Training 24/7

I often get asked how often I train my competition dog. My answer...“24/7”. This usually elicits a laugh and a “No really, how often do you train?”. 

I am always training. I’m either training my dog how to behave in the house properly, how to relax when I need him to, how to properly go through doorways, how to behave around my other dogs and, oh yeah, how to perform on high-level obedience exercises. ;) I want as many experiences to be as positive as possible for my dog. This doesn’t mean I hesitate reaching for his collar when he behaves improperly in the house. If he jumps at one of my other dogs, I take him by the collar, drop my voice and tell him to “stop”. But, in the end, I want the positives to FAR outweigh the negatives. 

Every interaction with your dog is an opportunity to train. And, in the meantime, you are building your relationship. I once went to a top breed handler’s seminar. He talked about keeping the dogs in kennels until they were jumping up and down every time he approached...just begging to be worked with. Inwardly, I cringed. You take a social creature, isolate him from the ‘pack’ and expect to have a good relationship with you. It’s impossible. Instead, I want my dog to look at me like I hung the moon. I want to build so much drive to work with me, that he is willing to jump through fire just to look into my eyes. If you have never had a dog that was this devoted to working with you, I hope you one day do, as there is no better feeling in the world. 

Training a high level competition dog requires a change in your mindset. You need to look at everything as training. Lets look at the simple act of going to my dog club to train.....

• As I’m packing up to leave, I want my dog following me through the house, making sure that I don’t leave without him. Or, at minimum, he needs to be watching my actions from somewhere. I do not want him running to another room or hiding (huge red flag!)
• Dog has to sit while I put his collar on. 
• As I open the door to the garage, I practice a sit stay...VERY hard for my dog who wants to get in the car.
• I walk through the door and I call the dog to heel position. If he doesn’t do it right (straight and with attention), I simply put him back inside the door and try again. 
• I leave him sitting on the rug just inside the garage while I go open the back hatch of the car. Another sit stay opportunity!!
• I call him to get into the car. I expect him to come fast and go immediately into his crate. 
• Dog relaxes as we drive to the dog club. 
• Unload my gear at the club while my dog waits in the car. 
• Open my dog’s crate. Dog is required to wait for his lead to be attached and is then given permission to jump down from the car.
• Bring my dog onto the training grounds. He does not have to heel, but he isn’t allowed to pull me around. 
• Take him to the potty area. No pulling!
• Unhook his lead. He is NOT allowed to leave me when I unhook the lead. And, I do not tell him to stay with him, it is a required (and trained) behavior. I play with him for a minute (off lead), before I release him with a “go potty”. 
• As soon as I call him from the potty area, he’s required to respond promptly and come to me to be put back on lead. If he doesn’t respond, I walk him down and he gets a mild recall correction. 
• Dog is placed on a floor mat while I set up the rings. I don’t care what position he stays in on his mat, but he has to stay ON the mat. 

Look at all of those opportunities for reward and interaction! And I haven’t even started to train yet!! And, no, I don’t keep treats in my pockets for rewarding around the house. If your dog can’t perform basic skills for praise and petting, this is something you need to work on. As long as the praise is genuine and the physical interaction is something your dog enjoys (back scratches, belly rubs, ear scratches, etc.), the dog does not need a cookie. 

There are always going to be some negatives applied during training. A lack of effort on a finish may result in a collar bounce. If he doesn’t respond appropriately when I ask for a hand touch, he may have to run to touch the next hand. But, I want the positives to outweigh the negatives. And, not just in training, in life. Think of it as if you had two buckets. Every time you had to correct your dog or do something negative, you have to put a penny into the “negative bucket”. But, every time you do something positive or are able to reward/praise your dog, you put a penny into your “positive bucket”. Now, when you are finished at the end of the day, all of the pennies in the negative bucket disappear, but all the pennies in your positive bucket go back into your pocket, to be used again and again. 

Most people don’t pay attention to all of the little things, until they start to turn into big things. But, now, you will have to use up a lot of your negative pennies to get back on track. And, to clarify, negatives aren’t necessarily corrections. In my mind, withholding a reward is a negative, as is stopping an unwanted behavior. Make the right thing easy, so you can reward it, and make the wrong thing difficult. 

So, every minute you share with your dog, you need to consider the interaction that is happening. Which bucket are you dropping a penny into? The negative bucket or the positive bucket?

Train hard. Play harder. 

Shannon

Decision Making

If you correct a dog for “thinking” about making a wrong decision, you have basically taken all decision making away from the dog. Instead, you need to give your dog time to think.

Give him the opportunity to arrive at the desired decision...without your help. If he makes a wrong decision, help him to be correct. When he makes the correct decision by himself, make sure you tell him how wonderful he is. Do not put pressure on him while he’s thinking. Just wait.

