out of your pockets and hands and where the dog can see them. This offers you both great impulse control practice and leave it work, as well as setting the foundation for delayed rewards.
So watch the video and then try this game with your puppies while they are laying down. Laying down is the easiest position for them to be successful as they have to get up to reach the reward and this allows you the easy timing of picking up the rewards before they reach them.
with your puppy in a down position lay down 3-4 treats on the ground a foot or so away from their nose
if they get up to get the treats, pick up the treats and hold them in your hand with your hand in the lay down position
once your pup lays back down resume the game
keep rewarding in slightly increasing intervals as your pup stays down, picking up the treats anytime they stand up to get the treats
if you are bringing your hand to reward your puppy and they get up before you get the treat to them, don’t give it, wait for them to lay back down, only ever give the reward if they are still laying down
TAKING YOUR STAYS FURTHER
As your dog is getting more solid in their understanding of how to stay in a position once you put them there you want to keep expanding their understanding of how to stay no matter what the handler is doing so their stay is not dependent on you standing there still staring at them. You want to be able to do anything, move in all directions and have your dog stay still. I teach this exercise so that the dog understands the position itself is what opens up the rewards toy build a high value for the position you left them in. I emphasize the position pays rather than waiting for mistakes and correcting them, I wait for the position and reinforce that and ignore mistakes until they resume the correct behavior, this teaches puppies to self correct and to value that place.
LOOSE LEASH WALKING
Once your dog is able to walk on a long line and they are staying close to you because they realize this is where all the good stuff happens, then it’s time to move to a regular 4-6ft leash.
Ok here is where the real work happens. Here is the thing about leash walking, it’s all about reinforcement history and so much of the time the dog is being reinforced by the environment more for pulling then they are from you for walking nicely.
People vastly under reinforce polite leash walking.
At the same time people often start slipping into their own heads when they walk and disconnect from their dogs, and don’t even realize the moment they have disconnected until the dog is dragging them down the street on leash.
So stay present!!!
Don’t put headphones in and play music.
Don’t scroll on your phone as you walk.
Don’t walk with other people while you are training, your dog needs your full attention!
Every single time you take your dog out on leash you are training them! Be ready!
Have a plan on what you are going to do if they pull!
stop and wait until they reconnect with you
turn around and go the other way, rewarding when they reconnect
Don’t ever start walking if your dog is already disconnected.
Give your dog a set length of leash, don’t keep changing how much leash slack you give, otherwise they can’t learn how much room they have to work with.
REINFORCE WHAT YOU WANT, WHERE YOU WANT IT
Always reward at your side, right next to your leg for a small, med dog and right near your hip for a large dog.
Always reward with your palm facing the dog’s nose, if your palm faces forward or out the dog needs to turn their head to reach it and this will spin them out more in front of you to reach the reward.
Reward when the dog is doing what you want, not as a way to get them back! This is often a huge problem, people ignore great walking, then the dog pulls and the handler uses a treat to get the dog back, which reinforces the pulling. If they are pulling use one of the methods you use to stop pulling, then get the dog back to walking nicely and THEN REWARD.
STAY EMOTIONALLY CONNECTED THE WHOLE TIME YOU WALK TOGETHER WHILE TRAINING!
Great training places to look for:
Empty parking lots for malls, cinemas, shops.
Vacant parking areas
Big boring paved wide open areas- parks and walking paths are being overrun now as so many look to places they can go, but these vacant concrete jungles can be totally empty and make amazing training areas! You have lines painted for parking spots that you can use to walk straight on. You can see for big distances if any distractions are coming.
CHANGING SIDES
It’s very important to teach your puppy how to be able to walk on both sides of you. Maybe you need to walk down a busy road and have them on the side away from traffic, maybe you are walking and a dog that worries your puppy is approaching so you want to swing them around to your other side. Having a pup know how to walk closely and connected to you on both sides can make your life so much easier when negotiating life’s obstacles.
Also of you ever want to play at the sport of dog agility, or nosework, being able to guide your dog on both sides of your body is an essential foundation skill for these skills.
