House Rules – Dogs and Pups
By Scotty Valadao – Accredited Animal Behaviourist (Canine) (ABC of SA™)
I believe that dogs, like children, are opportunists, and if they can get away with something they will – they will also take advantage of us rewarding them for complying with our instructions. The difference being that you can explain to a child that if he does not eat his vegetables there will be no ice cream for dessert. This does not work for dogs, and so necessitates us putting house rules into effect, sticking to them, opening up clear lines of communication (NRM), as well as being conscientious and benevolent handlers/leaders. This will result in effective communication and co-operation between the human/canine pack.
As we have house rules for our families so too should we have house rules for our dogs. Dogs need consistency even more than children, and if can show our pups what we do and don’t what, and be consistent about it, this will just makes our lives so much easier, avoid confusion for the dog and allows us to have a happy, well balanced, well mannered dog – what more could you ask for!
As we have house rules for our families so too should we have house rules for our dogs. Dogs need consistency even more than children, and if can show our pups what we do and don’t what, and be consistent about it, this will just makes our lives so much easier, avoid confusion for the dog and allows us to have a happy, well balanced, well mannered dog – what more could you ask for!
Basic Houserules
The basic House Rules addressed here which are aimed to place you and the family in the
combined canine/human pack are:-
1. Ignoring your dog when you arrive home, then calling, asking for a sit.
2. Ignore all demanding attention. Attention is given on your terms or not at all.
3. Work to earn – no more freebees!
4. Food Bowl Exercise and Wait.
5. NRM – Non-Reward Marker
6. Furniture/Beds
General - Combined Human-Canine Hierarchy
In a human/canine household it is imperative that the owner or ‘pack parent’ is the pack leader in addition to every other member of the family. The main reason that we are going to embark on the regime which is discussed later, is to ensure that the owner (and all members of the family) are the highest ranking members of the pack. Dogs have an extremely well developed social system which results in order within the pack and leadership is of extreme importance.
In a dog pack, it is the leader who will determine where a pack will travel, playtime, when to rest and when to hunt. We, as humans, have at our fingertips all the resources a dogs requires - we determine where and when they eat, when they receive exercise, where they sleep, when they receive attention and how much, their access to different areas and even if or when they are allowed to mate. The majority of behavioural problems/concerns arise when the dog does not view the owner (and the rest of the family) as proper pack leaders. If we are not filling that position properly, then the dog will simply try to take over itself, often leading to disastrous results. Although our dogs have developed and changed enormously in appearance over the years, the dogs’ (Canis familiaris) ancient ancestor was the wolf (Canis lupus) and the one thing that has remained constant is that there has to be a leader, an alpha dog/dogs, or pack parents which I prefer.
Being a leader also implies that it is you who decides when you award attention to a lower ranking pack member. This has to be the same for the whole family with their interactions with their dogs so that the dog realizes exactly where their position in the family actually is.
The Alpha in a pack is the dog that is the strongest, most intelligent and best fitted dog all round to lead the pack. The Alpha dog is not the dog that barks, fights (unless with a rival) and creates havoc – he is the dog that is calm, respected, looks after his pack, provides food, and ensures that his place is maintained by exhibiting these virtues. It is in the middle ranking of the pack that the ‘wannabees’ (I want to be the leader but have not learned how) are seen. These are the dogs that squabble amongst themselves, jump up, demand attention etc; they would never dare show this type of behaviour to the Alpha – it would simply not have been accepted. Now in a family situation, every member of the family has to be higher in hierarchy than the dog. There are several easy ways to achieve this and these need to be incorporated into your daily life. If your dog feels that you are ‘losing your grip’ it will try to take over the top positions. This does not happen as much with pups, but if the owner (and rest of the family) can get into the habit of acting as the alpha dog you will be creating a calm, consistent foundation which will result in a calm, happy and well behaved dog.
The beauty of working with a pup is that it has (hopefully) never been show the wrong methods, so you have a completely blank slate and you can use this to show the pup the behaviours you do want.
1. Ignoring your dog when you arrive home; - This exercise to be carried out in silence until the dog has a total understanding of what you expect. Thereafter, the use of the NRM can be used, if need be.
Your dog would not bound up to the leader of the pack and jump all over him and demand attention, so why should your dog do this to you? Granted pups do have a certain time of ‘puppy licence’ where the behaviour may be allowed but this is not behaviour that would be tolerated in the long term. If we relate this situation to human terms, would you allow your child to come up to you and say “I want it, give it to me now” – I hope not! – You would probably say something along the lines of “when you can ask me in the correct manner and say please, we will see what can be done’ or similar. We teach our children to be well behaved, well mannered members of society, so why then do we not teach our dogs the same thing? Simple, we just haven’t thought about it that way and you did not have the skill to ‘speak dog’.
