THE OTHER END OF THE LEASH

Wow. You all are amazing. So far there have been 165 answers to the question posed two weeks ago, “What’s Your Favorite Non-Traditional Cue?” I’ve read through every one of them with great interest (and often amusement). My plan was to go through all the comments, list every cue mentioned with it definition (some people included as many as 7 or 8), and see if I could  find some patterns.

Several hours later, and less than a fifth through all the cues mentioned, I suspected that a smart person might want to modify the plan. So that’s what I’ve done, whether either out of laziness or wisdom, I couldn’t tell you. I’m using the list I’ve generated so far as a sample, and have re-read all the rest of the comments that have been so thoughtfully provided.

Here’s what I’m seeing so far: First, the most common “non-traditional” cue appears to be “Wait.” It has several variants as to its exact intention, but in all cases the dog is being asked to pause or not move forward. Much more casual and less directive than a stay, I find this an invaluable cue that I myself use every day–at the door, at the car, while walking down a trail, etc. etc. It’s part of the curriculum in Family Friendly Dog Training, so I guess it’s clear that I think it would be good if it moved from “non-traditional” to “traditional.” It’s just so darn handy.

Another category of commonly used cues not often seen in standard dog training is the set of cues telling a dog either that an event is over (“Enough, All Done, All Gone”– ie, no more ball play, no more treats) or to go entertain him or herself (“Settle, Go Settle, Go to Your Place, Chill, Go Pass Out!”) These also seem to me to be incredibly useful cues that all dog owners (and dogs) would profit from knowing.  I use “Enough” several times a day, usually meaning that object play is over, but I as I’m writing this I realized I use a variant, “That’s Enough,” to mean “No more petting.” At first I assumed that Willie didn’t know the distinction, (since I only noticed it while writing this), but perhaps he knew it long before I did?

Notice that, in the variants of Settle, the dog can either decide him or herself to find a place to settle down, or go to a specific area taught in the past. I use Settle myself, meaning go anywhere you want, but for the love of all things good and true, please lie down and chill out for awhile.

The other most common group of cues relate to moving in space: “Turn Around, This Way, Up, Move Over, Back Out, Beep (my favorite!), Go Around,” etc. etc. These strike me as extremely useful as well, although more specific to individual owners and dogs.

One cue, mentioned by a few and one that I have discussed before is “Ready.” I truly wish more people would use this as a way of helping a dog understand what is about to happen. It can be used to prime a dog for action, as it often is in Agility, but also as I use it more often, to let a dog know that something is about to happen, especially if it involves being touched or handled. I use it for Willie when I am about to do something to him, like pick up a paw to dry it off. This gets into another conversation we could have about the balance between keeping cues short and sweet (very valuable at times) and not overwhelming a dog with meaningless chatter AND, at other times, using words to have interchanges with dogs that are more like conversations than a set of “commands.” I’m a fan of both…. Hummm, I’ll have to think about when and why I use different approaches.

While we ponder that, here are some of my favorite cues from the comments about non-traditional cues:

Whoopsie What you just did wasn’t what I wanted, try again.

Who’s a Goof? Roll in the Grass.

Be Bad (Okay, that’s mine, for jump up and put your paws on my chest.)

Who’s a Brave Girl? Go stand between my legs.

Use Your Words or Tell Me Your Story Bark

Sweetheart, can you put your Stagbar on the rug please? Self explanatory!

And What Should You Be Doing? Go lie on your rug

Watch Out for the Panty Hose! 4 on the floor

Chip! Really? As in, did you really just go into the garbage? Dog now puts his paws over his head.

There are a gazillion more, I encourage you to read through them if you haven’t, but it seems appropriate to end on the most unique one I could find:

Gheresh Bede or Farsi for “shake your booty”

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Two inches of rain last weekend! Amazing! Some people got even more (and northern Wisconsin got snow, lots of it. Oh my.) Everything is so green now it’s hard to imagine it was ever brown. My pasture is still in rough shape, but the front lawn looks like it sprung to life except in a few places. All I can say is that the sheep are very, very happy.

