Training a deaf dog Part 2

Having taught Simba the necessary commands to get him to “hear” us it was time to start training.

Simba is a powerful dog and he was dragging his owner all over the place. Even in a hearing dog this is common.

One of the reason a dog will drag someone on a line is that the dog thinks the line is a reason to play tug of war. Tug of war is more than just a game to a dog; it is actually a dominance test. If you ever watch two dogs tugging on a toy, the dog that gets the item the most often is the dominant dog.

So if you take your dog for a walk, and you let it drag you all over the place, then you are telling the dog it is higher in the pack than you. And a dog that is higher in the pack than you is not going to obey very well.

In Manners in Minutes training we use a training device called a Q bone. Invented by Pat Muller, this allows us to “nip” the dog without causing pain. And since nip is one of the three ways dogs correct each other, the dog is born knowing that a nip means NO.

In addition, a Q-bone on the dog’s collar acts as a stone in its shoe. The dog will tend not to let the device become a stone in their shoe and stops pulling on the line.

We placed a Q bone on Simba’s collar and started walking him on a twenty foot line.

We always start with a long line since to a dog, the farther away I am when I nip you, the more powerful a pack leader I am.

I gave Simba the sign for walking on a twenty foot line and off we went. As soon as he started walking with me, I gave him the “good” sign.

Simba walked ahead to check something to smell and in doing so, lost sight of me. Any dog, hearing or not, should always pay attention to you when hold the line, so I turned around and went another way. When I got to the end of the twenty foot line my momentum gave him a nip on his neck. He immediately turned to come with me and again I gave him the “good” sign.

Now it was time for Simba to learn that life has limits, so I started walking him towards his owner. Now since he likes her more than me he started going to her.

I stopped, and when Simba reached the end of the line, he nipped himself. He turned immediately and ran back to me. Again he was rewarded with praise via the “good” sign.

Pretty soon, no matter where I turned, Simba made sure the line was slack and was staying within twenty feet of me.

We then switched to a six foot line and again, Simba learned that when he was on a short line he could be six feet in front of me, beside me or behind me. But the line had to be slack at all times.

Now it was time for Simba to learn the rules also applied to Mom. And within a couple of minutes he was walking with her without pulling.

Simba was sent home for a week of practice. And his owner called me a day later to let me know that with each walk Simba was better on a line.

And I started planning his next set of commands.

To be continued….

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The Brittany and the Parakeet

I called my sister the other night to wish her a belated birthday. We talked, as we occasionally do, about growing up. I asked if she read the blog “Butchie’s Paper Route. She then reminded me some other family dog stories.

When I was about 4 and my sister was about 2 our Dad decided it was time to get a family dog again. He found a Brittany Spaniel. Her name was Dozie (pronounced doozie) from combining our names, Doug and Suzie. I don’t think Dad saw this as prophetic. But it was.

I personally do not believe any dog is dumb. I tell people if you know someone with a dumb dog, what you really know is someone with a smart dog who’s figured out acting dumb pays well in their home. I don’t think Dozie was dumb but she was flighty and absent minded.

We lived in Wichita at the time. The people next door owned a Boston Terrier. The dogs were good friends and their favorite activity was chase. Back then no one had fences so the dogs would chase each other around the Boston’s house. Dozie was usually the chaser, meaning that the Boston was probably the dominant dog.

The Boston was much smaller than a Dozie. About the third time around the house he would run under the gas meter. This was the old fashion kind with the big body that came out of the ground between two pipes. He could make it under the body. Dozie would follow him. But she was too big to make it so would run head first into the meter, knocking her woozy.

A couple of years later we moved to Arlington Texas. We added a parakeet to the household. His name was Sweetie Pie.

Sweetie Pie soon learned to exactly mimic my father’s whistle, which Dad used to recall Dozie.

Periodically you would hear that whistle. And Dozie would dutifully run to the dining room where he was kept. She then would frantically look for Dad, who was often at work. Sweetie Pie then would add insult to injury by loudly declaring “Dozie is a dirty bird.” She would look at the bird in disgust and then go back to whatever she had been doing.

Sadly I don’t have a picture of a Brittany to put with this blog. I kind of wish I did. I don’t think there is a prettier dog than an orange and white Brittany.

Doug

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Dog Training money back guarantee

A few nights ago I had to stop for a couple of cans of dog food. I feed a good kibble but always add a small amount of canned dog food as kibble does not have enough fat for a dog’s diet.