Dogs fail in the ring (and in life) because their owners micromanage them. They are never allowed the opportunity to think for themselves and to arrive at the correct conclusion. So, when you are unable to help them, they start to flounder.

Practice putting your dog in positions where he needs to make decisions. In competition, this can be accomplished through proofing. The intent of proofing is to help solidify the correct behavior in your dog under more difficult circumstances. Good proofing will increase your dog’s confidence and his understanding of each exercise. Bad proofing, on the other hand, can destroy a dog’s confidence.

Does this mean that I only proof my dog on what I KNOW he will do correctly? No. While I’m not going to set him to fail, I will make some of my proofing more difficult on purpose. In these scenarios, I will help him make the correct decision before asking him to do it by himself.

It may make you feel better to micromanage every detail of your dog’s life (in and out of the ring), but give them a little credit. Nothing makes me happier than to see my dog actually make a conscious decision to correct his behavior. When you see the little lightbulb come on and the dog shows you that they know what the correct behavior should be. For me, that is one of the true joys of training dogs.

Train hard. Play harder.
Shannon

Understanding....

There are so many training tools on the market, it is amazing that new dog trainers don’t throw their arms up in confusion. What happened to old fashioned training? Old fashioned work? 

Everyone wants immediate results, but no one wants to work at it. Gimmicks and training tools may work, but the result is the same. If the dog does not understand, as soon as the tool goes away, the desired behavior disappears.

The fundamental, core exercise in competition obedience is attention heeling. So, it is no surprise that trainers have developed “tools” to help you. But, is a tool needed? Absolutely not! Is it more work? YES! However, if your dog UNDERSTANDS exactly what is expected of them, they will perform more consistently, under varying conditions. The caveat to this is that YOU as a handler, need to first understand how to teach attention heeling. 

There are tons of exceptional trainers out there, who sell a “method”. But, yet, you very rarely see their success duplicated among their students. Why? Because the students do not have the same level of understanding of the method. After awhile, their dog’s heeling doesn’t improve, so they move onto a different method. Unfortunately, the “method” isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that the handler does not know enough about the method to apply it properly. This does not mean the handler doesn’t have a good knowledge of the method or even good training skills, but rather that they do not understand the method well enough to apply it to their own dog. Instead of switching methods, maybe the handler needs to spend more time trying to understand their current method better. 

"Knowledge and skill in themselves do not guarantee understanding. People can acquire knowledge and routine skills without understanding their basis or when to use them. And, by and large, knowledge and skills that are not understood do (people) little good!” David Perkins, American Educator: The Professional Journal of the American Federation of Teachers; v17 n3, pp. 8,28-35, Fall 1993.

Now, apply this same reasoning to your dog. If your dog does not “understand” an exercise, you have failed in your training. When our dog performs well, we feel better...about ourself, our dog, and our training ability. So, when we go out and train, especially if someone is watching us, we make sure our dog is successful. There is nothing wrong with failure. Sometimes, we (or our dog) need to fail, in order for us to learn the correct way to do something. 

Honestly, when I see someone showing off their dog’s heeling online, my first reaction is to look for a visible cookie or a toy. If the dog is supposedly “trained” and I see one, I stop watching. Granted, if it is a young dog, that is different, but if the dog is TRULY trained and you have a cookie in your hand, you are creating an illusion. An illusion which may look awesome, but it’s still an illusion. Show me a video of your dog’s heeling in competition. Show me a video of your dog working when they KNOW you don’t have a reward on you. The fact that your training partner pulled the toy from behind your back as you were walking into the ring may make you feel better, but really, who are you kidding??

I will pick on my own dog for a moment....my Springer is extremely food driven. His toy drive is fairly low, depending on where we are training. I train with food a lot, regardless of the surroundings. In doing so, I have not done as much proofing with food that I should have. Two weeks ago, while retrieving his dumbbell in competition, he actually set his dumbbell down to check out a leaf that was on the ground (outdoor trial). When he saw it wasn’t food, he quickly picked up the dumbbell and did a beautiful front and finish. Normally, I would NQ myself and give a second command, but I was trying to salvage a UDX leg, so I bit my tongue and let him work it out. But, I knew I would have to address it in practice.

I needed to pull out his errors, which proved to me the lack of “understanding”. Does he know the basics of the job? Yes, he does...he has his OTCH for heaven’s sake. But, he didn’t understand that the same rule applied when the visible cookie was on the floor directly in front of him. We worked through the issue this morning and will probably need to continually revisit the topic. 

