It’s spring and now that the snow has melted (for most of us), many would-be dog owners are turning their attention to rescue, shelter, and breeder lists. As I watch my own dog, a 10-year-old Labrador retriever named Lincoln curled up on the couch next to me, I can’t help but think of the moment when she will be gone. Who will come after her? I find myself vacillating back and forth between a puppy or a senior dog, purebred or mixed breed. Although I may not be clear on which direction I would choose a dog, I know for sure what skills I would like to teach my new dog, any dog, young or old.
Before I get into what I would consider my top five dog skills, I think it’s important to understand some of the things that can influence how you teach a particular skill. Factors like age, confidence, physical limitations, and motivation will all play a role in how you train. Let’s address each of these factors individually.
- Age: Puppies are blank slates and have had less time to rehearse and commit to unwanted behaviors. You can have a real influence on a puppy by making sure he or she has continued opportunity to interact with other puppies and dogs after they leave their litter, and by deliberately introducing them to as many sights, sounds, and smells as you can (in a friendly way). unfamiliar). threatening manner) to help create a safe and social animal. By managing your environment, you can prevent unwanted behavior from occurring in the first place. But a puppy can be tough. They have limited concentration, chew and eliminate indiscriminately, and require lots and lots of attention.
If you choose to adopt an older dog, you may need to spend some time first resolving and managing problem behaviors. Your ability to socialize a dog beyond his “critical period” (up to 12 weeks) is limited, so while you may sway your dog’s confidence somewhat, pretty much what you see is what you get. But unlike puppies, a senior dog may have already progressed through his super-destructive chewing period and, with proper supervision, should be able to be easily housetrained.
Training a teenage dog comes with its own set of challenges. Dogs reach adolescence at around 5 months and adolescence can last until the dog is two or three years old, depending on the breed and the individual animal. Adolescence is characterized by more independent thinking; the dogs will be less interested in you and more interested in the environment. Dogs go through their final phase of teething during this time. There is also a period of fear associated with this phase: confident dogs can suddenly become shy and fearful. Getting a teenage dog will require you to be consistent in your handling and training. Doing so will ensure that both of you spend this time happy and whole.
- Confidence or lack of it: Learning is stressful. Keep an eye on your dog while training and watch for signs of stress: yawning, bowing, scratching in the middle of a training session, jerking (as if the dog is trying to shake off water). These behaviors do not necessarily indicate that your dog is overly traumatized by learning; in fact, there is a good kind of stress (called eustress) that actually enhances learning. Distress, the bad kind of stress, is what you’re trying to avoid. You can do this by keeping your training sessions short (three to five minutes for newbies). Raise your judgment gradually, for example, if you are working in a downstairs room with the dog alone in the kitchen and you are asking for a 30 second stay, if you take the dog outside to work in a room understand this context it will be much more difficult for the dog to act on it. Maybe you’ll work on a 5-second stance to begin with. Don’t make things so difficult for your dog that he gives up. Prepare your dog for success. The more successes your dog has under his belt, the more confident he will be. You will see an animal that loves to learn and therefore will be more willing to work for you even in the most difficult situations. Avoiding stress will keep your dog engaged in the training process.
- Physical limitations: A dog’s ability to perform certain tasks may be limited by physical impairments. Limitations like deafness and blindness would be obvious impediments (but not insurmountable, by the way), but something like old age or a limp or injury can also inhibit certain behaviors or the ability to process information. With an older dog, you may need to modify your expectations of him. Does advanced age prevent your elderly dog from sitting? Maybe you’ll teach him a solid stay instead. Take her time, allow the old lady enough time to process the information. Contrary to popular belief, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
- Motivation: To teach a new skill, your dog needs to be motivated to learn. It’s up to you to figure out what will motivate your dog to want to work with you in any given situation. If they’re hotdogs, great, use them. If it’s butt scratches, great, use them. If it’s a tug of war, use it. Whatever you use to reward the behavior, the dog can determine if your “stuff” is worth working for. A simple rule to remember: If you reward behavior, you should see more of it. So if you’re using biscuits to reward “come” and the dog comes to you once and never again, that’s a problem. Try something else. Adapt to each training situation.