By walking into the house and totally ignoring your pup (or coming downstairs in the morning, moving from room to room etc), you are giving the message that you are in control – attention is given on your terms, or not at all. Interestingly, I find that this exercise is the hardest one for owners to adhere too and it is one of the most important one’s – if you do not carry this through correctly, you are immediately limiting your chances of success. The difficulty with pups is that they are so cute and adorable and it is so hard to resist picking them up all the time and giving them a cuddle. The importance of human/canine interaction is to be consistent, otherwise you are reinforcing the behaviours you don’t want and totally confusing the dog.
As you walk in ignore your pup, do not look at it or speak to it, and if necessary utilize your own body language to get the message across – turn your head away and even fold your arms which shows that you do not want your own personal space violated. Your pup may initially think you have gone mad and the behaviour will worsen (a bit like a child throwing a tantrum) and it will try to jump up more or demand attention. Simply push the pup gently off you remembering not to look at (this signals either aggression or that we want something from the dog) or talk to it. After a time the pup/dog will settle down, walk away or find something else to do. Allow it this time out to digest the change in circumstances for a few minutes, then in a happy cheerful voice, call the pup to you, ask for a sit and praise. It is impossible to tell a dog to do nothing, what we are doing instead, is showing the dog what behaviour we do expect i.e. sitting quietly and waiting to be greeted.
I do recommend that when teaching this new behaviour that praise and a treat is forthcoming – this will just reinforce the new behaviour as well as make it rewarding for the pup to perform this new behaviour. When teaching a new behaviour you should reward on a continuous schedule – 100% - once the dog has a firm understanding you can start to fade the reward.
In the case of a puppy, if you start to practice this as soon as possible after the puppy comes home, then you wont have a problem with jumping up. The pup is being taught right from the beginning what is acceptable behaviour.
2. Demanding Attention – This exercise to be carried out in silence until the dog has a total understanding of what you expect. Thereafter, the use of the NRM can be used, if need be.
In a dog pack, demanding attention from the pack leaders, and indeed, any dog higher in the pack, would simply not be tolerated. If a higher ranking member wanted to play or interact, it would be that particular dog that would initiate the interaction.
We are not always aware how often our dogs do demand attention from us; they often do it without us realizing it. It may be a case of the pup/dog jumping onto the chair and sitting on our lap or next to us, bringing a toy to be played with, insisting on a tummy rub, nudging us, mouthing us, pawing us, barking or whining for attention etc. With puppies it is because they are just so cute and adorable (false advertising!) and before we know what we are doing we are picking up the pup, cuddling it etc – we are, inadvertently, starting a bad habit.
When your pup/dog exhibits the demanding behaviour, ignore the pup completely. If you are sitting on the chair and the pup comes up and tries to interact with you, turn your head and body away. If the pup becomes persistent and tries to jump up, without looking or talking to it, put it back on the floor. If it continues, stand up and move to another chair where it can’t jump onto.
If the behaviour continues, do what is called a Reverse Time-Out. This simply means that you walk out the door (without talking too or interacting with the pup/dog (stiff body, arms folded and not looking at the dog). Close the door, wait 10 seconds and then walk back in. If the pup continues to pester, repeat.
3. Work to Earn
As we all have to ‘work for our living’ so to does your pup/dog from now on. If we relate this to pack behaviour, every single dog has a job, or combined jobs to perform – looking after the pups, guarding the pack, cleaning the den (faeces), hunting for food etc. So if you look at it that way, why not have your dog working for its living? The more you take control of all the resources, the more your dog will view you, and the rest of the family, as the pack leaders and will be more likely to relax knowing you are in charge and not try to take charge itself. This will result in good behaviour and less likelihood of bad habits developing.
With our 10 fingers we supply all our dogs needs – food, walks, play, petting, exercise etc and this together with our voices gives us excellent tools with which to work to control our dogs. At the risk of repeating myself for about the 3rd time, it is always important to be consistent when working with dogs.
Here are some ideas you can incorporate. The list is really endless and the more you do the more your pup will listen and regard you (and all family members) as being in charge:-
a. Sit – One of the most important! This can be done several times in a row and it really does reinforce the desired behaviour of sitting for greeting and stops the bad habit of jumping up on visitors or when you have your white trousers on. You can call your pup to you, ask for a sit, reward with a treat, take a step backwards and reward again. Gradually you build up the amount of steps and when your dog is proficient in this exercise, you can start to fade the reward. I have put notes on fading at the end.
b. Wait – Again an excellent exercise to have your dog proficient in. You can start the wait exercise with the food bowl exercise below and then start incorporating it in all different places. Remember that if you have a 30 seconds wait at the food bowl, only ask for a few seconds at doors etc.
