St. Louis Obedience Training

10/19/2023

Dogs who are pro-social and want to have an interaction with you or be touched will be very clear in their body language. We've all seen wiggly, happy dogs who clearly want interaction. And by all means, greet that dog.

But the dogs who aren't super enthusiastic or don't eagerly initiate contact, likely aren't looking for an interaction. But it can be confusing, because some dogs will approach even if they're unsure, sort of a "fact finding mission" to determine if you're safe. In this case, if the dog approaches and then you reach down or start to engage with the dog, often the dog will jump back or might even snap, because they weren't looking for you to interact with them. These dogs may be a little conflicted. They may sort of want an interaction but they're unsure. Sometimes will see a "stretch investigation" where they stretch the front part of their body to sniff or get close but their back legs are planted in case they need to make a getaway. If you suddenly reach down to pet or try to feed the dog, you’ve likely just confirmed to the dog by invading their personal space, that you're not safe. It's important to have a solid understand of dog body language and look for subtle signs of discomfort.

Read more in my post this week about to how meet a dog for the first time: https://rescuedbytraining.com/2023/10/16/first-time-meeting-dog/

08/09/2023

Have you ever realized that you've been doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of the advice you give other people?

We are always telling people: Tell your dog what you want them to do (as opposed to telling them what NOT to do). It's so much easier to teach someone to DO the right thing, as opposed to teaching someone to avoid the wrong thing.

And yet, we often tell people DON'T FEED YOUR DOG FROM A FOOD BOWL.

Oh well, we're not perfect! But we always try to do better. So today, we're releasing a new Downloadable Document, BETTER THAN A BOWL, that puts the emphasis on some of the many ways you SHOULD use your dog's food in training, instead of focusing on what not to do.

As always, these documents are meant to be shared, downloaded, printed, and passed around, so if you like the message, please share it however you please!

If you'd like to learn more or download a PDF version of this new document, go to: https://dunbar.info/BetterThanABowl

And if you'd like to learn EVEN MORE, you should sign up for our 1-MONTH FREE TRIAL of the Top Dog Academy, available for the next few days.

https://dunbar.info/august2023

You'll get instant access to ALL of our online courses for an entire month for FREE. And if you sign up now, you'll also get access to PERSONALIZED SUPPORT FROM THE DUNBARS on our private Facebook group, exclusively for Top Dog Academy members.

That's right, we're giving away all of our courses, plus personalized advice, for FREE! That's how much we love helping people train their dogs.

06/13/2023

05/10/2023

If your dog is fearful and reactive, then walking them could be doing more harm than good. For fearful, reactive dogs, moving through the environment is often too stimulating. It doesn't build confidence, it undermines it.

Instead, find a quiet place to sit with your dog and watch the world go by.

Simply sitting in one place will give your dog the time to get used to the environment. When you sit in place, the environment changes gradually. When you walk your dog, the whole environment is changing with every step, and it's just too much, too fast, for some dogs.

Train your dog and give them the confidence they need to enjoy walks BEFORE you walk them.

Learn more from Dr. Dunbar's Digital Books & Videos Collection, on sale for the next few days for 75% off: https://dunbar.info/collection2023

If you really want to help your dog, bring their dinner with you, and hand-feed it to them one piece at a time as you sit in one place. Feed them the occasional piece of food at random, and then, whenever something new appears in the environment, whether that's a person, a dog, a squirrel, a garbage truck, or whatever, offer your dog lots of pieces of food, one after the other, until the stimulus disappears.

Your dog will learn that these things in the environment are nothing to be scared of, and if your dog looks to you when something appears in the environment, they get a treat. That's the default behavior you want your dog to learn: If there's something interesting or weird in the environment, look at me, your human. Once you've got your dog's attention, it's so much easier to manage their behavior.

And talk to your dog! Especially if your dog is too anxious to take food because of something in the environment. Use a calm, relaxed voice to tell them that there's nothing to be afraid of. If they are barking and lunging, just use your voice to help calm them down. If they stop barking and lunging for half a second, mark it: Tell them "Good! Thank you! That's much better, thank you for being brave! You're such a good dog!" Amp up the praise when they are behaving nicely to provide a noticeable contrast to the calm reassuring voice you use when they are anxious and acting out.

If you want to make this super easy, start this process at home. Hand-feed your dog their dinner in your kitchen, then your living room, then your back yard. Then try it on your front step, where you can actually see people and dogs walk by. Once your dog is comfortable there, you can move to the sidewalk. Bring a camping chair and take a seat and wait. Next you can move halfway down the block and set your chair up there. Over time, you can do this exercise in progressively more active and interesting environments. So long as you and your dog stay in place, and you provide the right, calming feedback, your dog will get more comfortable and confident as time goes by, and as they receive more treats.

Eventually, your dog will have the confidence to walk through environments, starting with familiar, boring environments, and gradually working up to active and exciting ones. Your dog will have learned that if they are uncomfortable about anything, they just need to look at you for reassurance and guidance.

