Dog training best practices

[Dog Guy]

First off, don't let "Dog Guy" fool you into thinking I'm a trainer. I spent a lot of years as a SAR dog handler and I was very good at that, but I've never had the expertise to train someone else's dog. I've just picked up some useful tools along the way.

On prong or slip collars: there's a misconception that these are hard corrective tools or only suitable for hard dogs with problems. We rarely needed to use them with our GSDs, but have needed them with all three of our Labradors. The GSDs figured out on-lead corrections and behaviors pretty quickly. Our three Labradors have been more knuckleheads. They'll happily lean hard into a flat collar and haul away. Labs are also prone to throat irritation from exactly this behavior so the slip or prong allows a correction that's less likely to harm the dog. The end result is a walk where both the handler and the dog are happy and relaxed, and the dog doesn't end up being treated for an inflamed trachea.

Regarding timing of reward or correction: Check out "Don't Shoot the Dog" by Karen Pryor. There is much more to training than timing and reward but I found a lot of good tidbits in her book.

[willie]

Many good points were brought up in the recent K9/handler thread. How about people that are trainers and or handlers chime in with their experience? I am currently trading a 6 month old cavaoodle. She is a 20 lb sweetheart and super smart. She has sit, paw, down, roll over pretty good. I am working on drop it, leave it and touch (come) .
This morning she got hold of a dirty sock and really did not want to give it up. She growled when I took it from her and then she attacked me and bit my hand. She knew she fucked up and went straight to her pen. I use a slip collar for walking her but I don’t use it for training. She is so small a slip or pinch collar seems like over kill.
I reviewed my touchy feely dog training revolution book but when the author recommends taking the dog to a vet to make sure the dog isn’t mentally ill? Any suggestions ?
I know that plenty of dogs have been ruined by abuse, neglect and lack of socialization. I had a coworker that adopted a K9 washout Rottweiler from a prison. The dog would attack almost any adult male he saw; supposedly a handler abused the dog. My buddy kept him for years but was never able fix the dog. every time I came over he put the dog in the basement.

I was always too lenient with pups and toddlers. Because I made mistakes and recognized some, I want to point out that your pup, despite being sweet, knows that she bit you and got away with it. You may have arrived at the wrong conclusion when you gave her credit for knowing that she messed up. She may repeat the behavior. I think she will if provoked.

[SJC3081]

Best practice, you should have slapped the dog firmly across the face immediately. Firm enough to cause pain but not to injure the dog. That would make the dog understand you are the Alpha. Once you establish your the Alpha in shouldn’t happen again.

[Dog Guy]

I started with SAR dogs in the late 80s, and the alpha rollover was quite popular at that time. One of the astute trainers that we had a seminar from pointed out that the "show them who's alpha" techniques worked most of the time for most of the dogs because few of the dogs actually considered themselves to be the alpha. When a poorly prepared handler tried such a technique with a dog that actually thought Fido was the alpha, bad things were likely to happen. Just be heads up if you go that route.

[Coyotesfan97]

Yeah, that is what I've been thinking, problem is that's money I want to spend on something else.

It's funny, we took an hour walk this morning, and as usual he behaved perfectly, stayed right by me, sat whenever I stopped, etc. And he ignored - didn't pull me off course - all other animals. But if he gets loose outside, katy bar the doors. I'm worried it will happen at night when I cant see where he goes.

Oh, well, I have Cabella's bucks, any suggestions as to brand?

I always used Dogtra on my working dogs. If you going the e-collar route I’d suggest finding a trainer to teach you and your dog. It’s not something you should just put on him and start using.

I like www.gun dog supply.com for dog equipment and supplies. Here’s a link to an ecollar buying guide.

https://www.gundogsupply.com/dog-tra...l?megamenumenu

[Coyotesfan97]

Like Dog Guy I was never a trainer but I spent 16 years following a dog around. If you’re around K9 that long you know the stuff but you really aren’t the trainer.

I think for smaller dogs you can get away with a flat collar but even with small dogs it’s easier to control them with a chain collar. With bigger dogs you need a chain or pinch collar for the control. You get a better correction with the right collar. A flat collar is just a tug on their neck. I like fur savers which are a big link chain collar. Corrections don’t have to be harsh they just need to be enough to get the dog’s attention. You probably need to go to www.rayallen.com or an equivalent police K9 site to find them.