A good place to incorporate the wait exercise is to start insisting that when you open the car door, the dog is requested to wait. This will stop accidents such as the dog jumping out into the road, towards other dogs etc. Additional areas where the wait can be useful is at doors, gates etc.
c. Recall – too me at least, this is one of the most important exercises and all my dogs are excellent at it – why, because I practice on a daily basis. To have the facility to call your dog back when out for a walk, in a dangerous situation etc, will make all the hard work worthwhile. There are further notes below on the Wait and the Real Reliable Recall further on.
4. Food Bowl Exercise
This is another area where we have total control of our dog’s lives, so take advantage of it to raise your own position in the hierarchy. I prefer every single member of the family to do this exercise, both singularly and as a group. If children are to be taught this exercise, firstly ensure that the adults have perfected it, then start the children doing it, always under strict supervision. You are acting out your position of being the Alpha dogs and providing food for your pack. By doing this we are showing the pup that all members in the family are above them and this will also help the pup to feel more secure. If you have multiple dogs, work with one dog at a time and when they are all doing it perfectly you can do them together should you wish too. Start to prepare your pups meal at the normal time, but if you have the habit of always doing this in the same place, change the location. When we are teaching a dog something new such as this, it is always helpful to change the location so that it becomes a totally new experience.
a. Have a biscuit (or several if doing a group exercise) next to the bowl and as you are finished, pretend to take the biscuit out of the bowl and eat it slowly. Make sure your dog is looking at you so it gets the full impact of what you are doing. Only when you have finished the biscuit do you put the food down for the dog – the message – the Alpha dog always eats first, which is exactly what would happen in a pack situation. Many behaviourists do not believe that eating before the dog makes a difference and I, indeed, was one of them. However, while doing a workshop in Ireland a few years ago, I spoke to a beahvaiourist who does believe in this (not that you eat supper at 5pm. and the dog at 7p.m., but rather that when feeding the dog you eat first). She suggested that I try this method on every second client over a few months and then make a decision. Well, the short and long of it is that after two weeks, I changed all clients only this system – it definitely brings around a quicker change in the overall behaviour. The eating the biscuit can be dropped after about a week and continue with the rest of the exercise.
b. Stand in front of your dog and pretend you are eating the biscuit out of the bowl. Really smack your lips and act as if this is best food you have ever tasted. Some dogs will even start to drool! When you are nearly finished the biscuit, show the dog that you are dropping the last of the biscuit into its bowl
c. Stand side wards to the dog.
d. Hold one hand out to the side, with your hand help up in the ‘wait’ hand signal position. This is like a policeman telling you to stop. Put it right in front of the dogs face initially. With pups you may have to go on your knees to start with put your hand gently against the chest to restrain the pup. It will have no idea at all initially what you are doing or what you want.
e. Your other hand is held out side wards away from the pup, and holds the food bowl.
f. Ask the pup to wait (repeatedly saying wait) and slowly start to lower the bowl towards the floor. If the dog tries to move, lift up the bowl immediately to your starting point, saying ‘uhuh’ and start from the beginning.
g. As you get to the floor level and place the bowl down, request the pup to wait a few seconds and then say ‘get it’.
h. Slowly extend the wait period till the dog is waiting about 30 – 60 sec for its food. This is an excellent way to start teaching your dog the wait exercise. Remember that when starting the wait exercise in different locations, to start with a few seconds wait and gradually build up the time.
5. NRM – Non-Reward Marker
Very often, a dog has heard the word ‘no’ so many times that it becomes white noise and is totally ignored and this is why I prefer the use of a word that is not used in our daily conversation such as ‘uhuh’, poofy etc. It does not matter what word you use as long as it is not part of your daily conversation.
Additionally, it is very difficult to tell our dogs to do nothing! You may be able to say to your children ‘please don’t walk on the tiles, I just washed them’, but your dog would not understand a word of this. When you start using the NRM system, you tell your dog ‘uhuh’, I don’t like that behaviour, followed immediately with ‘good boy/girl’ the second the pup stops the behaviour. You are now opening up excellent lines of communication and our pup knows exactly what is acceptable and what is not.