Last Friday Willie was in his last sheepdog trial of the year. I’d say the results were mixed. I purposefully only ran a partial course with him in order to protect his shoulder. I leave tomorrow for a sheepdog training clinic with Patrick Shannahan, and I wanted to be extra sure that Willie was sound enough to work in the clinic. I also wanted him to leave the course wanting more, since the last two trials he was in were exceptionally difficult and stressful for all the dogs. This time his first run didn’t start well: Although he’d appeared to focus on the sheep in previous runs, when we walked to the post he kept looking in the direction of another group of sheep. (Your first job at a trial is ensuring that your dog can find the sheep where they are set out. This is harder than you might think. There are two other groups of sheep, and novice dogs often focus on those rather than the tiny little specks out in the distance.) Willie looked at everything but at the sheep he needed to work, and we messed around for what seemed like forever at the post until I finally just gave up and sent him in the belief that he’d go to the wrong group of sheep.

Nope, he did a perfect outrun to the right group, but by then the sheep had broken away from the dog and handler trying to hold them in place (who must have been cursing me, justifiably, believe me).  Willie didn’t get them back on line until he was pretty close to me, but he did, I stopped him, settled the sheep and said “That’ll Do.” He left the field happy and grinning and his shoulder looked good, so we did our second run a few hours later.

This time I sent him right away, and he did a perfect outrun again. Again the sheep broke from the handler  before he got to them, this time not our fault, but probably not the set out handler’s either: they were extremely flighty sheep. Again, Willie didn’t “cover” them, or flank around them far enough to get them back on line. He had no excuse for that, except his nerves: That’s what you see in dogs without enough confidence to directly confront a flock of sheep dead set on thundering back to the barn. He did get them to me however, pacing nicely as he got closer. We did a little drive which went relatively well, and then on the cross-drive Willie stopped, like a 1960′s civil disobedience protester, and stood still while looking at me and ignoring every signal I sent his way. Honestly, it was almost funny, except I’m quite sure Willie stopped because he was too anxious to continue. The sheep had to be moved directly toward the barn, exactly the direction in which Willie knew the sheep wanted to take off and run to. It’s very scary for dogs to feel in control of sheep if the sheep are moving AWAY from them and from their handler, and it takes guts and courage for dogs to learn to drive unfamiliar sheep on unfamiliar courses at a good distance from their handlers.

Ah, you know how much I love my Willie Boy, but I’m afraid “guts and courage” are not words one would use to describe him. The “Woody Allen of Sheepdogs” would be more like it: brilliant but ridden with angst. We’ll see how the clinic goes this weekend. I don’t want to run Willie in trials if they just distress him, but I would like learn to help him be as good as he could be. Even though his work at the trial had some serious flaws, we did well enough that we didn’t leave feeling badly. He seemed upbeat and happy all day, I had a good time and got some good experience under my belt. I can’t wait for the clinic, it should be lots of fun and very interesting. And to those of you who were there, I still can’t stop singing “Keep rolling, rolling, rolling, keep them doggies rolling, RawHIIIIIIIDE.” Sigh.

Things at the farm are good. It’s still gorgeous even though many of the leaves have fallen. We got another half inch of rain yesterday… will wonders never cease? Tootsie is a happy girl, except for this morning, during which she spent part of the time in the kitchen sink because she had diarrhea all over herself. And me. You all know how that goes. I think it was just a glitch, that she’ll be fine in the future, and am oh so grateful that I can wash her off in the sink. Very handy at 6 am in your bathrobe.

Nellie and Polly are good. Too good. Polly took one look at her momma being put into a carrier crate in order to go to the vet clinic for vaccinations, and darted up a tree. Here she is: Wanna play Find the Kitty? (And don’t worry, she was down the minute we came home and I let her mum out of the crate.)

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on the cue “Get Back,” which is one of my favorites because it is so useful in so many contexts. Katie Martz, Communications Coordinator here at PMcC, video taped Willie getting back in a variety of contexts, and we noticed that every time I said “Get Back” in a context in which he’d rather not, he tongue flicked. That led to a very interesting discussion with readers about why he was tongue flicking, but distracted us from the reason we did the taping: the usefulness of “non-traditional” cues in dog training. Yes, we all need Come, and Sit and Stay; I can’t imagine what I would do without them. But there are a variety of cues that are equally useful, but not as common or well known. I thought it would be fun to canvass readers to learn about their favorite “non-traditional” cues, and perhaps add to the vocabularies of all of us. Here are just a few to get us started:

ENOUGH: Along with “Get Back,” I also love “Enough,” no doubt in part because I have had dogs (and still do) willing to elicit play or petting until all the entire Antarctic ice pack melts and we are all paddling to work. There’s a video of Enough training in the Reading Room on the website, it’s the Second from the Top. I use it when I want to focus on important issues, including whether Castle and Beckett will ever have a relationship like normal people, when I am done playing with toys with Willie, and when I simply can not stroke Tootsie’s adorable little round belly pooch for one more minute.

