by Alicia Carr | on August 31st, 2010 | in Features, Training
This week, Mike Stewart takes us on a short hike with trail dogs Indian, Deke, Opus, and Drake. Follow along.
by Grayson Schaffer | on July 12th, 2010 | in Features, Training
Here, Mike shows you the right way to introduce your dog to watercraft in four easy steps. Remember, you and your dog should wear a life jacket. Ruff makes some nice ones for dogs.
by Aspen Ski Patrol | on July 1st, 2010 | in Features, Training
My name is Ali Wade. I am a ski patroller in Aspen, Colorado, and I handle an avalanche search and rescue dog. Jane is a black Labrador and is almost five years old. She was certified as a “basic search and rescue dog” at 18 months and has since obtained intermediate and advanced certifications for avalanche search and rescue.
Jane is the first dog I’ve trained. I learned the different techniques and excersizes through other handlers around the country as well as from a bi-annual seminar hosted by Wasatch Backcountry Rescue out of Alta, Utah.
As a handler of a working dog, I find it important and quite to challenge my dog on a routine basis. Simple things like stepping over or up onto an object or more advanced problems like finding a hidden object and having to problem solve around an obstacle to retrieve the object are a few ideas.
Make sure you use one command and stick with it…. such as “over” or “find-it,” and reward your dog thouroughly. I was told that the sillier you make yourself look, sound and feel while you are praising your dog the more they will appreciate it. (I prefer praise and pats because my lab is a food nut and cannot think about anything at all when she smells food… but feel free to use food as a reward.)
Start easy and work your way up. Start by getting your dog to jump up onto a park bench with an “up” command, but be careful she doesn’t get a paw caught in the slats. Then as your dog recognizes the command and is happy to do it for the reward, find something higher to get her onto—a retaining wall, a large rock… Use your imagination and have fun with this.
This is a picture of Jane and I getting the frisbee off the roof, where I accidentally threw it. I know it seems kind of silly, and it really was a lot of fun. Given that Colorado only has snow for about 7 months out of the year, Jane and I cannot practice in the snow everyday, so these are the kind of things that I do to keep her mind sharp.
A little side note: She would not do this without her work harness on. It was as if she knew that she would be safer with the harness on and became immediately mindful once she was in uniform.
Please be careful with your dogs and yourselves and don’t try anything too crazy…
—Ali And Jane
by Grayson Schaffer | on June 16th, 2010 | in Features, Training, Video Clips
Stream crossings are often where your dog’s obedience will go off the rails. Usually what happens is you set foot in a creek and your dog bolts to the other side. If you’re lucky, you’re not in his way. We prefer to train for stream crossings so they happen in an orderly manner and you never get knocked down. To perfect a stream crossing, all you need is a rock-solid heel, where your dog knows that even though the terrain has changed, the rules haven’t.
by Grayson Schaffer | on April 8th, 2010 | in Features, Training
Train Your Dog to Hunt Mushrooms from Walker Parks on Vimeo.
by Grayson Schaffer | on March 15th, 2010 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training
by Grayson Schaffer | on March 9th, 2010 | in Features, Video Clips
Danger contributes some nice camerawork to our ski outing on Friday.
Danger tries his hardest to frame the shot
by Grayson Schaffer | on March 2nd, 2010 | in Features, Training, Video Clips
Last week, Danger and I got to hang out with the Telluride ski patrol and learn a few tricks. One that didn’t go as well as planned was Danger’s attempt to ride the chair lift. . .
Eric and Wylie
by Grayson Schaffer | on February 18th, 2010 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training
Here, I’ll use Cooper to demonstrate the stepping stones to a remote sit. Stopping a dog on the whistle is as important for skiing as it is for retrieving. Stopping your dog is the first step toward handling him—sending him left, right, and back like a football receiver.
by Grayson Schaffer | on February 10th, 2010 | in Features, Training
All dogs have the ability to swim underwater, but not all will. Here, we get Danger used to putting his head under in a controlled environment. All you need is a bucket and some jerky.
by Grayson Schaffer | on February 9th, 2010 | in Features, Training
This one is borrowed from horse trainers. Making right-angle inside turns forces your dog to watch your legs and make sure he’s in position to avoid getting stepped on. It’s kind of like a dance step. Practice often and your pup is bound to become a good partner.