I do not bring the use of the NRM when first teaching the ignoring and demanding behaviour exercises simply because the pup has no idea what I want and my body language (facing away from dog, arms folded, no eye contact, no talking) will tell it all – who has ever seen a pack of dogs, sitting down having tea and having a conversation??
The beauty of having a cue such as ‘uhuh’ is that you can control the volume of same and the manner in which you say it with your voice. It is always better to talk to a dog in a soft voice, and use the loud voice for when the dog has really misbehaved.
What is very important, is to bring in the use of the NRM while the dog the dog is engaged in the inappropriate behaviour, even a few seconds after the event is too late and the dog will not relate the NRM to the past behaviour. Remember to always praise (quietly) when the dog stops.
6. Furniture
When it comes to whether or not a dog is allowed on furniture and beds, it is very much one of personal choice. For example, my own dogs are allowed on the couches and bed, but only by invitation!
If the pup is not going to be allowed onto the furniture when older, simply keep it off when it is a puppy. It always amazes me how many people who have no intention of allowing their dogs on the furniture when they are older, will allow them on the furniture when they are little! All this does is cause total confusion for the pup.
If you have a situation whereby you have a multi dog household, I would recommend that dogs sleep on the floor, as this is an area whereby reactive behaviour can happen. When one dog is higher up than the other, it may well be reactive to the dog approaching it.
Additionally, another reason why reactive behaviour occurs is simply because the dog starts to regard the bed/couch etc as its own territory and resource guarding can become a factor.
The one area that really causes me concern is when there are young children in the family, or visiting. If a dog is on a couch and a toddler approaches, its face may well be on the same level as the dog on the couch and a bite can occur. Up to you!
SIT EXERCISE
When learning this exercise, we make use of the ‘lure and reward’ method. This is simply luring the dog into the position you want and then bringing in the cue.
Hold a treat (sausage is excellent) between your thumb and forefinger right in front of the puppies nose. Imagine a magnet – one side is the pups nose and the other side is the sausage. As your puppy smells it, slowly lift your hand upwards and backwards, going between the eyes and over the top of the head (midline of body). As the puppy’s head goes up, his rear end goes down and he automatically goes into the sit.
This exercise needs to be performed slowly so that your puppy doesn’t loose sight or smell of the treat. If you go too far above the nose, your puppy will try to jump upwards to get the treat, so holding it as close to the nose as possible is the best. After you have done this a few times, bring in the cue/command ‘sit’, only saying it when the pup’s rear end is actually on the floor. This way the puppy starts to associate the behaviour with the reward.
Initially reward him each and every time he does it correctly, then try to do it the other way around – say sit and if the pup does sit, reward lavishly. If your puppy does not respond to the cue, he doesn’t understand the behaviour, so just continue with the initial method until the puppy is doing it properly.
What is important, is that if your dog does not respond to the spoken cue immediately, DON’T keep on repeating it. Rather bring out your sausage and once again lure the pup into the sit position and then reward. If you keep on repeating the cue, the cue for sit then becomes ‘sit, sit SIT, SIT!’ As your puppy becomes proficient in the exercise, you can start to fade the reward as explained earlier. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to do this, make sure that your puppy understands it perfectly first.
Another way to reinforce the sit behaviour, is to tell you pup, ‘sit, good pup’, each and every time he sits by himself. As the pup is being rewarded by your praise, it will be more likely to comply when you ask.
Consistancy
The importancy of being consistant cannot be stressed enough! If every single member of the family is observing the new House Rules, you create stability and the dog knows what to expect. If even only one member of the family allows the dog to jump up, you will then have a dog that will always jump up and the behaviour will never be extinguished.
What owners do not often understand is that when we allow a behaviour sometimes, and not others, is that we are, inadvertently of course, causing that behaviour to be reinforced. Think about a casino, for example – how do they keep on getting you to play? If every time you put in R5 to a machine and you got nothing back, you would soon stop playing. However, be using random rewards (sometimes you get money back) all they are doing is reinforcing you to play more – the exact same principle applies to our dogs!
Fading
One of the biggest complaints from owners is that they need to have food on them all the time in order to get the dog to do anything and this is the main reason why people say the lure and reward method does not work. This simply occurs due to the owner not being taught the correct manner to fade the reward. Once the dog is proficient in the behaviour, the fading should start immediately. Remember that when you are training an exercise in a new location it will be harder for your pup, so don’t fade the reward to five sits inside, for an example, and then go outside and do the same, it is doubtful that it will work. Rather start at the beginning again rewarding after every successful try and then fade in the new location. When I was still running puppy classes, you have no idea how many times I was told ‘oh, but he does it perfectly at home!’ always given - ‘no”!
