A Few Thoughts on Training

One of my husband’s co-workers has a newly rescued bluetick coonhound and has named her Illy. Still looks a bit worried doesn’t she?

Like all new pet owners, Illy’s human has been asking lots of questions. One was about training and which books we would recommend.

In a post earlier this year, I suggested several books about animal behavior and the science behind it.
Patricia McConnell, Ph.D. (For the love of A Dog, and The Other End of the Leash)
Karen Pryor (Don’t Shoot the Dog)
Jean Donaldson (Culture Clash, Mine, and Fight)
Stanley Coren (How Dogs Think)
Temple Grandin (Animals in Translation)

All of these books offer insight that will make you a better trainer and companion for your dog. For a book with detailed instruction on how to teach specific behaviors, I would recommend Peggy Tillman's "Clicking With Your Dog" Peggy Tillman's "Clicking with Your Dog". The training is clicker based and uses only positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is effective, and in the end your dog loves you and learning, as opposed to fearing both. Tillman’s book gives step by step instruction with pictures and includes all the basics and then some. For more advanced behaviors and parlor tricks, I would get Kyra Sundance's "101 Dog Tricks”.

While I have read all of these books and many more, I have to say that there is no substitute for working with an experienced trainer. Some people opt to send their dog to be trained by a third party, and that is certainly an option. Sadly, such training only guarantees that your dog will behave well for the trainer, not necessarily for you.

By participating in the training, you will learn the techniques, and then can apply them yourself. Training helps to develop a much strong bond between you and your dog, and once you have the skills, you can map out a program to teach most any behavior you can think up.

Next post will answer questions about what to do for your dog while you work or travel.

Have a New Puppy? Ten Things You Need to Know

Some friends picked up a new puppy the other night and while I haven’t met Happy Pete yet, I’m sure he is adorable. After all, it’s a puppy!

When Mark and I adopted Lady, we were lucky that we had close friends who were experienced dog owners, and knew us well enough to give advice. Also, we were somewhat compulsive about reading every book on the market, after more than five years, I am finally felling like I might be able to raise a fairly good dog, if I had the chance to do it all over again. Lady is a great dog and we love her, but face it, we made some mistakes.

Today I was thinking about what I would tell new puppy owners if given the chance. Here are some of the things that top the list.

1. Housetrain and put it on cue. More on this later.

2. Crate train. You don’t have to crate your dog as an adult, but it is a kindness to a puppy. Your home can be an overwhelming place for your pup. The crate gives him a safe place that is his. Also, it helps him be good when he is too young to know better and no one is there to watch over him. Lady used a crate until she was six months old. Then we gradually phased it out.

3. Teach obedience commands. If needed take a class to learn how to train. Here in Atlanta Ian Ambry of Highland Pet Training Center offers a really good five week class (one night a week).

4. Bite Inhibition. Your puppy’s mother and litter mates taught him not to bite too hard by yelping when he did. Now he needs to learn that it is never OK to use his teeth on a human. This is easy to do with a puppy. When he starts mouthing you and touches skin with his teeth, hold his mouth closed with your hand – gently and just long enough for him to start to squirm. Dogs do experience the world with their mouths, so if licking is OK with you, praise and reward him when he licks. He will learn to differentiate between biting and licking quickly.

5. Socialize. Introduce your dog to everything. New sounds, sights, smells, people, places, and most importantly other dogs. Try to make these positive experiences by the use of praise and rewards. Dogs react badly when they are frightened and the best way to ensure that doesn’t happen is for them gain experience with their environment.

6. Spend time with your dog. Dogs are intensely social creatures. Most dogs would rather be inside with you than outside by himself. While it is true that dogs need exercise and enjoy being outside, opening the door and saying, “go play” in the same old boring fenced back yard by himself, is not the kind of stimulation your pet needs.

7. Find a good veterinarian. Get your dog vaccinated on the schedule recommended by your vet and then get in the habit of regular wellness visits. Puppies are vulnerable to some life threatening diseases until they are fully vaccinated, so don’t take them to places where they might be exposed to unvaccinated dogs (like public dog parks) until they have the full series – usually around sixteen weeks.

8. Be your dog’s protector. To new dog owners the line between play and aggression can be hard to distinguish. Some owners think their dog’s bad behavior is “just playing” or say that you should “let the dogs sort it out”. This is nonsense. If another dog plays too rough or your dog seems fearful, you need to intervene. That can mean encouraging your dog to stay away, speaking to the bully’s owner, or simply leaving the area. As your dog matures he will learn to deal with such dogs on his own, but as a puppy, you must deal for him.

9. Agree on dos and don’ts. Talk with the whole family about what behaviors are acceptable. Make a list and stick to it. It is much easier to teach a dog to stay off the bed before he thinks it OK than after. Make sure that what seems cute now, will still seem cute when the dog is full grown or you have company coming.

10. Be consistent. Dogs work very hard to please you and to understand what you want. If you don’t want your dog to beg for food, then begging must never work. It is wrong to reward begging with a treat and then punish the dog the next time he tries it.

11. Be consistent. I can’t say this enough times.

The best way to accomplish puppy housetraining is to take him outside every two hours, and every time he wakes up from a nap. This will ensure that he never have a chance to make a mistake. When you take him outside, bring treats. Stay close and if you want him to make a habit of going in one area, lead him directly to the section of yard you want him to use. As soon as the dog begins to go, praise him and when he is finished, give him a treat. To put the behavior on cue, select a code word (we use hurry up). Incorporate the code word into the praise, as in, “Good hurry up”. In short order your dog will be reliably housebroken and conditioned to go on command – a great thing when it is late and you want to get to bed. Photo credit: © Anke Van Wyk Dreamstime.com

Ring the Bell

When we brought Lady home, we had given thought to what we would teach her. We would only teach her useful things – no parlor tricks. She would not fall down and play dead for the amusement of guests. We soon learned that Lady had her own ideas.
She did not differentiate between useful behaviors and parlor tricks. All behaviors were parlor tricks if there was a chance that the human she was showing off for would give her a treat. She would sit, lie down, and stand in rapid succession, all the while casting a happy smile and shining eye on her target.


Also, she loved to learn new things, and we quickly ran out of standard obedience commands and had to find some new things to teach her. This is not to say that Lady was (or is) completely obedient. But she knew the commands, if she was inclined to follow them.


That’s then we started looking for more novel but still useful behaviors. Ring the bell on the door when you want to go out. Spin three times on the towel on the floor to wipe your feet. Take it to the kitchen – it being anything from the newspaper and mail, to the bag from the pet shop holding her treats. Do your business right now. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.


How did we teach lady these behaviors? All we did with the bell was to hang it on the door. In a perfect example of classical conditioning (think Pavlov and his dogs), she learned to associate the opening of the door with the sound of the bell. In short order, she was pushing the bell with her nose to ring it and to make the door open. As always, consistency was the key. We opened the door each time she rang and the behavior quickly stuck.


Why did we teach her to do this? Quite simply, we were having trouble reading her mind. She would get that look on her face. Did she want a treat, some attention, food, water, or did she need to go out? She had not yet developed the complex body language that answers those questions today – touching the treat jar with her nose is a pretty good indicator that she wants a treat. We knew we would never get her reliably housetrained if we couldn’t figure this out. The bell solved the communication problem.


The downside of this behavior was what I called in and out and in and out and… One other command Lady learned fairly early on was no.