Bindi Teaching ch1

 

CHAPTER 1

I HAVE STOPPED CHASING DOGS,

URBAN OBEDIENCE

Chasing games are fun for all, and very common at the start of many a family’s interaction with their new urban dog.  Sadly, chasing games are often the root of many subsequent behavioural problems like poor recall, obedience, heeling, and socialisation. 

I am guessing like me, you find one of the greatest joys in life is to have a loving, warm, furry animal to play with, teach and relate to. 

When we bring home a pooch it is adorable, needy, soft and warm and everything we want to hold on to.  So we reach out and hold it. It squirms away and we reach out and tempt it back with a treat.  It gets excited and runs around and we go wahh! haaa! and pat the ground so it comes back. We grab it and it squirms and darts away and we pretend to chase it while it dodges and play bows at us.  I don’t need to play out all the various things that happen over time until you or the kids end up outside running around to see if the dog can be caught.  The dog is really, really enjoying this running and everything is going just swimmingly with great big gobs of fun and pooch attention.  Sometimes the pup charges back and we run away until pooch nips or tugs at our clothes and it’s around then that we give it a cuddle, say a gentle or not so gentle no and probably finish the game before anything really bad happens.

And then, more time passes. The dog is a bigger part of home life. It won’t release its toys, protects its food, won’t come when called, lunges at things, chases cats, barks incessantly and/or refuses to do as it’s told. You begin to hate having the dog.

Luckily for dogs, they live in the moment, don’t understand hate, and get on with their lives as best they can in the ever unsteady emotional environment we put them in.  We take them for walks and pull them away from informative smells and drag them from greeting other dogs, tell them not to wander, chastise their pulling and chasing and generally constrain them from experiencing the results of their actions. 

In the wild, or if left to their own urban desires, dogs are pretty freely organised, mainly interested in the good things of life.  Lying around, enjoying smells and sounds that may lead them to food, chasing or finding food and otherwise enjoying a pretty calm and natural life with very little aggression. In a pack, peer structure is elastic and endemic and any poor behaviour or challenge is dealt with swift and clear by any of the older pack members.

Back to us chasing our pooch.  With all the happiness and the fun, the adrenalin and exertion endorphins.  How good must chasing and happy running around feel to the pooch?    

My guess is that us yelling stop, no, demands and whatever else we do to the pooch after the chasing, well, that is not near as much fun as the chasing game is.  Pooch knows that running away and dodging is such good fun for everyone that it obviously is the way forward.  Every time you want it to do something for you from then on, pooch’s first deep brain memory of you is the recollection of how much fun running way is.

So that is why I stopped chasing dogs.

I stopped chasing dogs very late in life. In fact I stopped chasing dogs when my Bindi was 3 years old.  That my other dogs were sort of well balanced and urban integrated is more about how well they adapted to my idiocy and their local environment than anything I did to help them by my chasing.

Having pooch chase you in play is fine as long as you ensure it is controlled and with the pup-lesson being :-  follow me quickly but behave. 

Perhaps it wasn’t Bindi so much teaching me not to chase dogs as me going off to find out why a work-bred German Shepherd was so hard to walk in the streets of the place I chose to live. 

I mean, my shoulders have been pulled out by her lunging on lead, ears deafened by unnecessary barking, she charged every dog that approached and any cat within half a mile had to be chased.  We had to reorganise our lives around visitors, mailmen and trades being jumped on by a mouth full of tooth hugs, and the level of this dog’s independent stubbornness was off the planet. 

This was a dog we had from 12 weeks old so we were responsible for everything about her upbringing.  Except who she was. On the other side of things she is the most beautiful, sweet soul every minute she is at home with us, the perfect companion and the doting pooch we love to bits.  But sometimes.... Could have strangled her.

I no longer chase her. In any way or form.  Especially when she cute-play bows and asks to be chased or when she steals things to get me to chase her. No matter what. I do not chase.

It will take a longer and concerted effort, although she is swiftly changing for the better, to move her away from her memory that running away is such fun.   It is critical Bindi and I achieve this though as the running away lesson is the oldest, deepest lesson imprinted on the youngest part of her fun times memory and so results the avoidance/independence. Running away fun is the base from which her daily decisions to command are made.  Problem is, she does not have the skills to be independent in the urban world where I have placed her.