So to turn your dog and switch them to the other side turning towards you:
Start walking with your engaged connected puppy
Have a treat in the hand on the opposite side of the puppy, so if starting with my puppy walking on my left, I would have the treat in my right hand
When you want to turn, bring the treat to your puppy’s nose as you stop and turn in towards them, with them turning towards you following the treat.
Once you complete the turn and they are now on your new side, feed the treat.
To turn your dog away from you and change sides:
Start walking with your engaged connected puppy
Have a treat in the hand next to the puppy
When you want to turn, bring the treat to the pup’s nose and lure their nose away from you in a 180 degree circle until you have turned around
Once you complete the turn and they are now on your new side, feed the treat
One of the secret weapons on teaching loose leash walking is always being able to switch things up to keep your dog’s attention and to keep them from going into automatic disconnected walking. So having a lot of different ways to keep things changing is going to help you master loose leash walking. Be unpredictable, but communicate clearly.
TRAINING WITH TOYS
As you can see I do the same exercises I do with food using my pups favorite toys. Teaching your puppies to love playing with you, to play tug and fetch is one of the very best ways to keep your pups motivated and focused around distractions. Play can rise above distractions for longer than food can hold your pup’s attention in highly distracting areas, because the choice to engage with you is them deciding your games matter more than the competing environment and this really is the key to long lasting reliable behaviors.
Play also puts your puppies into that excitable state where behaviors like nipping, jumping and barking can rise up with their arousal so this gives you the ability to work through these things in a controlled environment since you are controlling the trigger to their arousal. Teaching a puppy to play with me is always the number one most important task I focus on when I get a puppy or work hands on with a puppy.
So let’s see you use those toys to both distract and proof behaviors and then reward them!
COOPERATIVE CARE - NAIL DREMMEL
You can use very careful desensitizing to help puppies learn to both tolerate and even enjoy having their nails trimmed. Here is a video showing how to introduce a puppy to nail dremmeling. This puppy was already desensitized to the noise and the Dremel itself by the owner just turning it on and feeding treats for the week before we moved forward to this.
STEPS TO DESENSITIZING NAIL CLIPPERS, BRUSHES, DREMMELS OR OTHER GROOMING TOOLS
Have tasty treats, lots of them in an easy to grab out of bowl
Get the objects you are working with handy
Select an area you will make a grooming safe zone, meaning this area is a place where you will only do this cooperative work and not force any treatment until you have properly taken the exercise all the way to completion. So if you have to give your dog eye drops or have to trim their nails and they are not yet comfortable with this process don’t use the same area, go to another place, we want this to always feel safe. So maybe you use a mat or dog bed that means this is our safe training zone, or maybe it’s the area you will eventually use as their grooming area
Keep sessions short and frequent vs long and sporadic
We start with classical conditioning: show the pup the clippers, feed a treat, show the clippers, feed a treat, and repeat for 2-5 minutes. Repeat this step until your puppy looks happy to see your clippers and wants to happily be in the training area before moving to the next step.
Now we move from classical conditioning to operant conditioning, which means now we will be having an exchange for that treat which will look like this:
I hold the clippers, pick up the dog’s paw, feed a treat, set the paw down. repeat until comfortable
Same as above but now I pick up the paw, touch the clippers to the nail (without clipping), feed treat, set paw down. Repeat until comfortable.
Now if I have a dremmel I am doing the first step with it turned on, then the second step with it turned on, or with regular clippers I am making them move, then feeding a treat.
With all of the steps I am only moving forward if my dog is comfortable, I step back a step if they are nervous.
If possible once I am going to actually trim nails or brush the first times I have a helper so that they can feed the treats as I work so the pup is getting immediate and frequent rewards.
When grooming the first times, do so with a well exercised puppy during their normal quiet times (so like midday when it’s warm out and they are snoozy is a good time)
It sounds like a lot of work, but if you do it correctly before a puppy ever has a bad experience they can move through the steps very quickly. And if you move slowly with the introductions you end up with a dog that is very relaxed and chill about grooming. It is soooo much harder to wait until they hate having their feet handled to begin trying to make them cooperative about nail trimming.