Heeling with an inside turn
by Grayson Schaffer | on January 26th, 2010 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training
Every dog’s got to know his name. That’s how your pup is going to know when it’s really his turn to heel, retrieve, or get on the couch.
by Grayson Schaffer | on January 5th, 2010 | in Features, Training, Video Clips
We’re going to keep harping on this point all winter. Dogs that get close to skis receive gaping lacerations. It’s just that simple. Here are three tips to help ease your mind and your dog’s pain. Nothing keeps me awake at night like the thought of skis cutting doggy tendons. You can see, even in this video clip that Danger and Cooper aren’t perfect. In the heeling part at the end, Danger crosses over my right ski and was very lucky not to have gotten cut.
Next time, we’ll work on positioning—teaching your pup when he should be at your side, when he should be a ski-pole’s length away, and when he should be behind.
Cooper, Grayson, and Danger at Ski Santa Fe
by Grayson Schaffer | on December 21st, 2009 | in Features, Video Clips
Danger gets ready to spin the bottle
by Grayson Schaffer | on December 14th, 2009 | in Features, Training
This is another fun one to teach with the clicker. First teach him to drop a glass bottle in the glass bin, just like we did with the cans. Do this only after teaching the can trick—broken glass and dog paws don’t mix. Then have him start by picking up the glass bottle from the can bin and dropping it in the glass bin. Gradually add cans to the mix and only click/treat him when he chooses the bottle.
Danger hits his mark
by Grayson Schaffer | on December 7th, 2009 | in Features, Training
Here’s a classic trick that never gets old: Play dead. Use a clicker to shape this behavior. The click should come right at the moment when the dog has completed the task. Early on, you might click just for him lying down and then for flopping over onto his side a bit. With a dog that’s had some clicker training before and knows that he’s got to offer a behavior to get the click, this should go quickly. You can teach a roll-over the same way.
by Grayson Schaffer | on November 30th, 2009 | in Features, Training, Video Clips
What’s not to love about Ski Santa Fe? The same slopes we were hunting September we’re skiing in November. Cooper was too young to hunt this year, but he’s just the right age to get started on snow. We’re going to spend a lot of time talking about how to ski with your dog this winter. Everyone loves to do it, but few people do it safely. Of the Outside dogs that accompany us on morning hike-up laps, none have escaped a laceration either from a ski edge or a snowmobile. The reason it happens is simple: The owner has no control over the dog when new and exciting distractions are introduced. A few people have told me that I’m no fun for making my dogs heel. But that’s not quite right. The point is: Make sure your dog can heel and will come when called (even when skiers or snowmobiles are zipping by). Then when you release your dog to run and play, you can do so with the confidence that he’s not a danger to himself.
- Cooper gets his intro to snow
by Grayson Schaffer | on November 11th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way
Hmmm, notes of kerosene with a distinct diesel finish
Mike passed along news from Tennessee-based handler Jim Bowers about Cooper’s half-brother Boone’s recent certification in arson detection. Boone is trained to detect some 18 different accelerants, which are often present in arson-caused fires. The dog pinpoints the location of the fuel in the debris, a sample is taken back to the lab and, voila, This was no accident!
Boone was started in scent detection at Wildrose shortly after birth and made the team at only 12 months, which is very young to pass the Canine Accelerant Detection Association’s rigorous test. Currently there are about 200 arson-detection dogs working in the country. Nice job, Boone!
by Grayson Schaffer | on October 28th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training
Three fingers under the chest; pinkie out; thumb out
Puppies are great. Loads of fun. But they squirm a lot and, unlike cats, do not always land on their feet. Here, Mike demonstrates proper technique with my mom’s pup, Gibbs.