TAKE IT/DROP IT: I teach Drop It as the flip side of Take It, and I find I use both of them often. As in: Please drop the dead bird you found, or please pick up your toy and bring it back in the house. I know these aren’t especially ‘non-traditional’ but they often aren’t taught in training classes and I wish they were. Far better to teach Drop It as a fun exercise rather than reflexively shouting DROP IT! in an angry voice and teaching your dog to swallow as fast as she can when she hears it. That seems to be the default of most dog owners, an understandable primate-like response, but not a good way to establish a good relationship with your dog.  I’d love to see it as part of dog training curricula and have included it in The Puppy Primer.

READY? This is a standard signal a lot of serious trainers use, but I wish again it was more common place. I love looking at Willie and asking him if he wants to engage with me. The key here is asking. It’s not a command or even a cue really, in the sense that I’m simply asking Willie if he’d like to start training something new or practicing something old. Any answer is acceptable and I have no expectations of his response, except as information. If he doesn’t turn to me, eyes shining, then he’s not ready, and I change my behavior until he is. Because the sound so often leads to working sheep or doing something that elicits treats or play, Willie seems to love the word as much as I do.

OUT: Katie Martz uses this with Lily, her beautiful Dogo. She uses it when she’s chopping vegetables in the kitchen, to prevent Lily the 90 lb white wonder from dancing on the counters in delight. Out means either go to another room or another surface (floor to carpet for example) or, essentially, stop bothering me right now. She taught it by tossing treats into the other room and body blocking her from coming back in. Lily seems to define it the same way Katie does (often rare in training, right?), because she will respond correctly to it in a new house or apartment.

WHAT’S YOURS? This is just a partial list, and I’d love to hear what “Non-Traditional” signals you use with your dogs that you especially love. I envision a very interesting discussion about it, thanks to all our thoughtful readers. I fully expect I’ll be teaching Willie a new cue by the end of the weekend….

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: It’s gorgeous but desperately dry. I am watering the trees in the yard, but who knows what will happen in the woods and the prairies. But it has been stunningly beautiful, one of the prettiest autumns ever. Dry conditions, followed by sunny days and cool nights are apparently ideal for fall color, and that has been the case here to a T. The sheep are doing well, although that’s not the answer you would get if you asked them. They are confined to the pen because the pastures are little better than dirt. It’s sad to see, but I have had excellent advice from a pasture specialist (thank you Laura) and have a plan to rehabilitate starting next spring. I’m taking soil samples in this week to get that part done now anyway, and we are, one by one, ridding the area of the thistles we didn’t get this spring. (Thistles appear to be drought proof apparently, such a shame they are not edible.)

However, thanks to Jim, who is the primary portable fence mover, the sheep are able to get some grass from selected areas in the front of the farm. In the photo below they are eating the lush grasses right alongside the road. This is the best grass on the farm: it’s a low area that gathers rain run off from a culvert, is shaded much of the day and is mowed by the county on a regular basis. There is a tiny bit of grass in other areas of the front lawn, and thanks to Jim, Willie and the portable fencing, the sheep will be able to get some of it. Most of their ration is the hay we purchased for winter, which we are going through at an alarming rate. But it’s good, rich alfalfa and the sheep are actually doing well on it.

Last Sunday we all got out for a lovely fall walk in the fields and woods close to a good friend’s house. Willie’s shoulder has improved enough so that he is now off leash again. When I had to put  him back on leash, both inside and out, he became as depressed as any dog I’ve seen. It was, in a word, heartbreaking. Now that he can run free again he is back to his happy, happy self. We saw his physical therapist on Monday and she strongly advised that we go very, very slowly trying to bring him back to training for competition. It’s clear that his shoulder simply may never be able to handle the wear and tear involved in training for driving on a perfectly straight line, something that requires a tremendous amount of lateral stress on shoulder joints. If he can’t ever trial again I don’t think he’d care at all, as long as he can work sheep at home. It’s me that wants to trial, so although it would be a great disappointment to drop out now that I’ve caught the bug again, if Willie is happy, that’ll be enough for me. I’ll get over it, and Willie will not care one little bit. I’ll see how it goes, going very slowly and carefully.