Now that we’ve covered some of the things that can influence how you train, let’s talk about what to train. When I began my career as a dog trainer in 1997, I began by training service dogs. A service dog is an animal that has been trained to assist your disabled partner with tasks as specialized as picking up dropped items, finding lost keys, or even reminding your partner to take their medications. It takes many months and hundreds of hours of training to teach the skills a dog will need to become a service dog.
While most dog owners don’t require that level of training for their dog, I think the average owner would like their dog to have the same kind of self-control that any person with a disability expects from their job. dog.
Here is my list of the five most critical skills I would like any dog to learn.
- Default site: The first thing I would teach any new pack dog is a default position. I’ll be honest here: I’m not crazy about dogs jumping on me. Not many people are, even the most enthusiastic dog lovers. With that in mind, I would immediately start teaching my dog that sitting is more beneficial than jumping. Sitting is incompatible with jumping. A dog simply cannot sit and jump at the same time.
To do this, I’d first like to configure the dog so that it can’t do many (or preferably no) paws on people’s mistakes. I would make sure my dog was on a leash or on a leash whenever new people were around. This takes the anxiety out of any human-dog interaction. It means you no longer have to worry about your dog jumping on someone because he can’t.
Next, the task of teaching the sit would begin. I’d like to make sure I always have some very high-value rewards on hand to help ensure my dog wants to work with me, even if exciting things are happening around him. Since my goal is to teach the dog to sit automatically whenever new people appear, I would refrain from telling or asking my dog to sit (he or she may decide not to respond anyway and I wouldn’t want to teach my dog without realizing it). ignore my commands), but let the dog explore his options. Every time the dog sits I would follow up with a tasty treat because I understand that any behavior that is rewarded should happen more often. You have to be patient during this process. It may take a little time before the dog realizes that it is the session that is giving him the tasty treats. Once my dog became more confident in responding to each new person that came with a seat, I would start working on teaching my dog or puppy to hold onto their seat for longer and longer periods of time.
- Calm down mate: This is one of my favorite skills to teach. The idea is that you can send your dog to a portable mat (such as a bath mat or towel) where he will lie down and stay until he is released. The little Goldendoodle pup (photo on the right? Photo on the left?) is 16 weeks old and is lying on his mat in the middle of a football field with a team playing in the distance. What the photo doesn’t show are the other four soccer teams on either side of him. He shows all this ability at such a young age. What a good dog and what good parents he has to spend so much time teaching him how to behave in public places!
- How: We all want our dogs to come when we call them, but many dogs I work with just don’t. They are completely unreliable. You need to teach your dog that whatever he’s doing is worth giving up to run to you. It’s important to reinforce this behavior each time with a super tasty treat (if your dog is food motivated) or a game of tug (if your dog is play motivated).
If your dog is not trustworthy, work on this skill with your dog on a long leash and then inside an enclosed area before trusting him off-leash. If your dog does NOT come when called, whatever you do, don’t scold him. Repeating commands is the fastest way to teach your dog to ignore you. Go find him and rework the dog in a line until he or she is more trustworthy.
- Eye contact: Eye contact is a great way to teach your dog to keep his attention on you. I begin this skill by rewarding my dog whenever he or she chooses to look at me: on walks, at the dog park, when children are around, at home, etc. I call these “records”. Records are a great way to start teaching your dog or puppy that they are worth looking at.
- Leave it alone: Leave that alone! Don’t mess with that. The purpose of this skill is to teach your dog to back off and not touch anything you have asked him not to touch. The “it” in question could be a cat, a hamburger bun, a sock. Imagine how useful that would be!
Finally, remember to spend some time training your dog or puppy. It’s not fair to get mad at her dog for misbehaving if you haven’t taken the time to teach her what is expected of her. Whatever skills you feel are important for your dog to learn, understand that behaviors need to be rewarded often and well, and that you’ll need to limit the opportunity for your dogs to make the wrong decisions by using better control: head halters or no-pull harnesses for a dog that pulls, leashes and ties for jumpers, and long tails for a dog that doesn’t come when called. If you think you have additional help, you can find a professional trainer in your area at http://www.apdt.com. Good luck!