Usually I buy my supplies from an independent (non chain) pet store here in Colorado Springs. This guy is awesome, knowing how to match dogs to food by breed. The best food for one breed may not be the best for another, and this guy is a pro. I send all my clients to him and have had a lot of problems cleared up just by getting a dog on the right food.

But he is all the way across town and was closed by the time I finished here in the center. There is one of the large pet supply chains that is not too far out of my way so I go there when I have to.

I don’t like going there. That is because of one of their “trainers” knows me on sight. This person was at a dog show I had a booth at a couple of years ago. Although this person did not talk to me they did stand there while I explained Manners in Minutes to someone else. I remembered this person because I have a great memory for faces, a survival skill left over from my police days.

Whenever I go into this store this trainer makes a point of running me down to let me know how great the store’s training method and trainers are. I am not that impressed. First it is hard to be in awe of someone who has “trainer” on their smock but every time I see one of them they are either stocking shelves or running a cash register. Secondly my office is bigger that their training area. And third their method is food based training which I have explained my views on elsewhere on this blog.

I did not see this trainer (I also still have my surveillance skills) so I went in. As I walked in I glanced at their board for training. I saw, handwritten, “guaranteed money back dog training.”

My first reaction was “Huh.” Why would they do that? How can you guarantee training? Either you can train a dog or you can’t. If you can’t then you should not take the dog and its owner as a client.

You aren’t selling a washing machine. If you sell someone an appliance and you give them their money back you get the appliance back. But if you sell someone a skill, you can’t take that back.

Then I thought is their training so poor that they need to refund money to keep people from being angry at them? And then I knew the answer, it is marketing.

Dog training is approached differently if training is not your main product. If I owned a chain of stores that sold a variety of products then I would know that training is not going to make or break my business. Due to the high cost of prime retail space, every square foot has to produce income. Since training will never produce the income per square foot the sales of supplies, toys, equipment, and all the other things I sell I can’t afford to use a lot of space. And too keep the price of training down I am not going to pay my trainers a lot.

So since training is not going to be a large source of profit, why bother? And the answer is the marketing plan behind chain store training. The reason is repeat business.

Over a lifetime you are going to spend a lot of money on food, treats and toys. You are also going to need an occasional replacement for a bed, or collar, or line, or something else. By getting you to train in the chain store, they build a relationship and you get in the habit of coming regularly to my store. Then they make their profit from those sales, not training.

So does this affect the quality of the training? I think so.

First since I want to get you to come into my store as often as possible, and I have to keep my costs down, I have to do group training.

Group training has both advantages and disadvantages. For someone training with a dog for the first time I think the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. In any group there is one dog that needs more work than any other dog. That dog will take up a disproportionate amount of the hour session. Also there is usually one human who also takes (often demands) more time than anyone else. And usually they are together. So if you are one of six people with a dog, odds are you won’t get an even share of the instructor’s time and effort.

Due to the cost of space, training spaces in these classes tend to be small. Not every dog is going to get along with every other dog, at least at the beginning. The smaller the training area, the greater the danger that someone can get bit. So you keep your dog on a short tight line. A short tight line tells the dog you are worried. The dog figures that if you are worried, it should be worried too. So you and the dog spend too much time worrying and not enough training. Also small training areas limit the amount of movement you can do with the dog and increases the danger when you are concentrating on the command that another dog will successfully go after your dog or you.

I always wonder about the quality of the trainers. This is not a hard business to get into. Many people with good training skills start by having group sessions at the park. There are a number of issues with this choice, but I think it is better than working in too small a space. If you can’t afford to open a training center, which are usually located where rents are lower, you can start there and then move up. But either way you are going to do better financially than working in the chains.

So who is left in the labor pool since each store has a trainer? Often it is someone who doesn’t mind stocking shelves and running a cash register in order to train. Or is it someone who doesn’t mind training in order to have a job or to make a little more than someone who is just a clerk? While I do not doubt there are some very good trainers in a few of these stores, I do doubt that all of them are equally good.

As for the training itself, the training method must not offend anyone in any way. So this training has to be food motivation. I stay away from food training for one simple reason, it is hard for someone training a dog for the first time to tell the difference between motivation and bribery. Most clients err on the side of over using food. And they end up with a fat dog that won’t do anything if you don’t have a cookie in your hand.