PLACE TRAINING
Place training is different than a down stay. Place training is about teaching your dog that a spot can be a very high paying valuable place to hang out. The freedom of choice can make the use of place training very helpful when addressing anxiety if they should arise for your pup. Place means if you stay on this spot rewards will come to you here, you are free to sit, stand, lay down or change positions but if you stay here, you will be rewarded. You can use a place to teach your dog where to go and wait when people come to the door. You can use place to teach your dogs to settle down and relax when you dine at an outdoor cafe that allows dogs. You can use place when you are camping and want your dog to settle in a spot.
TROUBLESHOOTING ROUGH TREAT TAKING
Is your dog super rough taking treats from you? It’s important to fix that so they don’t chomp people who offer your dog’s treats or hurt kids by bring hard mouthed.
NAUGHTY STUFF
COUNTER SURFING:
Most all puppies will try this at some point and it is on you to keep this from becoming a problem. Dogs are opportunistic eaters, if they find unattended food they are going to eat it! If they find yummy smelling dish towels they are going to steal them. So during their puppyhood and adolescence you need to puppy proof and prevent them from scoring things! Once they know they can it is much harder to stop than it is to prevent. So when you cannot supervise you need to either keep everything off the counters and tables or you need to prevent your puppy from having access to your kitchen. EVERY TIME YOU CANNOT SUPERVISE. If they are successful one time they will try again for a very long time.
When you can supervise set things that may draw them in, if they ignore it and move away on their own, reward them by tossing kibbles AWAY from the kitchen area. If they are very naughty about it because they have already been successful because you let them win goods, then you might want to have them wear a leash in the kitchen when you train so if they do not move away you can use the leash to help them move away (do not jerk the leash, just use it to stop them from reaching forward and then instruct them to “off” as you gently move them away) if they are small and they put their paws up on the counter next to you, say “off” and slide your body gently towards them along the counter so your hips push into their physical space (again this is not about slamming them off, it’s about applying soft spacial pressure.)
If during their experimental phase they are not able to score any food and you are always there guiding them to stay off the behavior will extinguish. Supervise!!!! Don’t give a puppy unsupervised access to counters and tables until they are not showing any interest in them when you are there.
DESTRUCTIVE CHEWING:
Puppies go through a couple of big super mouthy phases that can turn into destructive chewing habits. First is during teething. Most puppies start teething around 4 and half months old and it lasts around a month. They usually lose their incisors (the little front teefs) first and their canines last with all the molars and premolars between. Many times you don’t see it until you see a bloody toy after they chew on it, or you might find some teeth laying around.
But behaviorally you can often notice right away. First they generally start chewing on weird stuff they didn’t target before: like corners of your molding, chair & table legs, corners of concrete stairs, drywall, metal. They seek out hard things to work the teeth out. They might suddenly stop playing with you or your other dog as their mouthes get sensitive (some don’t and will play like maniacs and let you accidentally rip their teeth out) if they are 4.5-6 months old and stop wanting to play tug with you, don’t try to, let them finish teething. Some puppies get extra cranky and nippy during that bewitching hour we walked about earlier.
During teething make sure you provide your puppy with lots of different textures of chews, hard stuff, and you can freeze some of their soft fabric toys to sooth their sore mouthes. Do not leave teething puppies unsupervised with anything you don’t mind being chewed on, anything!
The next phase of destructive chewing usually creeps back up during adolescence (7-9 months depending on breed/size) this is usually caused by not enough physical and mental exercise. Adolescence dogs basically have almost adult bodies with baby brains that get bored very easily. You will often see this present as chewed up crate pads and beds left with them in confinement. Or chewed up books, trash, magazines and other items if you leave them alone. Or they might lay down quietly (while super bored) and chew up a shoe in the other room or behind you.
Address this by: making sure physical exercise is sufficient. Give your dog brain games (food puzzles, trick training, nose work, mental enrichment games). Keep toys novel, instead of giving your dog a toy box of all the same toys, rotate the toys, place a third of them in a toy box, then randomly during the week leave a new one in a new place for them to happen upon, and keep swapping the toys out so they are always different toys coming and going. Have some toys that are only for playing with you and play WITH your dog with that special toy at least once a day. (this is in addition to regular walks). Continue to supervise and limit access if your dog is showing destructive chewing. When they are chewing redirect them onto an appropriate chew toy. Take crate pads and beds away until they stop chewing, it’s not going to hurt a dog to crate on a simple towel or just the crate pan if you are crating for appropriate durations in fact many dogs will push beds and blankets aside anyway. (pay attention to where your dog lays when out of the crate and you will see many prefer the hard floor to a bed anyway) Supervise! Be there to let them know to chew on something else and limit their access to things until they show you they are making good chew choices.