When teaching a pup a new behaviour, the sit for example, the owner often holds the treat in their hand so that the dog can see it. Instead, change hands, put it in your pocket, put the treats in a moon bag sometimes, other times have the treat close by where you can just reach out, pick it up and then give it to the pup, hold it behind your back etc. Some owners who use moon bags, or similar for training, end up with their dogs only performing the behaviour when they are wearing the moon bags!
Also, remember to quit when you are ahead – don’t make your pup bored, rather work in small increments throughout the day than have one 15 minute training session – this is especially important with pups who have a very short attention span.
combined canine/human pack are:-
1. Ignoring your dog when you arrive home, then calling, asking for a sit.
2. Ignore all demanding attention. Attention is given on your terms or not at all.
3. Work to earn – no more freebees!
4. Food Bowl Exercise and Wait.
5. NRM – Non-Reward Marker
6. Furniture/Beds
General - Combined Human-Canine Hierarchy
In a human/canine household it is imperative that the owner or ‘pack parent’ is the pack leader in addition to every other member of the family. The main reason that we are going to embark on the regime which is discussed later, is to ensure that the owner (and all members of the family) are the highest ranking members of the pack. Dogs have an extremely well developed social system which results in order within the pack and leadership is of extreme importance.
In a dog pack, it is the leader who will determine where a pack will travel, playtime, when to rest and when to hunt. We, as humans, have at our fingertips all the resources a dogs requires - we determine where and when they eat, when they receive exercise, where they sleep, when they receive attention and how much, their access to different areas and even if or when they are allowed to mate. The majority of behavioural problems/concerns arise when the dog does not view the owner (and the rest of the family) as proper pack leaders. If we are not filling that position properly, then the dog will simply try to take over itself, often leading to disastrous results. Although our dogs have developed and changed enormously in appearance over the years, the dogs’ (Canis familiaris) ancient ancestor was the wolf (Canis lupus) and the one thing that has remained constant is that there has to be a leader, an alpha dog/dogs, or pack parents which I prefer.
Being a leader also implies that it is you who decides when you award attention to a lower ranking pack member. This has to be the same for the whole family with their interactions with their dogs so that the dog realizes exactly where their position in the family actually is.
The Alpha in a pack is the dog that is the strongest, most intelligent and best fitted dog all round to lead the pack. The Alpha dog is not the dog that barks, fights (unless with a rival) and creates havoc – he is the dog that is calm, respected, looks after his pack, provides food, and ensures that his place is maintained by exhibiting these virtues. It is in the middle ranking of the pack that the ‘wannabees’ (I want to be the leader but have not learned how) are seen. These are the dogs that squabble amongst themselves, jump up, demand attention etc; they would never dare show this type of behaviour to the Alpha – it would simply not have been accepted. Now in a family situation, every member of the family has to be higher in hierarchy than the dog. There are several easy ways to achieve this and these need to be incorporated into your daily life. If your dog feels that you are ‘losing your grip’ it will try to take over the top positions. This does not happen as much with pups, but if the owner (and rest of the family) can get into the habit of acting as the alpha dog you will be creating a calm, consistent foundation which will result in a calm, happy and well behaved dog.
The beauty of working with a pup is that it has (hopefully) never been show the wrong methods, so you have a completely blank slate and you can use this to show the pup the behaviours you do want.
1. Ignoring your dog when you arrive home; - This exercise to be carried out in silence until the dog has a total understanding of what you expect. Thereafter, the use of the NRM can be used, if need be.
Your dog would not bound up to the leader of the pack and jump all over him and demand attention, so why should your dog do this to you? Granted pups do have a certain time of ‘puppy licence’ where the behaviour may be allowed but this is not behaviour that would be tolerated in the long term. If we relate this situation to human terms, would you allow your child to come up to you and say “I want it, give it to me now” – I hope not! – You would probably say something along the lines of “when you can ask me in the correct manner and say please, we will see what can be done’ or similar. We teach our children to be well behaved, well mannered members of society, so why then do we not teach our dogs the same thing? Simple, we just haven’t thought about it that way and you did not have the skill to ‘speak dog’.
By walking into the house and totally ignoring your pup (or coming downstairs in the morning, moving from room to room etc), you are giving the message that you are in control – attention is given on your terms, or not at all. Interestingly, I find that this exercise is the hardest one for owners to adhere too and it is one of the most important one’s – if you do not carry this through correctly, you are immediately limiting your chances of success. The difficulty with pups is that they are so cute and adorable and it is so hard to resist picking them up all the time and giving them a cuddle. The importance of human/canine interaction is to be consistent, otherwise you are reinforcing the behaviours you don’t want and totally confusing the dog.
