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.

Why dog training fails, part II, crooked trainers

Back in May I did a blog on why dog training fails. I tried to explain why training fails sometimes to help you when selecting a trainer. I deliberately made “You aren’t comfortable with the dog trainer” the last section.

I struggled with the writing of that section. Most of the struggle was because a lot of dog trainers aren’t bad people, they just can’t train your dog. They are incompetent not crooked.

But I pulled the punches on that too, because I was aware of one trainer who runs a scam. Your dog is always the one with a severe problem. He can fix it but you need to come back for more training. The problem is I have never seen, nor have I ever met anyone who has ever seen a dog he finished.

I have seen dogs that the owners have decided to come to me to fix. And each one of those dogs has been conditioned to aggressive. And since the dog is still aggressive, he told them they needed to have more training. The goal seems to be to keep you coming back and spending more money until you finally give up on the dog.

I decided to stay away from that in the blog as I thought this trainer was so far out of the norm as to be one of those rare situations that are so likely never to happen anywhere else that there was no point in warning about it.

I was wrong.

Last week KKTV here in Colorado Springs posted a news story on a dog trainer here in Colorado Springs. A family had contracted the trainer about training three dogs. They signed a contract and dropped off the dogs. When they came back three days later, one of the dogs was missing. They located the dog near a busy highway. The retrieved the other two dogs and asked for refund. The trainer refused. They contacted the TV station.

If you want to learn more Google “kktv dog training”.

The trainer has been accused of being an ex con who learned dog training in prison. He has never answered the question directly. I don’t know if he is or not. But his evasive answers sure resemble those of experienced liars.

A lot of prisons have dog training programs. And they do some impressive work with dogs. Dogs that might otherwise be put down become great pets. And people in prison can learn a skill that might keep them out of trouble once they get out.

If you have read my blogs before, or read my profile, you know I am a retired Deputy Sheriff here in El Paso County Colorado.

I know a lot of ex cons. And some of them are people who my investigations put in prison. Some of them did their time, learned their lesson, and have come back determined to never repeat the behavior that got them in trouble.

But not all of them chose to change. Some of them think they have found ways not to get caught the next time. It never works, but they keep hoping rather than changing.

This would not be the first time someone got out of prison with a skill that they used to run a scam rather than a legitimate business

I have come to the sad conclusion that this is not an isolated case.

Two years ago I picked up a business magazine with an article of the pet industry. It put the total industry, not just training but all pet related businesses, as a 7 billion dollar a year industry.

If there is money to be made somewhere, you can bet the crooks are going to show up.

So how do you protect yourself? First and foremost, do your research.

Start with the internet. Any search engine will take you to a list of trainers.

But use more than one search engine. If you find me on Yahoo I have only one review, on Google I have 14. On Dex I have seven. Same business, but obviously most of my customers use Google.

Be suspicious of anyone who has a lot of reviews on a less used site. Think about it. Why would you have a lot of reviews on a site where none of the other trainers have any?

Be very suspicious of testimonials on the trainer’s website. Come on, I did my website. I can put down anything I want and you have no way of knowing whether it was edited by me, written by my best friend, or just made up. If the website says the business has only been open less than a year, and the testimonial page thanks the trainer for years of work, you should be suspicious.

Be wary of people who want you to leave the dog to be trained. There are people who do that kind of training and you are going to get a trained dog. They are great people. But if the trainer is not going to work the dog, or do things that mean you have to spend more money, are they going to want you to see the training?

Don’t count on them being in business a long time as a guarantee of success. Bernie Madoff ran a con for years. And I bet he had a great website.

Watch them train. If they have group then go to their group session. If everything is privates then get a couple of times to go in and do not let them know when you are showing up. What you see is probably going to be what you get, if you control when you see it.

Don’t be rushed into signing with the trainer. If I am good at what I do, then I don’t have to sign up everyone I talk to. If I am not, then I only get one shot at separating you from your money and I can’t afford to let anyone get away.

When I trained cops I used to teach them that:

If it walks like a duck

And it talks like a duck

It is probably going to be a duck.

It is better for your dog if you walk away from a good trainer than to sign up with a bad or crooked one.

