by Mike Stewart | on June 9th, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way
Cooper ties out quietly while camping
Time for our young Cooper to learn the fundamentals of steadiness and stillness, patience and quietness. “Place” is a concept we teach early at Wildrose. This is where we teach a dog to tie out* quietly and stay calmly in a specific spot. These skills are the foundation for a dog that’s civil at home, on the trail, or in the field. Pups as young as three months can grasp the concept of place.
Place teaches dogs to remain still in a particular defined location—a dog box, a roll-up mat, or a platform. Grayson never fully understood this with Danger. He wanted to know when there was a time for the dog to be aimlessly roaming the house. Short answer: never. Place training is how we get the dog to want to stop roaming. Once the place habit is entrenched, pups will enjoy the comfort and security of a place just for them, the same way they fondly regard their crate. When the pup is in place, they may move about freely, sitting, lying about in any position as long as he doesn’t leave that mat.
Other reasons we take place training so seriously:
- It reduces potential territorial dominance problems
- It makes travel convenient
- Our dogs remain relaxed and quiet at fireside on the mat in camp
- In a kayak, canoe, or raft, the dog must remain calm for his safety and yours
- When hunting, our dogs must remain still and quiet, either in a blind or on a dog stand
How We Teach Place
- Get a mat—a dog bed, a dog mat, a piece of carpet, or a crate pad, something comfortable. We’ve been using these rolling mats from Mud River, lately.
- Introduce the mat. Have the puppy walk over the mat or bed. When your pup is on his mat, give the sit command and then a release command like “out” or “off.” Repeat this until he’s readily going onto the mat and sitting calmly and then releasing on cue. Now add the command, “load” or “place” for the linked behavior of going onto the mat and sitting. Encourage the pup to hop onto the “place” with a treat.
- Place the pup on the mat beside your chair. Now sit down by the student, lead in hand. Without a word, ignore the pup and begin to watch tv or read. If the pup is quiet a calm “good dog” is in order. Just don’t overexcite the pup and lose the tempo and control of the moment.
- If your pup decides to exit the mat, redirect the youngster back to the mat with the lead and your “place” command. As the pup begins to stay longer without fussing, reward him with a little treat. Treat him for breaking his own personal best record, but don’t get in the habit of paying him to stay. Some dogs will continue to work for the treat. Others will get frustrated or think the drill has ended. The idea here is to build a habit that’s independent of reward. The dog stays because it’s all he knows how to do. Soon, our student will relax, lie down and go to sleep. The process of place training has begun.
- As we progress, we teach our youngster to stay on the mat as we move away. In time, it will become easy to move completely out of sight without attention barking. Deke, the Ducks Unlimited mascot, was totally place trained at home by the time he was six months old. I can get up and move about the house, but he’s going to stay put unless I ask him to move.
Raising a puppy isn’t easy. A young dog will want to play and run and nip. Keeping yourself from giving into those behaviors isn’t easy. Everybody loves to play with a cute puppy. But if you can keep your dog calm and build focus early on, that temperment will last a lifetime.
*A word on tying out your dog: Tying out your dog can be very dangerous, so exercise the utmost caution when you do it. Don’t tie out your dog on a deck, where he can fall off and hang himself. Never tie out a young pup when other dogs are loose nearby unless you want your pup to become a canine tetherball. Never go beyond earshot when your dog is tied. Tying out quietly is an important skill for dogs, whether you’re leaving them outside a coffee shop, tying them away from the food in camp, or travelling cross-country with an eight-dog trailer the way we do. Tying is not a subsititute for a secure kennel or fenced yard. Tying your dog out as a regular means of confinement is inhumane. More on that, here: www.unchainyourdog.org
by Mike Stewart | on June 2nd, 2009 | in Features, The Wildrose Way
Ol' Gibbs catches some Zs in his crate at six weeks
As with any new pup or dog that’s going to share the home, the first order of business is housebreaking. We are talking about forming habits that will last a lifetime:
Crate training
Housebreaking
Place training
We approach the matter by thinking about these three things as one concept. The outcome: a well socialized, disciplined home companion. With pups, building these habits begins the day you acquire the pup, and it’s no different with a new older dog.
We get to all three of these through restriction and confinement: First, no free run of the home and no free choice food or water. Control the inputs and the dog’s space and you will more likely control the outputs. Build absolute reliability before bending these rules.
Use these behavioral tendencies to your advantage. When food or water is offered and accepted, upon conclusion, take the dog straight outside to the designated relief area. Keep feeding and watering on schedule and you are building habits – absolute predictability, absolute consistency. Dogs are creatures of habit and appreciate routine.
Second, dogs need their own space. They should not have the chance to build a their own territory out of your house, so don’t give them the run of the house. When you’re not available to give 100 percent supervision, keep your pup in his crate. Crate training provides the dog with a sense of security. Crates are great for travel and for control when necessary in the home. Pups spend a lot of time in their crates now so they don’t have to later, when they’ve grown into calm reliable dogs.