As you walk in ignore your pup, do not look at it or speak to it, and if necessary utilize your own body language to get the message across – turn your head away and even fold your arms which shows that you do not want your own personal space violated. Your pup may initially think you have gone mad and the behaviour will worsen (a bit like a child throwing a tantrum) and it will try to jump up more or demand attention. Simply push the pup gently off you remembering not to look at (this signals either aggression or that we want something from the dog) or talk to it. After a time the pup/dog will settle down, walk away or find something else to do. Allow it this time out to digest the change in circumstances for a few minutes, then in a happy cheerful voice, call the pup to you, ask for a sit and praise. It is impossible to tell a dog to do nothing, what we are doing instead, is showing the dog what behaviour we do expect i.e. sitting quietly and waiting to be greeted.
I do recommend that when teaching this new behaviour that praise and a treat is forthcoming – this will just reinforce the new behaviour as well as make it rewarding for the pup to perform this new behaviour. When teaching a new behaviour you should reward on a continuous schedule – 100% - once the dog has a firm understanding you can start to fade the reward.
In the case of a puppy, if you start to practice this as soon as possible after the puppy comes home, then you wont have a problem with jumping up. The pup is being taught right from the beginning what is acceptable behaviour.
2. Demanding Attention – This exercise to be carried out in silence until the dog has a total understanding of what you expect. Thereafter, the use of the NRM can be used, if need be.
In a dog pack, demanding attention from the pack leaders, and indeed, any dog higher in the pack, would simply not be tolerated. If a higher ranking member wanted to play or interact, it would be that particular dog that would initiate the interaction.
We are not always aware how often our dogs do demand attention from us; they often do it without us realizing it. It may be a case of the pup/dog jumping onto the chair and sitting on our lap or next to us, bringing a toy to be played with, insisting on a tummy rub, nudging us, mouthing us, pawing us, barking or whining for attention etc. With puppies it is because they are just so cute and adorable (false advertising!) and before we know what we are doing we are picking up the pup, cuddling it etc – we are, inadvertently, starting a bad habit.
When your pup/dog exhibits the demanding behaviour, ignore the pup completely. If you are sitting on the chair and the pup comes up and tries to interact with you, turn your head and body away. If the pup becomes persistent and tries to jump up, without looking or talking to it, put it back on the floor. If it continues, stand up and move to another chair where it can’t jump onto.
If the behaviour continues, do what is called a Reverse Time-Out. This simply means that you walk out the door (without talking too or interacting with the pup/dog (stiff body, arms folded and not looking at the dog). Close the door, wait 10 seconds and then walk back in. If the pup continues to pester, repeat.
3. Work to Earn
As we all have to ‘work for our living’ so to does your pup/dog from now on. If we relate this to pack behaviour, every single dog has a job, or combined jobs to perform – looking after the pups, guarding the pack, cleaning the den (faeces), hunting for food etc. So if you look at it that way, why not have your dog working for its living? The more you take control of all the resources, the more your dog will view you, and the rest of the family, as the pack leaders and will be more likely to relax knowing you are in charge and not try to take charge itself. This will result in good behaviour and less likelihood of bad habits developing.
With our 10 fingers we supply all our dogs needs – food, walks, play, petting, exercise etc and this together with our voices gives us excellent tools with which to work to control our dogs. At the risk of repeating myself for about the 3rd time, it is always important to be consistent when working with dogs.
Here are some ideas you can incorporate. The list is really endless and the more you do the more your pup will listen and regard you (and all family members) as being in charge:-
a. Sit – One of the most important! This can be done several times in a row and it really does reinforce the desired behaviour of sitting for greeting and stops the bad habit of jumping up on visitors or when you have your white trousers on. You can call your pup to you, ask for a sit, reward with a treat, take a step backwards and reward again. Gradually you build up the amount of steps and when your dog is proficient in this exercise, you can start to fade the reward. I have put notes on fading at the end.
b. Wait – Again an excellent exercise to have your dog proficient in. You can start the wait exercise with the food bowl exercise below and then start incorporating it in all different places. Remember that if you have a 30 seconds wait at the food bowl, only ask for a few seconds at doors etc.
A good place to incorporate the wait exercise is to start insisting that when you open the car door, the dog is requested to wait. This will stop accidents such as the dog jumping out into the road, towards other dogs etc. Additional areas where the wait can be useful is at doors, gates etc.
c. Recall – too me at least, this is one of the most important exercises and all my dogs are excellent at it – why, because I practice on a daily basis. To have the facility to call your dog back when out for a walk, in a dangerous situation etc, will make all the hard work worthwhile. There are further notes below on the Wait and the Real Reliable Recall further on.