Here’s the gang on the wooded part of our walk: Willie, Jim, Tootsie, good friend Beth Viney of Great Pyrenees Rescue of Wisconsin and her lovely lady, Tundra. Willie and Tundra did beautifully when they were re-introduced at the beginning of our walk (they had met once before, I have a video of it on my Dog-Dog Reactivity DVD and we all had a grand old time. Tootsie did get carried by me or Jim part of the way, the grasses were pretty high in some places and what was a path to us was a jungle to her. Short of teaching her to use a machete, we picked her up and carried her. But she was a trooper and still did a lot of walking, and we all had a wonderful time. Then Jim and I went back to doing farm chores, worked outside most of the afternoon, and ate a yummy dinner of local, organic pork, roasted root veggies and home made bread. We fell in bed about 9 o’clock and slept as if we’d been drugged. Hopefully there will be more of the same this weekend (the walks, farm chores and good food, we’ll pass on the “as if drugged” part.)

Here’s something interesting I learned while working on a talk I’ll be giving at the Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Association of Behavior Analysis on August 15th in Madison. My talk is “Creating Harmony Between Dogs and Special Needs Children,” and it involves discussing the benefits to the family of having a dog, but also the risks to the dogs that need to be addressed and minimized as much as possible. As we all know, even parents of typical children sometimes struggle with interactions between their children and their dog, and things can be even harder for parents of children with special needs.

While working on my talk I read a research paper that is relevant to dog training in general, even though the case study was about changing the behavior of a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD. A 6-year old boy was “inappropriately touching” the household dogs (grabbing and pinching the dog’s anus, oh dear). Needless to say, this was both unfair to the dogs and dangerous for the child.

The therapist attempted three different types of intervention: 1) a verbal reprimand if the behavior occurred and attempts to physically block the behavior from happening, 2) DRA, or “Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior,” in which the child got a jelly bean for touching the dog appropriately and 3) DRO, or “Diff’l Reinforcement of Other Behavior, in which the therapist gave the child a chance to choose the reinforcer before each session, and then told the child “If you don’t touch the dog’s bottom, when the timer goes off (10 sec), you’ll get X (chosen reinforcer) afterward”. Appropriate touching was verbally reinforced as it was in DRA, and inappropriate touching received a verbal reprimand “No touching. That means no X. Let’s try again.”

No surprise to dog trainers, verbal reprimands had little effect. The DRA method (reinforcing appropriate behavior) resulted in an increase in appropriate touching BUT no decrease in inappropriate touching. However,  DRO (don’t grab dog’s butt for 10 seconds and get a reinforcement of your choice) eliminated inappropriate touching completely. You can read more details in Bergstrom et al, 2011, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 5, pg 218-221.

Note that there were at least 2 variables that differed between DRA and DRO: In the latter the child got to choose the  reinforcement (rather than being given one, a jelly bean, that the therapist knew he liked). Second, in DRO the reinforcement came after 10 sec of not doing something, versus getting a reinforcement for performing an alternative action. This makes it a bit difficult to sort out which factor had more influence on the result (remember, this was a case, not an experiment). My guess is that both factors were significant. Certainly it is critical to understand that, just like us, dogs want different things at different times, whether it’s being let out to pee and sniff the sidewalk, get a piece of bacon or get to play ball. One of the key distinctions of good trainers is the understanding that we need to get into our dog’s heads as best we can and guess what it is that the dog wants at any given time. That said, I suspect that reinforcement for the absence of a behavior might also have been significant.

If you’re a learning theory expert then you are well versed in the term Differential Reinforcement, (DR) including DRI (where I = Incompatible behavior) as well as DRA and DRO. Most dog trainers use these concepts all the time, just without the formal labels to them. I bring it up here because so much of family dog training includes stopping a dog from doing something you don’t want it to do as much as teaching it what you do want (which should go hand in hand, right?) I teach incompatible behavior all the time, (sit when greeting people at the door rather than jump up), but we all know that some behaviors in some dogs can be challenging to turn around. I haven’t used DRO as described above very often with my own dogs or with my clients, however I did have good luck with it when Willie was obsessed with herding Sushi. Reinforcing incompatible behavior didn’t help, if anything, it made it worse because everything became a secondary reinforcer. Once I figured that out I could manage it reasonably well, but before Sushi left I had the best success with reinforcing a lack of herding for X amount of time (inspired by a seminar with Ken Ramirez, by the way). It’s not an intuitive method at all, and I suspect it’s best used only in specific circumstances. I’d love to hear your own thoughts about your own experience with it, or with dealing in general with behavior that is difficult to extinguish.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Even more rain! Whoopee, almost an inch in the last 2 days. It’s probably too late to save my pasture, it appears to be dead and gone; but maybe not, said Trisha the optimist? Maybe, just maybe, it’ll come back? I’ll give it another week or so before deciding to plow it up. That would be an ouch. I only have one other small pasture and if I replant I’ll have to do it in fall and then keep the sheep off for a long time afterward. Would have to buy lots more hay, and that’s not so easy to find right now.