04/25/2023

It might surprise you to know that dogs don’t need training. Dogs behave in exactly the way they need to meet their needs. However, letting them live in our homes this way would be a disaster. This is why we train them; otherwise, we’d be living in p*e and poo and unable to sit on our destroyed furniture.

There is one simple principle that guides the behavior of all living beings: do what’s rewarding and avoid what’s unpleasant. This principle guides every action a human, a horse, a cat, or a dog performs. In short, every behavior has a function.

How can we apply these rules to dog training?

Let’s take the first part: Dogs do what’s rewarding. This part is easy. When dogs do behaviors we want them to do, we give them a reward. The more often a behavior is rewarded, the more likely it is to be repeated. Usually, that reward is food. Food equals survival, so most dogs are pretty motivated by it. Some dogs are more motivated by play and toys, and those are valid rewards as well. Now, there are some rewards that are of higher value than others, and dogs will work harder to obtain those. On the flip side, if a reward’s value is too low, the dog will not work for it. Think of it this way: If I asked you to pour me a cup of coffee from the pot and bring it to me for $1, you’d probably be fine with that. Heck, you probably would have done it for me for free. But if I asked you to cook a 10-course meal for a party of 7 and offered you $1, you’d probably laugh at me and walk away. We expect our pay to be commensurate with our effort, and we should pay our dogs by the same guidelines.

I can hear you saying, “It’s all well and good to reward good behavior, but what about when my dog does things I don’t like?” First, let’s look at “Dogs avoid what’s unpleasant.” The logical extension of that is to make a behavior so unpleasant, the dog will avoid doing it. This is called punishment, and it definitely works to stop behavior. A lot of times it only stops the behavior when the guardian is there to see it. (Did your parents ever punish you for something like smoking? Did it stop you from smoking? It probably stopped you from smoking in the house, but I bet you found other places to smoke.) There are many pitfalls to using punishment in a training regimen. I’m not going to describe them here, because I already did so in an earlier post. Suffice to say, punishment isn’t the preferred route to go. This leaves us with the question of how to get rid of those pesky, annoying behaviors.

Remember what I told you before? Every behavior has a function. That means, every behavior fulfills a need. If you just suppress or stop the behavior with a punishment, you still won’t be meeting the need. If you teach a dog a new behavior to meet that need, you end up with a satisfied dog who now trusts you to take care of him. For example, my dog likes to paw at me for attention. I don’t really like that because it scratches me and hurts. Instead, I teach her to rest her head on my lap for attention. We both get our needs met.

Training your dog can be remarkably easy when you remember the tenet that dogs do what’s rewarding and every behavior has a function. When you can train your dog with empathy and compassion, you will enhance your life with your dog and achieve that companionship you envisioned when you first got them.

04/08/2023

ARE YOU WORTH COMING BACK TO?

There are many reasons why dogs don’t come back when you want them to. A dog’s genetics play a big role in this when an environment is far more stimulating and exciting and listening and coming back to you disappear into the background as genetic instinct takes over.

An exciting scent or seeing something to chase can all override a response to you.

Genetics aside, a common reason why dogs don’t come back when called is because it’s not a positive experience for them.

I often cringe when I watch owners trying to get their dogs to come to them when they call.
They call and call and get increasingly angry and frustrated as their dog keeps ignoring them.

When their dog eventually does come back, or has been chased and "captured” by their owner, they get screamed at, yanked about, smacked or punished in some way for taking so long and not listening. Why would a dog want to return to someone who does this to them!

Make coming back to you worth it by always making it a rewarding experience.

Have a little patience if it takes longer than you would like, let your dog finish what they’re doing before calling them, practice in different locations and environments and never reprimand or punish them for coming back.

There is never a guarantee of a perfect recall each and every time, but making it rewarding will greatly improve the rate of success.

03/23/2023

03/20/2023

02/16/2023

08/24/2022

06/14/2022

Training Tip Tuesday: JUST REWARD YOUR DOG.

I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, and most people who follow my page are likely already doing this, but I know some of you will share this, and I want to hammer home this point: YOU CANNOT OVER REWARD GOOD BEHAVIOR. You just can't. You won't spoil your dog. You won't teach your dog to 'manipulate' you for food. You WILL see more of the behavior you like, though! And isn't that the point of training?

The NUMBER ONE thing that I do that increases engagement and compliance with my canine students is that I reinforce far more often than a non-trainer might. Sometimes in class my students will get frustrated because their dog responds better to me then them with all of the distractions, but the reason that that happens is that I am consistently generous with the dog and I pay with typically very exciting and novel food reinforcers. (my own novelty is likely also at play here as well, but unfortunately when we live with our dogs our novelty wears of fast, just ask Regis and Phoebe 😂😂😂).

There is no magic, I'm not a "whisperer", I don't have a special 'bond' with dogs, I just pay more often and have better treats! And those are both things you can do just as well!

The 'race to get rid of treats' is in our heads. There is no way to completely fade reinforcement from training (behaviors that are no longer reinforced get extinguished, that's just how it works). And I think sometimes our ego takes over even when we should know better (the dog SHOULD do it, because I said so!) when we've been working at a skill for a while. Don't let these things hold you back! REWARD YOUR DOG!