Category Archives: Dog Training

05/2/12

Lure Reward Training

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Dunbar promotes lure-reward training.  This training uses a lure in order to accomplish a behaviour, and a reward to communicate the desirability of the behaviour lured.

 

 

Young red dobermann puppy sucking on a finger.

Even young puppies can be lured by food on fingers, or even the sucking reflex itself. Photo © Ruthless Photos.

The Steps of Lure Reward Training

Any behaviour we can teach on cue by a 1234 process in lure/reward training. The 1234 steps are:

1: Request (i.e. use the cue – e.g. say “sit”)

2: Lure (i.e. get the behaviour – e.g. use food to get the dog’s nose up and bum down)

3: Response (the dog performs the behaviour)

4: Reward the dog

 

1,3,4 is always clear, but the lure to get a behaviour (2) may need some creativity.

 

There may also be several lures for one behaviour.  If this is the case, they should be ranked from most desirable to least.  For example, if you were training a dog to eliminate on cue, you could ‘lure’ the behaviour by confinement (i.e. putting the dog in a crate for a period of time) or by an olfactory lure (pee smell).  It’s probably easier to crate your dog than to carry pee in a bottle, but it’s up to you to determine the best lure for you and your dog.

 

Once you’ve got the behaviour, you can start to progress through the stages of luring.  Lures should be phased within a few repetitions, and rewards should become ‘life rewards’ instead of extrinsic rewards in a brief period of time.

 

The stages of reward training is phasing out, first, the lure and, second, the reward, and then enforcing compliance (without pain).

 

 

Stage One – Phase Out the Lure Continue reading →

04/24/12

Ian Dunbar on Punishment

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Ian Dunbar chooses to look at punishment in a different way to most modern trainers.

 

When we look at things that are punishing (or are supposed to be punishing) then we can ask two questions:

  • Is it punishing (does it reduce the behaviour’s frequency)? and
  • Is it painful or scary?

 

 

From here, there are four possible scenarios:

  • Punishment that is painful or scary, and changes behaviour, is effective but undesirable (that is, it is not desirable to hurt or scare dogs).
  • Punishment that is painful or scary but doesn’t change behaviour is abusive.
  • Punishment that is not painful or scary and doesn’t change behaviour is nagging. It’s annoying, a nuisance.
  • Punishment that is not painful and not scary, but is effective, is desirable. This is where Ian Dunbar chooses to work.

 

Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy climbing into dishwasher.

A dog shouldn’t be punished for wrong doings when you haven’t taught them it’s wrong!

In this way, Ian Dunbar advocates verbal punishment.  Verbal punishments can be used to enforce trained behaviours, and is more about tone than volume. Continue reading →

04/14/12

Messages for Dog Trainers from Ian Dunbar

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

There were a few gems of advice throughout the seminar on things dog trainers should acknowledge and do when working with clients.  They can be summarized as:

 

  • When you’re working with an owner, don’t get slugged down with data transfer, explaining things, and ‘telling’.  Don’t waste good dog training time talking about dog training, instead: Do some dog training!
     
  • Use and promote the resources on DogStarDaily (especially Before You Get Your Puppy and After You Get Your Puppy).
     
  • The ‘best’ method for dog training is normally the quickest, easiest, and most effective for a pet owner.  (Explaining learning theory is normally not quick, easy, or effective.)
     
  • The 6 Es of dog training: Easy, Efficient, Effective, Enjoyable, Efficacious (do its job but not produce side effects), Expedient (techniques should be suitable for pet owners).
     
  • Use games.  Games are fun, they motivate everyone (the dog, the owner, spectators, and the trainer).  They allow a way for you to quantify a dog’s performance without the ‘pressure’ of performing, and owners often comply more with games than standard instructions.  (Owners will do almost anything for a ribbon!)
     
  • Remember that the dog owner has zero years of experience and none of your dog training skills.
     
  • To be successful in dog training, you need to be a people person – especially in order to motivate people to do what you ask.
     
  • Start taking stats on dog training – and use your stats in marketing and use them to motivate clients (it shows that their dogs are doing better!).
     
  • Use ‘the Bozo Game’ to help you practice correct responses.  The Bozo Game entails getting your dog training buddies together, and your goal is to create appropriate responses that keep the owner on side, despite the ‘bozo-y’ things they are saying.  For example, “I rub my dog’s nose in it’s mess when it poos inside.” or “I can’t walk my dog unless I put it on a prong collar”.  Your job is to respond in a way that means you don’t lose your client!  (And the implications of that is, potentially, they’ll use a trainer that is less refined as you, and the dog won’t improve, and the dog may end up being euthanised.)  Answers to these statements could be, “It must makes heaps of mess when you rub the dog poo into the carpet! I’ve got a cleaner way for you to housetrain your dog.” or “After attending my classes, you might be able to find other ways to walk your dog.”  If you come up with an inappropriate response (e.g. “You’re so cruel to your dog!” and “You’re an idiot!”) then you have ‘lost the dog’ and lost the game.
     

 

04/7/12

Fearful Dogs (Dunbar)

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

In the seminar, Dunbar asked us what we were afraid of. People called out common fears like spiders, enclosed spaces, and speaking in public (along was the less common fear of “tree roots”), and from these suggestions Dunbar presented a scenario:

Imagine you are going to take an elevator that is damp and smelly, and made of tree roots, and full of spiders. It’s going to take you to the highest floor of the building, where you will deliver a public address – naked. And then base jump.

Now, if your fear is not spiders or tree roots, incorporate your own fears into the story. I am terrified of bees, and imagining getting into a lift of bees is a terrible idea to me.

And then consider: Fearful dogs are living with this very real fear, everyday. It’s not fair when we accept dog fears as “Oh, he’s scared of men” and “Yeah, she doesn’t like visitors”. It is not fair to ‘let it be’, for dogs to experience these very real fears on a daily basis. Instead, a dog’s fears should demands fixing. The solution is normally classical conditioning.

 

Rottweiler being hugged.

Hugging dogs is a bite risk, so dogs should be desensitised to the sensation. Photo © Ruthless Photos.

Treating Fear Issues

Treating fear issues in dogs is much the same as prevention protocols – That is: A bunch of classical conditioning. However, for an adult dog, it takes more time and is more dangerous. Dunbar believes we spend too much time trying to diagnose ‘why’ with aggressive dogs, but the majority of aggression problems are fear based. For that reason, he suggests the same treatment protocol and that we should ditch trying to figure out ‘why’.

Food is crucial when treating aggression. Normally, aggressive dogs do not find being patted or spoken to rewarding (especially if people are the source of their fear!), so classically conditioning with food is, what Dunbar called, “the only way”.

For Dunbar, treating a fearful dog involved giving them a bunch of food for interacting with people, and for tolerating their body to be touch (desensitisation).

Dogs often bite when they are touched on their collar, ears, mouth, feet, anus, when given a hug, or given a ‘kissy face’ (staring a dog in the eyes while holding their cheeks in your hands). For safety reasons, dogs should be desensitized to these interactions in order to reduce the likelihood of bites. This goes for all dogs, not just those that are fearful.

 

Further reading: McGreevy on Classical Conditioning