Doug

A Boston Terrier's Tale

In March I received a call from a man with two rescues. Both dogs had some behavioral problems that needed to be dealt with. But one of the dogs, a Boston terrier, was showing signs of severe aggression. The dog had just bitten two of his neighbor’s dogs, a boxer and a wire haired pointer, without provocation.

He had called Boston terrier rescue in a nearby state. The lady he talked to told him her rescue Boston had also been dog aggressive. She put the dog on doggy Prozac and suggested he do the same.

He did not want to medicate the problems, he wanted to fix them so he called me.

When we talked about the dogs there was a red flag on Moose, the Boston terrier. Moose was in his fifth home.

The more times a dog has been re-homed, the less chance there is of success. The reason is simple. A dog sees being moved not as a wonderful opportunity to start over, but as failure. The dog feels it has been kicked out of its pack. No matter how dysfunctional the pack is, it is the dog’s pack. When a dog goes from home to home without success, the dog can lose the ability to trust.

He came in with the dogs for an evaluation. Moose had a lot of aggression and was in really tough shape. But I saw two things that made me decide to work the dog. One there was just something about Moose that made me think he could come back. But more importantly I had an owner who did not want to give up on this dog and was going to apply the things I taught him.

Moose came in for his first private training session. It went well. He came back three weeks later for his second class. It was obvious that Dave had worked with him conscientiously and that Moose trusted Dave.

Then we moved him into my Neighborhood Pack sessions. This is where I can put your dog with other dogs and other people. I can find the triggers, show you how to recognize them, and give you the experience to deal with them.

At his first session Moose tried to start a fight with every other dog in the place. He was stopped before he got himself into trouble learning that Dave would not tolerate those behaviors and could now control him.

His second group Moose still wanted to go at with some of the dogs, but no longer had to challenge everyone. When his behavior was acceptable, Dave praised him. When it wasn’t Moose was corrected in a way he understood. Dave was becoming his pack leader, and you respect and obey the pack leader.

Each time Moose comes to group he improves.

There are still some hurdles for Moose to clear before we are done. He is fine with the neighboring boxer he bit, but the wire hair can trigger Moose by getting wound up. And due to being bullied by a Rottweiler when he was in another home he is still aggressive with Vino. But each time he comes in he is doing better.

Here is the e mail Dave sent me.

Doug,
Since you are a little better at analyzing dog posture, please take a look at the attached photo and tell me which dog is about to attack. To answer your question, yes the boxer is Angie and she has been bitten by Moose twice. One down and one to go. Buddy the Wired Hair Pointer, is next. If you remember one of our earlier conversations, the lady that runs (deleted) Boston Terrier Rescue suggested I put Moose on Prozac. I'm sending this picture to her. Titled I don't need no stinkin Prozac. Just a good trainer and owner that doesn't give up.

Thanks Pikes Peak Manners in Minutes you help save my life.

Moose.

PS dad helped me type this

The picture at the top was attached to the e mail.

Doug

Separation Anxiety in Dogs

When I ask people what is the worse thing about their dog is as we start training, they often reply “separation anxiety.”

But when I test the dog, I rarely find true separation anxiety.

I have seen true separation anxiety in just one dog. And I did not see it as a trainer, but rather when I was still a patrol deputy before I retired from the Sheriff’s Office.

My trainee and I were interviewing a witness. She was standing outside her front window. Her German shepherd, inside the house and at the window, became more and more frantic.

The dog actually jumped through a large plate glass window. It was horribly cut and bleeding badly. We held the panicked dog to the ground and attempted to control the bleeding. I got the local volunteer fire department to respond with bandages. We got the bleeding under control and the owner was able to transport it to an emergency clinic.

(By the way we stopped by the fire station the next day. The dog was doing fine. The owner sent the firemen a large picture of the dog, a flowery letter, and a huge pile of cookies and cakes, proving once again that people like firemen more than cops.)

This dog was the exception. What I usually find is that the dog is manipulating the human, not suffering from separation anxiety.

When the dog realizes that the owner is not going to let the dog go along or do what it wants, the behavior begins. In some dogs it is excessive whining, in others it is loud and demanding barking. The dog believes if it makes a big enough fuss, the owner will give in and take the dog along.

It is really easy to teach a dog this behavior. Here is the perfect way to do it.

