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

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….

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.