WEDNESDAY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Wednesday's word is" Behavior."  

Behavior can be defined as the way a person or animal behaves.

This sounds obvious, but when training your dog, one of the most important aspects of training is to focus on what the dog is actually doing without putting a spin on it. Viewing a dog’s actions as “blowing you off,” “dominant,” “acting stubborn,” even being “fearful” or “aggressive” without first objectively viewing the behavior can be counterproductive, since the label we put on it can affect what we do to change or encourage it. 

When analyzing behavior, it helps to remember your ABC’s.  A = Antecedent, what happens before the behavior occurs; B = Behavior, what actually is the dog doing; and

C = Consequence, what happens after the behavior occurs.  Looking at behavior this way objectively can give you insight at what might be going on.  It also helps to keep in mind that what might be triggering the behavior and what might be maintaining it are not always the same.  Only then can you begin to change the behavior. 

But what about feelings the dog may be having? Don’t those matter?  Those are internal states that are hard to quantify.  We know that dogs’ brains *do* show that dogs have emotions, and yes those things are important. But, since we can only infer what the dog might be feeling, the behavior itself is what we mainly have to work with.  Humans aren’t always good at interpreting what other humans feel, let alone another species.  Its behavior change that we are interested in—often if you change the behavior, the emotions will follow. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try to engage in techniques such as counter-conditioning, etc. It just means that we need to be careful when we put a label on the dog's feelings, the dog can't verbalize what he's feeling. 

Just one more thing:  When teaching a behavior, the word cue is the least important.  Remember that ad campaign, “The quality goes in before the name goes on.”  Since dogs don’t know English, the word is the least important, they focus more on our body language.  I’ll save a discussion on reinforcement schedules, cueing, shaping, and other things to consider when changing behavior for another day.

WEDNESDAY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Wednesday’s word is “Management.”

  Management is defined as " the process of dealing with or controlling things or people..”  When you have multiple dogs, you need to engage in some form of management.  I’ve had a lot of calls recently from homes

 with 3 or more dogs who aren’t getting along.  One of the first things I do in such cases is to look at the living situation and determine what triggers are provoking the conflict,and how those triggers  can be minimized or avoided.  As I have been known to tell people, when families get together there can be conflict, why should it be any different for dogs?  Management is NOT a substitute for training, but is an important adjunct to it.  The first rule is to keep everyone safe and under threshold.  Just like people, some dogs can have an extreme dislike of another. Occasionally this can  never be resolved completely, but even then, the situation can be improved.  Patricia McConnell recently wrote about how she introduced a new dog into her home, for her blog, click here:

  http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/introducing-a-new-dog-maggie-and-willie-as-a-case-study

WEDNESDAY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Wednesday's word of the day is Attention.

  Attention is defined as"... notice taken of someone or something; the regarding of someone or something as interesting or important."    If your dog's not paying attention, it's hard to get her to do what you're asking her to do.  When you're getting a dog ready to show, you work a lot on attention and focus.  In the "old days" of training, we used to do this by setting the dog up to be inattentive--or rather, fail--and then correcting the dog.  A better method is to reward attention and gradually increase the amount of time you are asking the dog to be attentive, then work the dog in  more and more distracting environments. The point of adding distractions is to teach the dog how to work through the distraction, not as a "Gotcha!"  By gradually working through it in this manner, the dog gains confidence and learns to look at you as a way to avoid the distraction but in a way that keeps trust in your relationship.  Even if you don't show, it's hard to teach your dog anything if you don't have her attention.  By systematically rewarding attention and keeping it interesting, you'll develop a dog into a partner who's willing to work with you

 It's a lot more fun for the two of you that way.

Missy and I at a trial in Louisville KY

WEDNESDAY'S WORD OF THE DAY

Wednesday’s words are Keep Away, as in the childhood game. Dogs love to play this game.

 

Hops playing Keep Away with Missy

It's ok for them to play Keep Away with other dogs, but when they play it with us, that can create problems.  For safety's sake, we need to be able to take things away from them, and they need to learn to give items up to us, even high value ones that they don't want to give up

   

 When dogs are playing Keep Away with us,  it’s usually in the context of  “I've got this and you can’t have it,” and it often involves grabbing something and holding it in their mouth, just out of your reach or in conjunction with the "Catch-me-if-you-can" game.  You can’t win this game and it’s not one you want to play, at least by their rules.  If your dog finds something you don’t want him to have, a good technique is to play the" Trade Ya" game, where you offer the dog something he’d like better, such as a really tasty treat, or another toy of greater value.    Too often the dog grabs something, we either lose our cool or try to grab it back, and they’re much quicker than us. Dog also learn it’s a good way to get our attention.  Some dogs learn that by using their teeth or showing aggression, they’ll get to keep whatever it is. Confrontational techniques (no matter what you may have seen on TV) will make the situation worse in the long run, so a trade is much better. If you always use certain words, such as "Trade Ya," when you make the trade, eventually this phrase becomes a cue for your dog to give you the item, whether or not you've got something in return.   And if your dog—as Missy did—begins to offer you stuff in the hopes of getting a treat?  Hey, no problem, you don’t need to always give a treat in exchange and at least he understands the game. I consider that a Win-Win for you both!

Hops giving up the bird at a retriever Working Certificate Test