4. Food Bowl Exercise
This is another area where we have total control of our dog’s lives, so take advantage of it to raise your own position in the hierarchy. I prefer every single member of the family to do this exercise, both singularly and as a group. If children are to be taught this exercise, firstly ensure that the adults have perfected it, then start the children doing it, always under strict supervision. You are acting out your position of being the Alpha dogs and providing food for your pack. By doing this we are showing the pup that all members in the family are above them and this will also help the pup to feel more secure. If you have multiple dogs, work with one dog at a time and when they are all doing it perfectly you can do them together should you wish too. Start to prepare your pups meal at the normal time, but if you have the habit of always doing this in the same place, change the location. When we are teaching a dog something new such as this, it is always helpful to change the location so that it becomes a totally new experience.
a. Have a biscuit (or several if doing a group exercise) next to the bowl and as you are finished, pretend to take the biscuit out of the bowl and eat it slowly. Make sure your dog is looking at you so it gets the full impact of what you are doing. Only when you have finished the biscuit do you put the food down for the dog – the message – the Alpha dog always eats first, which is exactly what would happen in a pack situation. Many behaviourists do not believe that eating before the dog makes a difference and I, indeed, was one of them. However, while doing a workshop in Ireland a few years ago, I spoke to a beahvaiourist who does believe in this (not that you eat supper at 5pm. and the dog at 7p.m., but rather that when feeding the dog you eat first). She suggested that I try this method on every second client over a few months and then make a decision. Well, the short and long of it is that after two weeks, I changed all clients only this system – it definitely brings around a quicker change in the overall behaviour. The eating the biscuit can be dropped after about a week and continue with the rest of the exercise.
b. Stand in front of your dog and pretend you are eating the biscuit out of the bowl. Really smack your lips and act as if this is best food you have ever tasted. Some dogs will even start to drool! When you are nearly finished the biscuit, show the dog that you are dropping the last of the biscuit into its bowl
c. Stand side wards to the dog.
d. Hold one hand out to the side, with your hand help up in the ‘wait’ hand signal position. This is like a policeman telling you to stop. Put it right in front of the dogs face initially. With pups you may have to go on your knees to start with put your hand gently against the chest to restrain the pup. It will have no idea at all initially what you are doing or what you want.
e. Your other hand is held out side wards away from the pup, and holds the food bowl.
f. Ask the pup to wait (repeatedly saying wait) and slowly start to lower the bowl towards the floor. If the dog tries to move, lift up the bowl immediately to your starting point, saying ‘uhuh’ and start from the beginning.
g. As you get to the floor level and place the bowl down, request the pup to wait a few seconds and then say ‘get it’.
h. Slowly extend the wait period till the dog is waiting about 30 – 60 sec for its food. This is an excellent way to start teaching your dog the wait exercise. Remember that when starting the wait exercise in different locations, to start with a few seconds wait and gradually build up the time.
5. NRM – Non-Reward Marker
Very often, a dog has heard the word ‘no’ so many times that it becomes white noise and is totally ignored and this is why I prefer the use of a word that is not used in our daily conversation such as ‘uhuh’, poofy etc. It does not matter what word you use as long as it is not part of your daily conversation.
Additionally, it is very difficult to tell our dogs to do nothing! You may be able to say to your children ‘please don’t walk on the tiles, I just washed them’, but your dog would not understand a word of this. When you start using the NRM system, you tell your dog ‘uhuh’, I don’t like that behaviour, followed immediately with ‘good boy/girl’ the second the pup stops the behaviour. You are now opening up excellent lines of communication and our pup knows exactly what is acceptable and what is not.
I do not bring the use of the NRM when first teaching the ignoring and demanding behaviour exercises simply because the pup has no idea what I want and my body language (facing away from dog, arms folded, no eye contact, no talking) will tell it all – who has ever seen a pack of dogs, sitting down having tea and having a conversation??
The beauty of having a cue such as ‘uhuh’ is that you can control the volume of same and the manner in which you say it with your voice. It is always better to talk to a dog in a soft voice, and use the loud voice for when the dog has really misbehaved.
What is very important, is to bring in the use of the NRM while the dog the dog is engaged in the inappropriate behaviour, even a few seconds after the event is too late and the dog will not relate the NRM to the past behaviour. Remember to always praise (quietly) when the dog stops.