How to Hold Your Puppy from Walker Parks on Vimeo.
by Grayson Schaffer | on October 22nd, 2009 | in Features, Training, Video Clips
Safety Note: If you're going to try this with a bottle, make sure your dog's hold is bulletproof.
Some folks were asking whether Danger can do that beer trick from last week’s short movie, “In the Face of Danger,” in one take. Yes, and chances are your dog can too. Training a dog to connect tricks or behaviors end to end is called chaining. Typically, these types of linked behaviors are taught back to front, or what’s called back-chaining. Basically, you start with the last part of the task, train that to proficiency, and then add the next-to-last part. Withhold your reward until the dog completes both of these well-polished tasks end to end. It won’t take him long to figure out that the criteria have been raised and he now has to do two tasks before the reward. Then add a third link in the chain and so on. When you see dogs performing complex, apparently human-like tasks on TV, this is generally how they’re taught.
OK, here’s the video.
How To Teach Your Dog To Fetch A Beer from Walker Parks on Vimeo.
by Walker Parks | on October 19th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
by Grayson Schaffer | on October 12th, 2009 | in Features, Training
Nice pick, Cooper!
You never know what your dog will be afraid of. After we’d wrapped up our opening day of duck season, I brought Cooper out of the truck to make a couple of retrieves through the decoys. Just before tossing a duck out into the spread, I gave a few honks on a duck call (ya know, for realism) and Cooper jumped backward. He’s fine around everything else, from guns going off to vacuum cleaners to hair dryers, but for some reason this really set him off. He made some nice retrieves (and one not-so-nice, where he got to shore before I could cut him off) but I learned a valuable lesson. Introduce your dog to all new things slowly. When we got home, I quickly conditioned him to the duck call by blowing it very softly and then giving him food and gradually ratcheted up the volume while continuing to feed him with every quack. I got lucky that this mishap was easy enough to fix, but let this be a lesson for all of your dog’s early athletic endeavors. Make introductions carefully and build up exposures slowly. Once a dog is affraid of bikers or skiers or horses or bearded men or women in fur coats, you’re going to have a hard time breaking that fear. Best not to let it start in the first place.
by Grayson Schaffer | on October 7th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
That old trope about old dogs not learning new tricks just isn’t true. It may be difficult to break old dogs of long-held habits, but teaching new tricks isn’t so hard at all. Here’s a clip from when Mike was here, in Santa Fe. Features editor Elizabeth Hightower was having problems getting her ten-year-old black Lab, Angus, to drop his ball. Mike showed her his pressure-point technique to fix the problem. Now watch him spit it out and wait for a retrieve before dissapearing into the bushes. . .
Angus finally spits out his ball
by Grayson Schaffer | on October 5th, 2009 | in Features, Training
Many common dog bowls can be used upside down to prevent wolfing
Wolf–verb (used with object)
| 9. | to devour voraciously (often fol. by down): He wolfed his food. |
What your dog eats is important, yes, but so is the way he eats. Scarfing down a day’s worth of food in 30 seconds can lead to digestive problems, bloat, or even a deadly condition called gastric torsion. Here are some tips on how to feed your dog, regardless of what you feed.
- Feed your dog twice a day. I’d often heard that since dogs are carnivores and thus evolutionarily adapted to go for long stretches between meals, you can feed them once a day. Then Sue reminded me that dogs aren’t carnivores, they’re scavengers—and in the case of Danger, panivores. One larger meal a day will work, but two will lead to better digestion, less bloat, and less hunger-related anxiety around the house. Remember to subtract the calories of any treats or scraps you give your dog from his food bowl.
- Get a bowl that forces your dog to slow down. You can buy bowls that have posts in them, or if you have a bowl with a hollow rim (pictured) just turn it over and feed from the edge.
- Give your dog a quiet area to eat. If Cooper approaches while Danger is eating, Danger aggressively inhales his food as a defense.
- Have your dog offer a behavior, like a sit, before you set the food down. If you can manage, also require him to sit still until you release him to eat. (A dog that knows to release by name will learn other name-related tasks easier, too.)