Fursaver

[Coyotesfan97]

The thing about corrections and dogs is first the dog has to know what it is your telling him to do. So just as an example if he doesn’t know heel then telling him heel and correcting him is pointless. Once the dog knows the heel command and you’re walking when he surges ahead of you. You give the heel command and see if he obeys or not. Either way you’re going to mark it. If he does it a treat or a “good dog” in a happy voice works. If he disobeys you mark it too in a harsh sharp command. NO works but I use Pfui (phooey) from years of working Dutch dogs. Then you correct whether is a leash or e-collar. But it has to done fairly quickly. In this example it can be done right away.

Command mark or Command mark correct.

If you’ve seen videos of trainers using a clicker the click marks the right behavior.

[Crawls]

... She is so small a slip or pinch collar seems like over kill....

First, thank you for recognizing that even small dogs need training and proper socialization. I think most of the obnoxious, mean and ill-tempered dogs I've come across walking my dogs over the years have been small tiny dogs. My guess is that their owners see them as non threatening due to the dog's size and therefore, skip the socialization and training.
I'd agree with what was posted earlier about choker and pinch collars. They're perfectly fine on small dogs too. The size of the self-correction the dog gets from the pinch or choker is proportional to size of the dog and the force it can create. Smaller dog = smaller force. You have to be careful though that the size of the corrections you put into the collar are proportional as well, but you do the same with a flat collar anyway.

The positive dog trainer in me says: One of the ways I've learned to get dogs to trust me taking things from them is to start out by giving them something more enticing in return. If the dog doesn't want to give up a sock, start out by trading that sock for a piece of hot dog or some sort of treat. (Key here is to make sure the reward is for giving up the object not for guarding the object - the timing is important.) If it is an object that is ok for the dog to have like a chew toy or ball, give it back to him and keep repeating the trade off as he warms up to the concept of you taking something from him. If it's a sock or something the dog shouldn't have, try making the trade, but instead of giving the sock back, give him a chew toy or something appropriate for him to have. Eventually phase out the treat and just make the trade for the chew toy.

The Koehler dog trainer in me would suggest a quick emotionless alpha roll at any outward sign of aggression like biting. Pretty easy on a dog the size of your pup. It may be overkill; depends on the dog; YMMV.

[Wingate's Hairbrush]

In for the learning, but I'll share this:

1) After seeing first-hand a beloved dog struggle from Laryngeal Paralysis -- understanding that it's idiopathic and causes, to include neck-trauma, are theorized but as yet unconfirmed -- I'll never put anything but a plain collar around a dog of mine's neck again, and no leash will ever be attached to it. Never. And neither will anyone else handling my dog. Done with neck pressure for control; harnesses only now.

2) A food motivated dog makes training a lot easier.

[Bratch]

I grew up around animals, my dad trained race horses, my mom trained barrel horses. We always had dogs around. As an adult I had a Border Collie and Malinois that listened but weren’t formally trained.

With our GSD adoption I went to a formal dog trainer for the first time. We did 6 sessions with her for about 15-20 hours. The only reason we stopped was it was an hour each way and the dog refused to perform at her place. He loved the techniques but something about the building didn’t mesh. My background is very limited compared to many but here is what we’ve learned.

Some of the things we picked up from her that have helped:

1. Clickers. I saw them mentioned up thread. He gets excited during training and will cycle through positions if he doesn’t get an immediate response. Once we click he freezes where ever he is, even if he is half up and down.

2. Consistency. We are training twice a day (noon/evening) for about 10-15 minutes. This also goes for words used in commands.

3. Food training. We showed up with training treats and were quickly told to use his regular food. We have since hand fed him all of his food in his 2 training sessions.

4. Bowl training. We worked an upside down bowl as his spot for the first few months. If he got confused during training he’d reset to his bowl and start over.

5. Non verbal. This is the one I have the most trouble with, when at a stop the dog sits in heel. Stepping with the right leg signals to dog to follow with you, stepping with the left signals them to stay. This one hasn’t had a big impact on our training but was interesting as someone who hasn’t been around a lot of seriously trained dogs.

We’re still dealing with some personality quirks and attitude but the difference in 6 months of training has been wonderful.