Dogs do not like to soil their own nest. Do not indulge the dog with an over-sized crate or your dog will likely turn it into a condo – soil in the back and live in the front. As soon as the youngster exits the crate in the morning or after a rest, it’s straight outside to the ol’ designated area. Not a time for a slip up here. Stay the course: Persistence and routine.
Place training is a great habit to instill. It puts you in control as the pack leader. Leaders control territory and define a “place” where the pack members may rest and be patient. While outside the crate, our dog has a place in the home, office,or camp site. Again, dogs respect the sense of security and pack order. With place and crate training, one has improved chances for housebreaking success and the ability to prevent the entrenchment of some quite undesirable behaviors as well. See our selection of dog training mats at www.wildrosetradingcompany.com.
These are the habits fit for a lifetime and rest assured, with consistency and patience, you can teach old dogs these tricks or shall I say, habits.
by Grayson Schaffer | on May 5th, 2009 | in Your Questions
Conrad the border collie
Q. I have a 5 1/2 month old border collie mix whose company I enjoy a great deal. The problem is that in the evening he wants to play nip—playful biting that’s no fun for me. This can happen at other times of the day, but in the evening I have a great deal of difficulty redirecting him. This can happen when the person is sitting quietly or when we are moving, but it usually comes along with a period of hyperactivity (running wildly through the house), almost like a kid who is tired but won’t voluntarily lie down to nap. At times he looks like an alligator, swinging his head from side to side nipping at the air. I don’t know what would be the best way to address this with him or what I need to do earlier in the day to prevent this from happening. We tend to either walk or play catch in the morning and then the reverse in the afternoon. He loves to play catch. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. —Donna
A. Donna, I think there are a couple of things going on here. The first and most obvious is the breed and age of the dog. Border collies are highly athletic and somewhat needy—especially in their teenage years from about six months to a year and a half. Some of this behavior should be expected, but it can still be mitigated. Here are some ideas.
- Collies are herders. You need to buy a flock of sheep.
- If becoming a shepherd is not an option, make sure the dog is getting enough exercise. Catch is a great game because it requires the dog to sprint much farther and faster than the handler. If you haven’t already tried one, those Chuckit! tennis ball throwers can help increase the distance your dog gets to run.
- Assuming your dog has plenty of exercise, make sure you’re not provoking or reinforcing his nipping: Keep your hands clear of his mouth at all times, don’t pull away or try to bat him away. In general this sort of “stop that” and push away response from you is a strong reinforcer to a dog that wants to play.
- Try a convincing yelp of your own when he latches on to you. Puppies play bite each other all the time and know to release when they hear their littermates holler.
- Redirect Conrad by place training him. He should have a mat, rug, or dog bed that he knows is his. You can teach this with a combination of positive reinforcement (at the beginning) and low-force positive punishment (once he knows it).
- When he steps onto his mat, click and give him praise and a treat.
- In your next training session, if he knows lie down, have him lie down on his mat. If he doesn’t know this one, just sitting on his mat is fine. By the second or third five minute training session, he should get the idea that going onto his mat equals reinforcement and a reward.
- Once he understands the significance of the mat, add the cue: go lie down or go to bed or go settle are common cues used for this behavior.
- Keep this up with a few more sessions of positive reinforcement but lengthen the amount of time Conrad needs to sit on the mat before you treat him. Once you’re convinced he knows what’s expected of him, make treating rare.
- If he gets up, physically put him back on his mat and give your cue again. Sometimes putting a leash on him and stepping on it while you sit in a chair next to his mat can help.
- Chew Toys can offer a frenetic puppy a place to direct his energy. If your dog likes treats or liver, try getting the kind of toy you can fill with something good. Give him his toy only when he’s on his mat. Just be sure you count any treats you give him as part of his total daily intake.
- Confinement: Your dog should have a safe place where you can give him a timeout. A crate, kennel, a pen in the yard—some place you know you can leave him and know he’s not going to get into trouble. If you can’t get the nipping to stop, you need to give the dog a time out. I do this by putting the dogs in their respective kennels in the yard. Just a few minutes should do, but it could take longer. The key is that if your dog barks or otherwise carries on and you break down and respond to his cries, you’ve just reinforced tantrums as a way to get your attention. Put the dog in his pen, then wait for him to be quiet for at least 30 seconds before you let him back in. The idea is that if a dog can learn to manipulate you by carrying on, he can just as easily learn to be let back in by settling down.
More Fun Games to Focus Your Rambunctious Pup:
- Try clicker training your dog either for obedience or agility
- Puzzle-solving games with you (hide-and-seek, find the treats hidden around the house, various puzzle-toys )
- Quiet time in a crate with a long-lasting game/toy like a Buster Cube, a stuffed Kong or just a good ol’ marrow bone.