Oh, and of course she comes from a long breed line of guard/enforcement dogs, so there is her nature I have to nurture her away from.  Breeds do have a underlying nature.

The way I will help is by moving her into a better mind space and that will mean laying down lots of new good memories.  I also keep in mind that urgent impulses, like lunging at other dogs, spotting cats, hearing new noises and her primal fear responses will trigger a solution that her genetic memory tells her will work.

Consider from what you know about your pooch’s breed that there will be instinct behaviours and use that to help train your pup.  Sheep dogs will herd, cattle dogs will charge, terriers will chase grab and hold, that sort of thing.

So as you progress from here on in, even if the chasing game has been your main play interaction, please don’t chase pup.  Figure out a pup-chase-me game or a more rewarding interaction from what follows here or from other sources.

 

 

CHAPTER 2.

YOU LOOKIN’ AT ME, PUNK?

URBAN BONDING

At this early stage in the book I want to quickly give you a little tool that will help if you have had your dog for ages or if you have a brand new furry buddy.  It’s something which everything about dog training can hang off. 

The pup has to be looking at you if you want to show and train new behaviours. 

Pup must want to look at you and know it’s safe to do so, and that it’s rewarding for pup to look at you.  We want our pooches to look at us before they react, look at us to seek approval before they act, and look at us to ask permission before they leave.  Yeah, I know, you won’t always notice pup looking at you but we do want pup to always check in with us before it acts.  If we miss a pup glance and pup takes action without our consent, it might be something as simple as leaving a room and not an issue or it could be pup goes to be a problem, deal with it at the time or ignore.  But let’s first train pup to want to look to us for guidance.

For this I want you to prepare some treats, very small portions, two variants of treat.  About twenty of each.  A treat that pup really likes and you have ample supply of, say dinner kibble, and another treat pup really really really really likes, like overcooked sausage, chicken, dry liver, sardine. Whatever. You will know. These are called high value treats.

We use treats to entice desired responses and we use high value treats to reward very good performance.

Find a nice quiet place, preferably inside, with few or no distracting things, like no other animals, no blowing curtains, no TV, no people or things the pup desires.

We are going to enter the space together and stand calmly and still, secret treats to hand, pup snuffling around nearby, and we will do nothing.

At some point the pup will look up at you, could take a while, be ready, it may be a super quick look.  If you catch the look, immediately, and I mean at that very moment your eyes meet, make a sound and give a treat.  The sound can be like a cheek tick, a noise with your voice, your tongue, a ‘tsk’ noise or use anything that you can make the same clear sound with quickly and repeatedly and that you will always have with you. 

If your oral dexterity is limited, maybe say a very quick ‘gidgirl/gudboy/goodgenderfluidfurryfamilymember’, or maybe a finger click.  Your choice.  But always use the same.

 I do not use clickers ... I prefer owner sounds rather than mechanical noise. I want my pup associating with me, not to some inanimate tool.  You will always have you, you will not always have a tool to hand. That is just one of my personal aversions though, use what you like. There are plenty of clicker training tools around if you want your pup to respond to generic clicker that’s fine.... really, it’s fine.

Now. Every time pup looks at your eyes, give the sound and a treat but only for that eye to eye look. Not if pup looks at the food or at your hand or somewhere nearby to test if you mean it.  Sound, then reward eye to eye, simple. Repeat.

If pup then does not stop staring at your eyes, yes, that does happen, toss a treat to the floor or otherwise distract pup’s stare by touching something with your foot, and reward the next good eye contact. 

Do it 20 times with a sound and treat and only give a high value treat if you think the desired response is quick, excellent and continuous.  Do it every day once or twice.

Once you think pup has locked in to the fact looking at you is great, you can use that, with sound and reward, before you embark on all other trainings.  Always refresh this ‘look’ behaviour over the months as it is a fantastic bonding, trust and training tool. If you have happy pup attention and pooch commitment to look at you, you can proceed to use that same method to teach sit, come to name, come to whistle, and much more.

Once you think you have nailed this look response in a low distraction area, after a good number of days, take it outside. Into an area where wind blows leaves or the dog next door can be heard.  Do choose somewhere though without too many distractions. This is about growing gradually.