One last note, many dogs will chew when they are nervous, so if they are only destructive when you leave, or when there is a storm or when the neighbors are loud or when you have visitors it could be anxiety displacing onto chewing. In this case look at how you can ease and address the anxiety and provide them with a lot of good things they can chew to relieve those nerves.
JUMPING UP:
This is actually much more about training people! teach people not to greet your puppy until they have greeted you first, teach people to greet calmly and only when they puppy has calmed down, teach the people to stop touching and stop interacting when the puppy’s feet leave the ground, be positive and proactive in this: say things like “please give our puppy a moment to calmly collect themselves before saying hello” and then ask them questions that engage them with you (we want dogs to learn they are not the first priority when someone walks in the door - obviously they are but we don’t want them to know that too soon ;) then you can say “we are teaching our puppy to be a very polite greeter so they are safe with very young children and the elderly so if you don’t mind helping us here is the deal: please only pet as long as all 4 feet stay on the ground and please speak calmly, if the puppy starts jumping you don’t have to do anything, just ignore them and I’ll take care of it”.
If they say they don’t mind just politely let them know it matters to you and not everyone feels the same way. If the people want to play and be energetic give them a toy and show them how to play with a puppy properly rather than just teaching them to jump up. If they are young people who really won’t listen to you then at least insist they sit down on the dog’s level so the pup is learning standing people are off limits for jumping. Or better yet don’t leave it up to these folks, put your puppy on a leash and use treats and toys to get your pup’s focus on you as people arrive.
You can use sit stays and place training to teach your puppy a spot to wait while people enter and now you have a specific behavior you can reinforce and reward and your pup is learning what to do instead of what not to do.
POOP EATING:
Don’t be mortified. This can be very normal in puppies. Especially if they came from a busy breeder, shelter or pet store (anywhere where there was poop laying around long enough with a bunch of hungry puppies). This is actually a completely normal canine behavior, dogs eat poop. So to fix it, prevention is best. Go outside with your puppy every time they go during potty training and when they go poop, reward them and then immediately pick it up before you go back inside so there is no available poop for them to find when they come out. Be super diligent about cleaning up after your puppy until they are older. If you can keep them from doing it the habit will fade out in most cases. If it does not then the next step is to use a supplement you add to their food that makes their poop taste awful (forbid, etc) for this to work you HAVE to give it with EVERY MEAL and to EVERY DOG in your house for at least 6-8 weeks so every poop in your yard tastes super nasty for long enough they give up trying.
MARKING:
Approaching adolescence many male dogs will suddenly start leg lifting to mark with urine inside. They might do it when you visit new places, when new dogs visit your home, when new people visit, when new animals move into the neighborhood, when a female in the area goes into her heat cycle, if they live with another male dog and feel competitive, etc. So be on the lookout! I like to set this up by taking my teenage boys into pet stores and by places I know another male dog has marked and as soon as I see them sniff and side up I’m ready to say “no” and I quickly race outside with them and let them find a bush to mark and then I praise them and go back inside and try again. You have to be watching only them and ready as it happens fast, but if you can catch those first attempts you can teach them it’s not ok to mark inside and show them it’s totally cool outside.
When traveling to new places or having people stay with you, you might want to use what’s called a belly band the first couple times incase they decide to try. Again like counter surfing this is so hard to fix once it’s established but fairly easy to prevent if you completely supervise those first attempts and stop them immediately. Obviously neutering before a dog reaches adolescence will prevent this, but don’t think not neutering means this is a behavior you cannot prevent or fix, you can if you are on it. I’ve lived with three high drive intense intact male dogs and have never had a dog that marks inside, and yes each one of them tried it at least once and I caught those first ones and that was it.