by Grayson Schaffer | on September 3rd, 2009 | in Training
The chair creates at least five more ways for Danger to get himself into trouble
Last week, Sue had me and Danger meet her at a local shopping mall to have a go a working from a wheelchair. Needless to say, this makes everything more difficult and meant Danger had to stay close and avoid pulling, lest we end up on a Nantucket sleigh ride through the mall. Going through doorways, up and down ramps, and through peopled areas were all twice as complicated as they normally are. The takeaway: A good service dog has to be calm, precise, and utterly unflappable. Danger was quick to learn how to press the handicapped access button on the door and equally quick to hump the leg of the indiscriminant petter who smothered him just afterward. I’ve since recovered.
by Sue Barns | on May 18th, 2009 | in Your Questions
Cute, but Brutus is a toy-hoarding monster
Q. My dog, Brutus, loves his toys to the point where he attacks other dogs that try to play with them. And it’s not just his toys. Say we’re at the dog park and there is a dog that is playing with a tennis ball: He will steal the tennis ball from the other dog and get very mean if that dog tries to take it back or even share it. At home, I have to take his toys away and put him in “time out” which is him being sent to his crate. I don’t think it’s a matter of lack of exercise; I let him run next to my scooter until he’s tuckered out, which he absolutely loves. Any suggestions on how to stop this possessiveness/obsession?
A. Possessiveness is an entirely natural behavior for dogs and, in the case of dog-dog interactions, a difficult one to modify. From Brutus’s perspective, his behavior works—and every time he successfully steals a toy or defends one from another dog, his obnoxious behavior is rewarded. I know of no way to decrease his interest in toys—I expect that “time outs” will have the opposite effect—and I don’t want to deprive him of what are obviously a great source of joy in his life! But here are some thoughts on improving his etiquette around other dogs:
- I suspect you’ve figured this out by now, but… Don’t give your dog toys when he’s around other dogs.
- Train your dog to drop toys (or anything else that’s in his mouth) on cue. When your dog has a toy, offer him another, better toy or treat. As he opens his mouth to take the new thing, say “drop” and praise him enthusiastically when he does. If he likes to retrieve, you can throw the toy for him as a reward. This is going to take a lot of training with every toy he has before it becomes automatic. Make your dog think that whenever you say “drop,” an even cooler toy or fabulous treat will appear. You will get lots of use out of this command, and you can use it when Brutus steals another dog’s toy. We’re working on this one with Danger at ADW, now.
- Train your dog to have solid leave it and come (recall) commands, and use them to prevent stealing other dogs’ toys. This is especially important if your dog is inclined to get ugly with other dogs. As your letter indicates, you recognize that he lacks self-control around toys, so it’s your responsibility to provide that control. Just like you wouldn’t let a son (or daughter) bully other kids at the local playground, you can’t let your pup bully other dogs at the park for their toys!
by Grayson Schaffer | on May 13th, 2009 | in Features
Assistance Dogs of the West graduated half a dozen canine students into service last night. The Santa Fe-based organization uses a small staff of professional trainers, who work with both dogs and more than a thousand student trainers from local schools and juvenile detention centers. There’s a simplicity to what ADW does—training dogs for people with disabilities; teaching students empathy, patience, and responsibility through training—that makes its mission easy to buy into, as evidenced by a packed convention center. Learn more about ADW and donate here.
by Grayson Schaffer | on May 7th, 2009 | in Features, Training
Danger's ready for a loose-leash walk
Every dog must learn to walk on a leash. Mike covered informal heeling off-lead, using a slip collar. Here’s how the ADW trainers do it with their service dogs.
The Ideal Scenario: ADW teaches loose-lead walking (and heeling, once you unsnap the lead) with a clicker and treats. It’s incredibly simple. Say your walk cue, Let’s go or heel, and set off. As long as the dog is in the heeling zone next to your knee, click and treat frequently. Then gradually lengthen the amount of time and distance required for a treat. Most dogs are pretty quick to figure out that their place in relation to the handler is what draws the treat. I also like to look for frequent eye contact. You can promote this by clicking when you’re getting a good heel position and the dog looks up at you. Eye contact means the dog’s focus is on you and not what’s going on in the world. The nice thing about this method is that it doesn’t require any force, a must for service dogs who will be handled by people with disabilities.
The Problem of the Outgoing Dog: With Danger, I’ve found that as soon as I give him his treat he suddenly speeds up and is out ahead foraging and looking for people and other dogs to greet. Like most training issues, the tasks are easy; the self-control is hard.
- Start with a preemptive leave it when obvious distractions are coming down the path toward you. Most problems of pulling can be fixed with a well-conditioned “leave it.”
- Some of the books I’ve been reading lately explain the dog’s urge to go ahead as an attempt to become a pack leader. Others explain it simply: Because it works. Whether it’s the former or the latter doesn’t matter; you can’t give in. When he goes ahead, stop, get him to come back whatever way works best. Then make him wait. Then set off again. Don’t let him pull you even a little. Just a few inches of give can reinforce the behavior.
- Like anything, loose-leash walking is much easier to teach if it’s started at a young age. Train it in as a good habit early, rather than trying to fix a bad habit late.
- If all else fails, use punishment. We’ll go over punishment in another installment.