Stand still and calm, repeat the ‘look’ training .  When you’ve both nailed looking/reward in that outside environment, over many days, repeat in a higher distraction environment.... you can see where this is going.  Keep doing it everywhere you go.  After some or many days you will not need the treats, just the sound, and perhaps a touch as the reward.  How nice is that?

As a final word on this sort of bonding, consider that, in a normal day, the process of spotting a desired reaction and giving sound and reward can be adapted to any behaviour you desire.  During the day you may find pup comes and lies by you.  If you immediately sound and reward this behaviour, and use a word like ‘settle’ as the following command , I am sure, again, you can see where this is going... How good would it be to have a command like ‘settle’ to use when out and perhaps wanting to share a coffee or sit down chat with a friend and have pooch at your feet, settled and calm. 

You have the tool, pup has learned the relationship between doing an action and getting sound, reward.  If you stay observant of desired pup acts when they happen, give a sound, reward, command and repeat, you can use accidental good behaviour as positive training. 

URBAN WAITING

Now is as good a time as any to talk about sitting around and waiting.  We can use the above observation skill, where you observe the pooch and where pooch is looking at you for direction, to get a very useful tool developed. 

Wait for a time and observe if pooch chooses to sit down while you are waiting or standing doing nothing.  If this perchance happens when you are watching, immediately make the praise sound and reward the sit giving command ‘sit’.  Give the sound ,reward, command through the day every time you observe pooch choosing to sit without instruction.  You can in time enhance this sit if it continues over a short period by another reward and a command like ‘wait’. Then praise and reward while waiting. This is not training so much as rewarding a natural movement and bringing an automatic act into a conscious and named behaviour (wait) for which pup gets your positive recognition.  A point for you to recognise here is once you start this observation and reward for the action you need to be aware and reward the act as often as you notice and immediately when it happens.  When pup understands that sit means bum on floor and wait means stay there you can repeat the wait command while moving away slightly and rewarding if pup stays waiting.  You get the drift of this... observation, repetition, reward.  Simple.

As well as the above ‘wait’ praise, the ‘sit’ command is a great bit of training to easily include in play time.

To get a reliable commanded sit performed by pup is a primary bit of bonding training.  Start when pup is standing in front of you and paying attention to either a toy, treat or is looking at you. 

You will need both hands free.  In one hand hold a treat and bring to scent range at the nose.  Smoothly and at the same time, move the treat over pup’s head and gently put a little weight on pup’s rear at the base of the tail with slight pressure down and forward to encourage the sit position.  Pup will lift head and follow treat, trying to move backwards.  Your gentle pressure on the hind quarters will encourage a rear end downwards motion.   Time a command ‘sit’ with the bum going downwards motion. As soon as bum hits floor, release, reward and your praise sound all together.

You can do this little bit of training in every play time to mark a rest stage in the play, like sit before ball throw, sit before rope pull, sit before chest rub etc.   For the ‘sit’ training once again use an area of low distraction, then medium distraction, then urban exposure. Repeat with the same actions in each environment so pup recognises what is expected and that your reward comes reliably if pup behaves reliably.

Pup will begin to sit when it comes to you, out of habit, recognise this action and reward it every time you notice the behaviour.

With repetition you will both come to trust the wait and the sit command as being a normal part of the day in play, on walks and when together.

The sit command is one to use when you want pup calm, looking and near you.  The wait command can be used for teaching to pause at kerbs on walk, before going through gates and doors or to remain with bum on floor while you are engaged in an activity.  Both sit and wait commands are to be repeated every day and rewarded for appropriate performance. 

It will take a short time but reliability will increase and you will both be able to trust each other to stay for longer periods of time with better rewards the better the performance.

Bindi now waits at kerbs before I command her to wait and will wait on command (mostly) if there is a trigger I have spotted ahead I know will cause her to react.  I recommend therefore that you do lock this ‘sit’ and ‘wait’ training skill in very early on as the benefit to both of you is great.

Sit and wait are the anchors for much of your daily interactions, to calm pup before attaching walking harness, before allowing pup access to meals, when answering the door to visitors.  In fact in so much of the day to day interaction between you both, it is worth concentrating and enjoying the learning early on in your relationship.