So, when you are training or learning something new, strive for understanding, not just knowledge. Ask questions. Challenge yourself and your dog. Instead of training for a certain “picture”, train your dog to think on his feet and to work through problems. And, above all, put in the work. 

Work hard. Play harder.
Shannon

Hate mail...

I received my first piece of hate mail this week. Some positive-only person decided since I sell prong collars, I must be “sick” and an animal abuser. Fortunately, my "thank you" mail far outweighs my "negative" mail.

Some people think the USA is still in the “dark ages” regarding this tool. If you don’t like a tool, don’t use it. But, don’t categorize people because of their use of a particular piece of equipment. I use whatever tool works best with a dog - this may include toys, cookies, my hands, my voice, a buckle collar, a slip collar, and (yes) a prong collar. I have seen people use their hands much worse than anything I could ever do with a prong collar. 

I sell A LOT of prong collars and I would estimate that probably 60-70% of them go to competition people. These people know how to use the collar or they are working with a trainer, who advised them to get the collar to deal with a particular issue. Other, non-competition people who call me are dealing with a variety of issues - dogs who pull and choke themselves on a buckle collar, dogs who have trachea issues and can not use a collar (but are uncontrollable on a harness), large dogs who have become unmanageable, or owners who don’t have the strength to control their dog on a regular collar. In some cases, these “strength” issues are a result of health issues on the part of the owner. On more than one occasion, I’ve had customers tell me that they were contemplating rehoming their dog because they couldn’t control him on walks or in the house.

I have several resources on my website, including an in-depth video on how to introduce a prong collar correctly. I also have information on how to fit a prong collar. If someone has never used a prong collar in the past, I advise them to seek out professional assistance. Can a prong collar be used incorrectly? ABSOLUTELY! But, so can a head halter, a slip collar, a buckle collar and a harness.

Have I ever talked to a person and refused to sell them a prong collar? Yes. The people who call me, who spout how their dog needs to be disciplined more or they tell me that their dog is having issues and they think a prong collar will “fix it”. Trust me...a prong collar does not “fix” anything. It is merely a tool to help a person communicate with their dog. A training class helps you “fix” things. A knowledgeable instructor helps you “fix” things. A prong collar is simply one tool that can be used as a PART of fixing something. So instead, I refer these people to an obedience club or any type of training class where an impartial (and hopefully qualified) person can help them deal with their dog.

The people who deal with animal abuse on a daily basis have my utmost respect. It is a difficult job and, unfortunately, a never ending one. But, deal with the people who do the abuse, not with a piece of equipment you do not agree with. Deal with the people who leave a dog on a chain, where the buckle collar has embedded itself in the dog’s neck. Deal with the people who confine their dogs in cages 24 hours a day and breed them for profit.

However, it is also OUR jobs as competitors and instructors to deal with issues that we see in the competition venue. You can not turn a blind eye to the person over-correcting their dog (in ANY type of collar). You can not turn a blind eye to the person you see at a trial, who is outside behind a fence smacking their dog around because it did not do well in the ring. You can not turn a blind eye to the person at the match, who runs to their dog on stays and hits it repeatedly in the head because it moved out of position. While it is difficult to walk up to someone and say “stop”, it must be done. Does that mean every time you see someone correcting their dog that you need to step in? No, that is not what I’m saying. But, we all know when we see something unreasonable. We all know when the handler has let emotion come into play and is taking it out on the dog.

As I am definitely rambling now, I will end with this....I always recommend using the mildest type of collar and/or correction which obtains you the result you are looking for. There is no reason to use a level 10, if a level 2 gets you results. Seek out a professional if you don’t know how to use a piece of equipment properly. Keep your mind open regarding ALL of the tools that exist in dog training...whether it be a clicker or a prong collar. Do not accuse and categorize people based on their tools. Instead, step back and look at their dog working. Maybe, just maybe, you will learn something.

Work hard. Play harder.
Shannon

Sometimes you have to fake it...

Everyone is in a position at some point, where they are not 100% confident in what they are training. Maybe it’s a new skill or a new exercise. Maybe it is an unusual reaction from your dog that you weren’t prepared for. Maybe you are trying different methods to work through a particular problem.

I often see people being cautious about how they handle and train their dogs. They are worried about doing something wrong, so their commands are wishy-washy, without spelling out exactly how they want their dog to perform.

How would you feel if you were sitting in your doctor’s office and your doctor came into the room to discuss what was wrong with you. Instead of him spelling out EXACTLY what the problem was, he beat around the bush. “Maybe" you have this or “maybe” you have that. We can “maybe” try this medicine, but “maybe” this would be better. You wouldn’t have much faith in your doctor, would you?

Your dog is the same way. They want (and NEED) specific and clear instructions. They need you to apply things confidently and with purpose.