Go and pick up a new puppy from a breeder that is a couple of hours away. As you leave with the puppy, it will act out. You expect that since it is leaving its Mom, litter mates and the only home it has known.

Puppies will usually fall asleep for the first hour or two. But then it wakes up and starts whining. So what do you do, you pull over somewhere. You offer food, make sure it isn’t thirsty, give it a chance to go potty, and play with it. In about a half hour you put the tired puppy back into the crate, and as you continue homeward bound, it falls asleep again.

After another hour or two, the puppy starts whining again and you pull over. The longer the trip, the more times you have to stop.

You get home and start getting the puppy use to its new home. It gets fed and watered. It gets held and fussed over. You are the perfect indulgent owner.

Now it is bed time. You’ve read the books, talked to the breeder, and maybe
consulted a trainer. Everyone told you to put the dog in a crate and ignore it.

But the whining convinces you the dog is in distress. You feel sorry for it. You think, “I’ll never get any sleep this way.” So you get the puppy out of the crate, let it snuggle up to you, and tell yourself this is just for one night.

You have just started the dog on the road to “separation anxiety.” And as the puppy drifts off to sleep next to you, it thinks “I know how to control these humans.”

Doug

Finding a Dog Trainer

FOREWORD

The original purpose of this blog was to give people considering training with me some insight to how I do things. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was also a good way to blow off some steam.

What I also did not realize was how many people outside Colorado Springs would read this blog. A few weeks ago I got a request to print a blog article from New Zealand. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of how much my head swelled up on that day.

So for those of you in Colorado Springs thinking about training here at Pikes Peak Manners In Minutes read this and apply it to me too. For those of you elsewhere, I hope this helps you pick a trainer.

THE DOG DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WANT.

If you look at it analytically, training is getting a dog to do something they already know how to do and can physically perform, when you want them to do it. They know how to sit. You first teach them the word for it and then you teach them that sit is a command to be obeyed. On the other hand since a dog doesn’t have thumbs, you probably can’t teach them to drive.

The key is consistency. If the trainer is not consistent with your dog, or the trainer does not have the time or ability to make you consistent, the training never goes well.

THE OWNER DOESN’T UNDERSTAND WHAT TO DO OR HOW TO DO IT.

The trainer has taught every command, and made it reliable, hundreds or thousands of times. The owner hasn’t. Since the average trainer sees more dogs in a week than the client will own in a lifetime, the trainer is not going to have a problem. But it the trainer fails to teach the owner the what and how of the training system, then the dog will not become reliable.

Some people can train dogs but not people. And I suppose some can train people but not dogs. Find a trainer who trains both.

THE PACE OF THE TRAINING DOESN’T ADAPT TO THE DOG’S NEEDS AND EXPERIENCES.

Dogs can’t be turned out like cookies with a cookie cutter. Different ages, different breeds and different events shape how the dog learns. A six month old retriever who was obtained at six weeks is going to train differently from an eight year old terrier that is at its third home.

If the training system or the trainer cannot adjust the training to meet the dog’s needs, then it will not work.

THE OWNER NEVER LEARNS THE BASICS OF PACK LEADERSHIP.

The pack leader is fair, firm and consistent. If the trainer or the training method fails to teach that to the owner, then the dog will not respect the owner. Without respect, no training method will work reliably.

If the trainer is not fair, firm, and consistent, you will have a hard time being fair, firm and consistent. Both of you may be alpha, but that bullying, not leadership.

THE TRAINING METHOD DOESN’T MAKE SENSE TO THE DOG AND/OR TO THE OWNER.

If doesn’t make sense to one or the other, then it just is not going to work. Some methods make sense to the dog but not the owner. That is the fault of the trainer. Some methods do not make sense to the dog, that is the fault of the system the trainer uses

The trainer has to make a commitment that the dog and the owner will not fail. The training method has to give the owner the ablity to keep that commitment.

YOU AREN’T COMFORTABLE WITH THE TRAINER.

Sometimes people pick trainers because of really good advertising. You call because of the size of the ad or the wording of a website. But all advertising (including mine) is designed to get you in the door. That doesn’t guarantee that what is inside the door is what you want, what you or the dog can do, and most importantly what you feel comfortable with.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows there were over 41000 people who listed themselves as full time animal trainers (all animals, not just dogs) in 2008.