And what could happen if I go to one of these places, have the training not work, get my money back, and go somewhere else? It could be nothing bad, or it could make things worse.

To me there are two possible outcomes. If you have an easy dog, one that has not developed strong habits and/or major alpha drive, then this may be all the training you need. An easy dog does not need that strong a trainer, provided you are working the dog on your own.

If the training works then well, most of them teach several different classes so you can continue on to get to whatever level you need. This often leads you to spend a lot more, and you are going to go to more than one six to eight week course. So you may spend 18 weeks or more to train the dog. And if you miss a class, then your dog does not learn everything or is automatically behind.

If you have a dog that already has the more serious problems this kind of training does not work well for you, then even if you get your money back, you have spent your time for little or no results. However you have also convinced the dog that it does not have to respond to training making your task all the more difficult if you go to someone else. You can get your money back, but not your time, and you may now have an even more difficult dog.

My advice, don’t automatically discount this training. But just like any other trainer, before you sign up, go watch that trainer train. That way you are making an informed decision.

Does Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes have a money back guarantee? No. First of all you are not going to start training here until you have come in for a free consultation. And I strongly discourage from signing up until you have had some time to think things over. If you don’t understand what I do and how I do it, or if you are not comfortable with me or the system, this is not going to work well. On the other hand if it is for you, then success is just a matter of us both doing our part.

The other week I had someone come in for an evaluation. At the end she asked if I had a money back guarantee. I told her no. She asked why. I told her I never had a dog fail in here, but I had had people fail.

She never called back. Sadly I don’t think chain store training will work with her dog. It had too many problems. But at least she could get her money back.

Doug

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Puppy Training Part III the worst two weeks to own a dog

I think the hardest two weeks to own a dog are weeks 14 and 15.
Because of the way a dog’s mind develops weeks 8 (usually the youngest age a breeder will sell a dog) through week 14 are pretty easy. Again during that time you aren’t really training, you are conditioning.

Training differs from conditioning in that in training we give the dog a command and if it performs, we reward the behavior. If it does not we correct. In conditioning there are no corrections, just distraction.

We take advantage of the fact that during that period, the puppy’s whole world revolves around its owner(s). When we tell the puppy to sit we raise our closed hand. Since a dog has to sit down to look up, it sits and we praise. When the dog comes running to us we praise it effusively while giving a recall command. Since puppies are all about pleasing us, the praise reinforces the reaction to our words.

If we walk by and the puppy stands up we tell it “good stand” and if remains laying there we tell it “good down.” If it bites our hand we shriek or use a rattle can while saying “no bite.” When it releases we praise.

Because a puppy is all about pleasing us during these weeks, it seems like the puppy is already training. And if it were not for what happens in weeks 14 and 15, it would be.

Then the puppy hits week 14. This stage in a dog’s development can be described as the worst parts of the terrible twos and puberty all wrapped up in one. The world is not about you, it is about the puppy. The dog has gone from pleasing you to pleasing itself. It truly believes it is now smarter than you and you are there to do what they want, not the other way around.

I see this all the time in Neighborhood Pack Sessions (group). Puppy came in for puppy class and now comes to Neighborhood Pack every week. It sees how the adult dogs listen to their owners and tries as hard to work for its owner as the big dogs do for their people. Exposure to adult dogs in a pack situation is one of the best things you can do with a puppy.

And Mom and Dad are just beaming. By week 13 I can see it in their eyes. Their little darling is going to be the best dog ever. Why they won’t even have to spend the time or money on adult class.

The next week the phone rings here at Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes. It is puppy’s owners. I get told that the dog will be 16 weeks and one day (the point where it can train as an adult) on the 22nd. They would like the 7:00 AM appointment.

I know what they are going through. And I can usually give them the 7:00 AM appointment.

Oh and the picture is Vino, the legendary service dog Rottweiler, as a puppy in 2009.

Doug

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Training a deaf dog Part 3

Simba has now reached a plateau in his training. He has been coming in once a week for almost two months.

It is Simba who has decided that his training is staying on the plateau rather than advancing. He knows what we are doing and has figured out how things work. But like all dogs he has alpha drive that makes him resistant to giving up power unless he is convinced that he needs to respect his pack leader.

Simba is the first deaf dog I have worked with that did not start as a puppy or was pure herding breed or mix. And since he has terrier in his mix, he is counter training.