6. Furniture
When it comes to whether or not a dog is allowed on furniture and beds, it is very much one of personal choice. For example, my own dogs are allowed on the couches and bed, but only by invitation!
If the pup is not going to be allowed onto the furniture when older, simply keep it off when it is a puppy. It always amazes me how many people who have no intention of allowing their dogs on the furniture when they are older, will allow them on the furniture when they are little! All this does is cause total confusion for the pup.
If you have a situation whereby you have a multi dog household, I would recommend that dogs sleep on the floor, as this is an area whereby reactive behaviour can happen. When one dog is higher up than the other, it may well be reactive to the dog approaching it.
Additionally, another reason why reactive behaviour occurs is simply because the dog starts to regard the bed/couch etc as its own territory and resource guarding can become a factor.
The one area that really causes me concern is when there are young children in the family, or visiting. If a dog is on a couch and a toddler approaches, its face may well be on the same level as the dog on the couch and a bite can occur. Up to you!
SIT EXERCISE
When learning this exercise, we make use of the ‘lure and reward’ method. This is simply luring the dog into the position you want and then bringing in the cue.
Hold a treat (sausage is excellent) between your thumb and forefinger right in front of the puppies nose. Imagine a magnet – one side is the pups nose and the other side is the sausage. As your puppy smells it, slowly lift your hand upwards and backwards, going between the eyes and over the top of the head (midline of body). As the puppy’s head goes up, his rear end goes down and he automatically goes into the sit.
This exercise needs to be performed slowly so that your puppy doesn’t loose sight or smell of the treat. If you go too far above the nose, your puppy will try to jump upwards to get the treat, so holding it as close to the nose as possible is the best. After you have done this a few times, bring in the cue/command ‘sit’, only saying it when the pup’s rear end is actually on the floor. This way the puppy starts to associate the behaviour with the reward.
Initially reward him each and every time he does it correctly, then try to do it the other way around – say sit and if the pup does sit, reward lavishly. If your puppy does not respond to the cue, he doesn’t understand the behaviour, so just continue with the initial method until the puppy is doing it properly.
What is important, is that if your dog does not respond to the spoken cue immediately, DON’T keep on repeating it. Rather bring out your sausage and once again lure the pup into the sit position and then reward. If you keep on repeating the cue, the cue for sit then becomes ‘sit, sit SIT, SIT!’ As your puppy becomes proficient in the exercise, you can start to fade the reward as explained earlier. Don’t be in too much of a hurry to do this, make sure that your puppy understands it perfectly first.
Another way to reinforce the sit behaviour, is to tell you pup, ‘sit, good pup’, each and every time he sits by himself. As the pup is being rewarded by your praise, it will be more likely to comply when you ask.
Consistancy
The importancy of being consistant cannot be stressed enough! If every single member of the family is observing the new House Rules, you create stability and the dog knows what to expect. If even only one member of the family allows the dog to jump up, you will then have a dog that will always jump up and the behaviour will never be extinguished.
What owners do not often understand is that when we allow a behaviour sometimes, and not others, is that we are, inadvertently of course, causing that behaviour to be reinforced. Think about a casino, for example – how do they keep on getting you to play? If every time you put in R5 to a machine and you got nothing back, you would soon stop playing. However, be using random rewards (sometimes you get money back) all they are doing is reinforcing you to play more – the exact same principle applies to our dogs!
Fading
One of the biggest complaints from owners is that they need to have food on them all the time in order to get the dog to do anything and this is the main reason why people say the lure and reward method does not work. This simply occurs due to the owner not being taught the correct manner to fade the reward. Once the dog is proficient in the behaviour, the fading should start immediately. Remember that when you are training an exercise in a new location it will be harder for your pup, so don’t fade the reward to five sits inside, for an example, and then go outside and do the same, it is doubtful that it will work. Rather start at the beginning again rewarding after every successful try and then fade in the new location. When I was still running puppy classes, you have no idea how many times I was told ‘oh, but he does it perfectly at home!’ always given - ‘no”!
When teaching a pup a new behaviour, the sit for example, the owner often holds the treat in their hand so that the dog can see it. Instead, change hands, put it in your pocket, put the treats in a moon bag sometimes, other times have the treat close by where you can just reach out, pick it up and then give it to the pup, hold it behind your back etc. Some owners who use moon bags, or similar for training, end up with their dogs only performing the behaviour when they are wearing the moon bags!
Also, remember to quit when you are ahead – don’t make your pup bored, rather work in small increments throughout the day than have one 15 minute training session – this is especially important with pups who have a very short attention span.
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