Of course if there was a reliable way of grading them you would have a bell curve distribution. Only a very few will be really, really bad, and only a very few would be very, very good. The greatest number will be okay.

So find someone you are comfortable with. Do your research. Look at everything you can find on them. Take everything, especially testimonials on their website and reviews on lists that don’t have everybody, with a grain of salt.

Go and meet with them. Most aren’t so rich and so famous that they do not have time to spend on you before they sign you up. See their training center. If they have an evaluation, watch how your dog reacts to them and how they react to your dog. Ask if you can sit in on a class. And don’t rely on how their dog acts. It won’t be an average dog.

If you are comfortable with the system and the trainer, you probably found the right match.

Doug

Vino the Rottweiler

This is Vino. In a training center where all the dogs are special, to both their owners and myself, he is just a little extra special.

I had trained a traumatized dog for an owner that was close to being put down for behavior. The dog responded well.

A couple of months later the same owner came to me and asked if I trained service dogs. The answer is sort of.

The law that allows service dogs is not very precise on what exactly a service dog is. And there are lots of places that train service dogs. But many of them do not let you pick the breed or provide your own dog. And the dogs are very expensive.

I do not certify service dogs. If I certify them then I have to buy very expensive insurance. That in turn means I would have to charge thousands of dollars to train the dog and would have to train X number of dogs each year to make sure the insurance costs are covered.

So I decided not to certify service dogs. However there are ways you can certify and insure the dog yourself so I will train a dog to be a service dog.

The owner wanted me to train a Rottweiler as a service dog. And since her mother breeds them she wanted to pick her own puppy to train. She had approached several of the big providers all of whom either said they would not train a Rottweiler for that job, or would only sell her one of their dogs.

I agreed to do it.

She has twins. The little boy is autistic, and his sister has grand mal seizures.

We started preparing months before she got the dog. First I had her wipe down the children whenever there was a seizure or an episode. The gauze pads were to be sealed.

In November then nine week old Vino came in for puppy class. He was taken through the basics and imprinted by Tag.

The next couple of weeks were critical. Vino could not be allowed to become a silly indulged puppy. He needed to understand from the start that he was the lowest member of the pack and that he was there to work.

We used a Manners in Minutes technique of the steady point to teach this to him. Three days later he came into Neighborhood Pack. And at his first pack experience he was a loud, demanding, and obnoxious little puppy. And he quickly found out that this did not impress the human or dog members of the pack.

The puppy that came back a week later was quiet and observant. He no longer demanded attention. But he did sit and watch the adults and by seeing how they acted, began to figure out how he should act.

At twelve weeks he could go to a cub scout meeting or the kid’s school where he would always sit respectfully and just watch.

At fourteen weeks he could go into the big pet chain stores and every time he did, he was so well behaved that someone who saw him would call about me training their dog within a day or two.

The plan was to start his adult training at 4 months and his service training at 6 months.

Vino did not want to wait. From 12 weeks on Vino has consistently been ahead of the lesson plan.

Before he was 16 weeks old he had alerted for three seizures. He had also intervened in one autistic episode where he pushed the child away from the wall where he was banging his head and sat with him until he calmed himself. We never had to use the pads. He decided on his own when he needed to alert.

Because he had never been allowed to be a silly puppy, and because all dogs want jobs, he watched the family. He figured out on his own what they needed him to do, and then started doing it.

We did his adult training and he flew through it.

At 5 months he took his Canine Good Puppy test. He passed it on the first try with excellent on every section.

His owner called me recently and told me he has received regional recognition from the AKC due to his performance in CGP.

Vino is also a big asset in Neighborhood Pack. He gets along with everybody, human and canine. If a fearful dog confronts him, instead of backing down or letting the dog know he will fight, Vino just gives them a doggy grin, play bows, and barks to invite them to play. The result, instant de-escalation and another dog has learned that he does not have to fear big dogs. Then when the other dogs see how well he does with his owner, they are motivated to do as well with theirs.

This is not a brag. I take little credit for Vino. What makes him so special is an owner who cares enough to train in a way that the dog understands, and a training method (Manners in Minutes) that works.

I’m just the traffic cop, directing the two of them to the road to success.

Doug