It is better to do the wrong thing with confidence, than the right thing with trepidation.

You are not going to mess up your dog, or your training, if you don’t handle something correctly; as long as you handle it with confidence. As a disclaimer (because there is always one person in the bunch)....this obviously does not mean that you should “confidently” rip your dog’s head off if they perform an exercise incorrectly, this can cause lasting problems. But, most people train with cookies and/or toys. You are NOT going to do any lasting damage with a cookie.

I’d rather have my dog make a confident, wrong decision than an unconfident, correct one. Much, much easier to fix and build on.

So, if you get into a situation where you aren’t quite sure what to do, fake it. You always hear that dogs live in the moment, and I agree with this. You can always retrain something. You can always start over. But, if you start making your dog guess what you want, you are creating indecision and confusion. Neither of which is a good thing for the competition ring.

Train hard. Play harder.
Shannon

Stop training

Once and awhile you need to stop working and leave trainer “mode”. It is easy to stay sucked into the role of always working on your dog, always perfecting, always practicing. But, sometimes, once and awhile, it is good to stop and check where you are at on the different pendulums of training. These pendulums may be different for everyone, though some are common themes between teams.

One side of my pendulum is drive, energy and exuberance. The other side is precision and detail. Can you have both? Absolutely, but they need to be balanced. Too much focus on precision and detail can result in lower energy and flatness. Most dogs do not like being drilled on details over and over again. Things like fronts and finishes are extremely important, especially in advanced classes, but drilling them is not always effective. Drilling fronts with my German Shepherd would have dramatically reduced her speed coming into front position, something we struggled with towards the end of her show career. Does that mean we didn’t work on them? Absolutely not. But only a few a session. She had to have more drive building, more encouragement, more energy.

My Springer on the other hand, exudes energy. He needs to be reminded that precision is critical. He works on fronts and rear end awareness almost every single day. He needs to be reminded that, while animated heeling is beautiful, he is also required to stay straight, sit quickly and not lose attention. Sometimes, however, I fall too far on one side of the pendulum and get out of sync. I’m working too hard on precision and I lose sight of the overall picture. All of a sudden, my dog's heeling has flattened out and I’ve lost the “look” that I want. Once I bring his pendulum back into balance, I’ve got what I want.

I’m fortunate to have some fabulous training friends that I meet with at least monthly to work through issues. However, I train by myself the majority of the time. This works for me because I like to take my time, working through my problems and trying different approaches to solve them. If I trained with a group every day, I would not accomplish near as much with my dog and our training would suffer. However, I can tell when we need to be reinvigorated by a training group. Sometimes, it just takes a weekend dog show to put the balance back. But, sometimes, it takes a few hours of talking and working through problems with like-minded friends.

It is natural for the pendulums to be continually swinging back and forth. But, the more you practice evaluating where you and your dog are at on “your” pendulums, the easier you will find it to stay in balance. And, when you find that “sweet spot”, there is nothing better. :)

Train hard. Play harder.
Shannon

Smile!

What is the most important thing you need to do when training your dog?

Smile at your dog!!!

Get up and go to a mirror. Make a mean, angry face at yourself. What happens? Your posture changes. Your shoulders become rigid, your body tenses and your breathing changes. Now smile at yourself and notice what happens. Everything softens...your face, your shoulders, your breathing...your entire body relaxes.

If you were your dog, what person would you rather be next to?

Even when I need to stop my dog to fix a behavior, I’m smiling. I’m talking to them in a silly voice, telling them how goofy they are for messing up. Does my dog know he messed up? Absolutely. My hands are on his collar, putting him in the correct position, bouncing him to his go-out spot, or taking him to his jump. But, while I’m “correcting” my dog, he also understands that it is merely a mistake, nothing to worry or obsess about. He doesn’t shut down and he doesn’t start to stress about what I’m doing.

Does this mean that I never show my dog true displeasure? No. If I need to make a point with a stern voice and a firmer correction, I will do it. But, this is normally reserved for the times that my dog decides that working is not an option. Maybe he decides that the grass is more interesting than the article pile or he decides that he’d rather sniff the person standing in the corner, rather than pick up his glove. It is up to you and your ability to read your dog that determines how you should handle any given situation.

Smiling is also shown to relieve stress, improve your mood, lower blood pressure and release good endorphins. How many of us couldn’t use all four of those things on show day?  Train like you show...that’s the rule, right? So, when you prepare to walk into the ring, stop, take a big breath (and let it out!) and smile at your dog. Let him jump up on you while you tell him how smart he is. Then, when you are called into the ring, smile at the judge. You will set a good impression, telling the judge that you are confident and ready to show them what your dog can do.

Train hard. Play harder.
Shannon