A Good Exercise
- Walk Toward a Goal: In this one, Sue set out a bowl of food at the end of a hallway. Danger and I set off toward it and as long as he was walking at my knee, we could keep going. As soon as he moved ahead we had to go back to the starting line. This is a great one to teach a dog self control because calmness and patience are the only way to ge that big reward. And you don’t need to use food, either. We repeated the exercise with another dog that Danger really wanted to meet as the reward on the other side of the room. As long as he walked at heel he’d get to greet the other dog.
by Grayson Schaffer | on March 31st, 2009 | in Features
ADW client Alice Lee and her new two-year-old female Lab/golden mix, which she plans to call Mesa
It’s client placement week at Assistance Dogs of the West, which means matching dogs with their new people. Trained dogs are usually about two years old when they’re ready to be placed into service. But first they have to be matched with their new handler. I didn’t realize this, but the handler/service dog match isn’t made until quite late in the dog’s training. Clients have several weeks of meetings–sort of like a courtship for the next ten years–to sort out which dog goes best with each client and vice versa. This week, the matches had been made and clients were working on their handling skills with the ADW trainers–navigating narrow store isles, learning how to direct the dog, and convincing her not to sniff and nibble at passing distractions.
by Grayson Schaffer | on March 31st, 2009 | in Features
Danger Performs "Push"
So while Danger still likes to run away from me and sniff in the bushes when he’s supposed to be retrieving, he loves his service dog work. (I’m starting to think he’s a pacifist in addition to a vegetarian–but of course, I’m supportive of him regardless.) This week he learned his first real service dog skill: Push. To get there, as with all skills, we broke down the task into small parts or criteria, and built up slowly.
1. Targeting: Sue had Danger tap his nose to her fingertips. In general if you hold two fingers out, a Lab will nose them. Click–>treat at the moment of contact. Danger had a bit of trouble targeting the fingertips instead of the whole hand. To gain precision, you’ve got to be careful what you click for. Click for nose to fingertips, not nose to hand or for mouthing your hand. If you need to, you can put a piece of tape on your hand to serve as an actual target. Start it on your palm and then move it to your fingertips.
2. When Danger could do eight of ten targets without missing or giving some other response, we added the cue “target.”
3. Now add a piece of tape to your fingers and have him target the tape.
4. Move the tape to a wall or door and have him target the tape on remote objects. Each of these tasks will take just as many reps as the first nose-to-fingers target.
5. Now get him to push. Sue likes to use a push-on light like the one in the picture. Place the tape on the light and hold it down to the dog same as the initial targeting exercise. Your dog should nose it. Click only when you get a nice firm push (Danger pushed as soon as there was no click–>treat just for nosing it softly). Repeat until you’re getting 80 percent proficiency before adding the command “push.”
6. Now it’s time to generalize. I first placed the target tape on a cabinet that’s easy to close and give the “push” cue. I click–treat as the door swings all the way shut. For more difficult pushes like sticky drawers or heavy doors, you may need to work up to getting them all the way closed. Once Danger figured out what he was supposed to do, he started whipping doors and drawers shut with authority.
Now whenever I open a cabinet door around the house, Danger runs over, slams it shut, and looks up to see if he gets a treat.
by Grayson Schaffer | on February 23rd, 2009 | in Swag the Dog
Ever wondered what it takes to make a service dog? Me, too, so last week Danger and I enrolled with Santa Fe’s Assistance Dogs of the West to find out. Over the next nine months, Danger will learn the 90 or so commands that service dogs need to know,* and I’ll learn how to train them. There are many types of assistance dogs–guide dogs for the blind, service dogs for people with disabilities, seizure alert dogs, diabetic-shock-detection dogs, and probably a few others I haven’t heard of. With Danger, we’ll be working on service dog skills like turning on lights and hitting the crosswalk button with his nose. Until now, Danger’s training has been geared toward field handling, bringing out his natural canine abilities like retrieving and game-finding and taking directional hand signals from a distance. This new training will be all about teaching him to perform precise problem-solving tasks and reinforcing manners and a calm temperament.
That brings me to the overarching point of this exercise: Every kept dog is a service animal in some capacity, even if that service is just providing a furry armrest while you sit on the couch and watch The Wire. OK, that’s a pretty weak example, but the point is that learning to live and interact with your dog is good for both of you. Dogs love structure and are generally happiest when they’re working. And the resulting well-trained dogs are more fun to be around and less likely to cause their owners headaches, especially in public. Follow along with us and do try this at home. Most of all, don’t let your dog become unemployed.
Now, onto the training: We’ll be working with ADW trainer Sue Barns, who’s variously trained field dogs, search-and-rescue dogs, and assistance dogs. We’ll also be using the popular clicker method; it works like this: You’ve got a little clicker box–all it does is make a clicking sound when you push the button–which is used at the precise moment the dog completes a task and is then followed by a treat. Click–>treat, click–>treat, click–>treat, and soon enough the dog knows that the clicking sound means he’s done good and a treat is coming. Yeah, it’s that simple. But it’s not necessarily easy. The click has to come at the exact moment of the desired behavior occurs and only when he’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to be doing. Click for a half sit and that’s what you’re teaching, even if you mean for his butt to hit the floor.
The Exercise: Eye Contact
The Workout: 10 reps, three times per day
To get started, Sue had us work on eye contact. I’d always thought a dog’s willingness to make eye contact was genetic, but it turns out you can train it. Assuming your dog can sit, have him sit. Now, say his name and wait for him to look you in the eye. Most likely he’ll look at your hand if there’s a treat in it, or maybe at your treat bag. Just be patient. Put your treat hand behind your back if it’s too big a distraction. At the moment he locks eyes with you, click–> treat. As he gets more fluent with the behavior, stop saying his name and just click every time he makes eye contact.
This is one of those things that’s making me slap my forehead now for not training it earlier. If you can train your dog to focus on you, training every other behavior gets easier. If his attention is wandering, everything else will be a struggle.
*To answer three common questions of late: No, I won’t be giving him up afterwards. No, he won’t become a certified service dog with a vest and an ID. Which means that, No, I won’t be donning Blue Blockers and trying to get him on planes or added to my dinner reservations.