When training a deaf dog to just hand signals, we are dependent on the dog looking to see the hand sign to obey. We know that Simba has wider vision than a human. What we don’t know is exactly how wide it is.

When I start a dog as a puppy I have a blank sheet of paper to write on. So we establish looking at the owner for direction at the time in a dog’s life when pleasing its human is the most important value the dog has. So getting that puppy to constantly look at his human is easy.

In herding dogs, their genetic makeup includes a natural tendency to constantly look at the human for direction. This is one of the reasons that people often own a deaf herding dog that they do not know is deaf. The dog has learned to read the humans body language for direction.

So people have a dog that obeys when it is looking at them, but not when the dog cannot see them. They do not make the connection. They assume the dog is not obeying when in fact it just didn’t see them to “hear” what they were saying.

But with Simba only being part herding dog I have noticed that he does not look at his human as much a pure herding breed would do. And since he did not start as a puppy we could not imprint looking for directions at the start.

If we give a command by hand sign that he does not see, it would not be fair to correct him for ignoring the command. I suspect that Simba is taking unfair advantage of us.

If he does not think we are sure he saw the hand sign, he can ignore it knowing that he is not likely to be corrected. This allows him to be selective in obeying commands.

One of the reasons I suspect this is behavior that I saw in his last session. Simba was taken outside on a 20 foot line. He was given the command “come on.” That meant that he could be twenty feet in front of, behind or either side of her. But the line is always slack.

To make sure the dog is paying attention, we walk and turn randomly rather than in a straight line. If the dog is not paying attention when you get to the end of the line, the dog gets gently corrected.

Simba was perfect the whole time. Mom would turn and go the other direction. There were numerous times where it was clear that Simba did not see her turn. But every single time he would turn before the line came off the ground.

Then I noticed when he turned he would know exactly where she would be. He did not have to look for her, he knew.

He was tracking her by scent. He doesn’t have to look for her; he already knows where she is at. So he has figured out how not to take corrections for not paying attention. Therefore when he is in a position to ignore hand signals without a correction happening automatically, he takes advantage of her sense of fair play.

This is going to change soon. Simba does not know this, but he is getting a vibrating collar for Christmas. The first thing he will learn is to look for her immediately whenever he feels two short vibrations. Two taps will mean look at me for directions. And if he doesn’t look there won’t be any doubt he “heard” the look at me command so he will be fairly corrected.

I may be training Simba, but Simba is teaching me things too.

Doug

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Training a deaf dog Part 1

I get to train one or two deaf dogs a year here at Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes so I thought it might be interesting for my two or three regular readers to keep a record of one of those trainings.

Last week Simba came in for an assessment. Simba is a ten month old mix, according to his owner he is pit bull, boxer, Australian shepherd, and maybe something else. Simba was able to drag her in as he is a very powerful dog and he isn’t fully grown yet.

She decided to train with me so Monday we started his training.

The first thing I have to teach a deaf dog is how to “hear” their commands. This is not a problem with a hearing dog, because whatever I say the dog will hear wherever it is and wherever it is looking. But since deaf dogs get their commands by hand signals, the dog has to see me to “hear” me.

So the first thing we teach a deaf dog is “face.” I start with a piece of food and stand very close to the dog. I point to my nose, and then hold the food in front of the dog. I raise the food up to my nose as his eyes follow me. When he looks me in the eye then I give the hand signal for good (closed fist taping in the center of your chest) and then the signal for “face” (index finger on nose) and then give the dog the morsel of food.

If you have read my blog on jelly doughnut training then you know I am not a big fan of food training. It is too easy to over reward and end up with a dog that will not do anything unless you have a treat in your hand. So although I have a treat in my hand while I do this, the food reward is very random.

Once the dog is looking at my face on command up when I am close, I then teach them to look at my face by tugging lightly on their leash two times. I tug the line, then when the look in my direction I give the signal for “face.” When the dog looks me in the face I signal “good” and ‘face” because we are now relying on praise, rather than food, as the reward for compliance. This way I can call him whenever he is on a line or leash.

The last thing to teach the dog before we start on commands is their name. I like this hand signal to be something that reminds you of their name. The first thing I thought of was a mane. By holding our hands palm out and fingers straight up next to our ears we could imitate a lion’s mane. However we cannot use both hands for a sign and control a leash, so one hand next to the ear becomes the name Simba.

Once we had a way to tell the dog to look for a command, and a way to praise him, by name, we were ready to start training.

More to come.

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