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 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 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 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 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 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 September 30th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
Whiskey and Deke honor Cooper's retrieve
We’ve harped a lot over what’s hard and what’s easy in dog training. Honoring is hard. It’s when one dog waits patiently while it’s another dog’s turn to work. It falls generally in the category of self-control. If your dog sees another dog run by, will he chase? Or will he sit there calmly and, if you’re lucky, check in with you to see what you want him to do. Here’s a quick video, where Mike has Whiskey and Deke honor while Cooper retrieves. (Mike was in Santa Fe a couple of weeks ago and gave Outside’s staff a demonstration. Great fun. Thanks, Mike!)
by Mike Stewart | on September 16th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
In order to train any dog, you’ve got to know what your dog is willing to work for. Every dog is a bit different, even within breeds, so finding your dog’s favorite things is up to you. In this clip, Mike explains five basics that should be combined in different proportions depending on what you want in your finished dog. If you pay attention, you’ll also hear Mike mention something called a primary motivator or reinforcer. Here’s a quick primer on the difference between primary and secondary reinforcers.
Primary Reinforcers: These are the things a dog naturally views as rewards. You don’t have to teach a dog that a liver treat is worth working for. Almost all dogs will view a treat as a primary reinforcer. Most retrieving breeds (with a strong prey drive) will view a retrieve or even getting to hold a favorite object as a primary reinforcer.
The Gray Area: These are motivators that some dogs may see as primary and others may have to learn as secondary reinforcers. In this category are verbal praise, affection, and just being with you. Some highly-social Labs go crazy over a high-pitched baby voice. Meanwhile, independent sled-dog and pointer breeds often don’t care whether you’re around or not.
Secondary Reinforcers: These are also called conditioned reinforcers because the dog learns that they’re valuable based on their pairing with primary reinforcers. That sound that the food makes when it hits the bottom of your dog’s bowl is a good example. Most dogs will sprint toward that sound becaus they’ve learned that it’s predictive of food. If your dog will come to that sound, you should be able to train him, through repetition, to come to any sound.
Finally, there’s the bridge, which Mike Mentions. The main purpose of the bridge is to mark a specific behavior and to let the dog know that the reward is coming. But over the course of training, the sound of the bridge—a click or a one-syllable word—will become a conditioned reinforcer in its own right. The bridge word is the lynchpin in positive field dog training. It allows you to mark behaviors at a great distance and then deliver your reward once the dog has returned to you. It’s only through building up the power of these secondary reinforcers that we can get the dog to perform consistently at a distance without resorting to force methods.
Mike explains the five motivators
by Grayson Schaffer | on September 1st, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
We’ll teach heeling to a bike just like we’ve taught all of our other skills so far: slowly and in increments. Once you’ve got a good loose-leash walk or off-lead heel, you can start this. (If your dog won’t heel ordinarily, it’s unlikely he’ll heel when you add such a big, mechanical distraction.) When you’ve got this down, it’s a great trick for riding around town with your pup as well as having him join you on some mellow spins through the woods. Remember, don’t run your dog flat-out behind a bike until he’s at least a year old. And even then, keep the distances short. Puppy joints aren’t tough enough to take prolonged pounding.
- Walk with your dog at heel on his normal side while you push the bike on the other.
- Once you’ve mastered that, move the dog to the bike side and walk with the bike between you and the dog.
- Finally, mount up and ride out. If you’ve built up each of the steps slowly—over days, not minutes—you should have a dog willing to heel beside you as you ride.
by Grayson Schaffer | on August 27th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Training, Video Clips
Here’s an uncut clip of Cooper’s first water retrieves. He makes three beautiful deliveries when we cut off his return to the bank. On the last one, I’m not quick enough and we quickly discover why it’s so important to be in the water with your dog.
Cooper, the 25-pound torpedo
by Grayson Schaffer | on August 20th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Video Clips
Last week Danger and I returned to Wildrose Colorado to polish up Danger’s water work in Clear Creek. He’s matured a lot since we made the video below, last year. But water entries have remained a problem, due mostly to the fact that I took Danger whitewater kayaking when he was four months old and scared the crap out of him. As a result, he’s prone to charging toward the water, stopping and then running up and down the bank for a few seconds before I finally persuade him to go in. Fearlessness in water is a critical skill for any gundog or adventure dog. We want our pups to love water and see swimming as high-value reward. The goal is a dog that drives straight into the drink in a controlled manner. Huge leaps are fun to watch but, as with humans diving into unknown pools, they can also lead to serious injury for the dog.
To improve Danger’s water entry, Mike had me divide the task into two steps that you’ll see in the video. First, we had him start his retrieve from a small sandbar in the middle of the creek. The sandbar eliminates bank-running by eliminating the bank. That’s called an environmental cue and it sets the dog up to succeed the same way that starting him lining along a fence does.
Second, we moved to a point of land that juts into a deep pool in the creek. The point gave Danver limited options for bank-running but, more importantly, put him a few feet above the water. As a result, he builds momentum coming down the bank which carries him into the water.
After a few of these drills, we had him going straight in off the rip-rap along a bank that ordinarily would have tripped him up.
Danger drives to the dummy
by Grayson Schaffer | on August 17th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Video Clips
Stewart with a properly sized puppy crate
Mike shows you how to pick your pup’s crate. The inclination is to save some money by getting a crate that will fit your dog when he’s full grown. Unfortunately, that often leads to a dog that’s conditioned to soil his nest.
by Grayson Schaffer | on July 21st, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way, Video Clips
Here, Mike shows us how to train young Opus to stay quietly on his dog mat. This is a skill that’s best taught through positive reinforcement—rewarding the dog for being on the mat—and polished by setting boundaries: No, you cannot come off that mat until I say so.
by Grayson Schaffer | on July 14th, 2009 | in Features, Video Clips
Here, Mike shows the results of successfully crate training Opus.