Speaking of sheep, I realized it’s been awhile since they had the spotlight. About time I’m sure they’d say. Here are two of the ewes I call the “camel sisters:”

They are just visiting, to help me and Willie work flighty sheep.

Here’s a question for you: What’s wrong with the picture below?

Did you guess that sheep shouldn’t be eating hay in Wisconsin in the middle of summer? Yup, you’re right. The flock is eating their winter’s food and has been since late May. Maybe I’ll have to put them on a diet like I am?

I don’t know about you, but anytime I hear a dog training product described as “revolutionary,” I get worried. And for good reason. Have you heard about the new “revolutionary way” to walk your dog? It’s called SimpleLeash, and it is guaranteed to work on “dogs of all sizes and temperaments.”

What’s the revolutionary idea? Your dog gets a shock if he pulls on the leash. Ah, but it’s not called a shock. I couldn’t find the word shock anywhere on their website. No, no shocks here, just a “harmless correction stimulus,” that intensifies the harder your dog pulls. There is simply nothing for the owner to do, the collar automatically does it all! Thus, the SimpleLeash. “You literally don’t do a thing except hold the end of the leash.”

Well, maybe one more thing, like scrap up the puddle flattened on the sidewalk, the one that used to be your dog, and carry it home repeating “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” over and over again, as if it would help.

Speaking of sorry, I apologize for being so blunt. But oh dear, oh dear, will there ever be an end to people making money off of inhumane training methods? Here are some of the things a dog could learn from this collar:

1) Walks are dangerous. I will do all in my power to pee in the back bedroom and never go out again.

2) Every time I pull toward another  dog I am injured. Using my doggy brain and able as I am to associate 2 things together, it is obvious, even to knucklehead here, that other dogs are dangerous. I’d better start growling and barking at them to keep them away.

3) Ooops! I tried to pull toward the hedge to poop in a good place and got shocked. Pooping bad. Okay, I’ll hold it as long as I can. She can walk me for an hour, but by golly, I’m holding it in if it kills me.

On their website, the owners of the business explain that they are dog lovers, ones with some labs (based on the photo) who could not be trained through “professional training, treat training, clickers, choke collars, those collars with spiky things… and the leader that goes over the nose.” Wow. I’ll grant that teaching a dog to walk politely on a leash is harder than things like teaching a sit or a lie down, but my goodness, those must have been remarkably difficult dogs. After working with these virtually impossible dogs, one owner one paired up with a brother-in-law and came up with SimpleLEASH.

Could it ever work to teach a dog not to pull on a leash by shocking her when she does? Sure. Of course. Sometimes. You can stop children from mouthing back by slapping them on the face too, but that’s not where the story ends. Stopping a particular behavior with force, especially one as primal as a shock, usually has a raft of side effects that aren’t so pretty (see above to name a few). This is why it’s a good idea to talk to professional trainers and behaviorists before one promotes a product that can have serious side effects. And why it’s a bit dodgy to say that one “firmly believes in positive reinforcement training” and offer a collar that would give a dog a high level shock for bolting away from you in fear if a car backfired. It also helps, if you are going to refer to Pavlov on your website, that you understand Pavlov’s greatest accomplishment was discovering that the conditioned stimulus (the bell that signals food is coming, or in this case the sound that says a shock is coming) gets the SAME reaction as if the food did come, or the collar did produce a shock.

I just hope that people new to dogs aren’t overwhelmed by the seduction of this “Simple” and “Unbelievable” and “Brilliant” device. It’s a shock collar, and one that can deliver its highest level shock when a dog is terrified of something, under attack by another dog, intent on peeing on the right instead of the left of the light post because that’s where any dog would want to pee but their owner can’t smell anything so has no clue why it’s so important…. and on, and on.

Here are three things we need to teach dogs what we want when they are on a leash. Yes, some dogs are harder than others, but really… it’s not rocket science.

TRAINING: Check out my Teaching a Beginning Heel video to teach a dog to stay by your side. It’s the top video on the page I’ve linked to.  Also, see The Puppy Primer for getting a young dog started, and Family Dog Training for step-by-step exercises to teach a dog to walk beside you on a leash. Does it take some time and some skill. Yup, of course it does. It takes time and some skill to learn to drive your new car, to figure out how to program your DVR and to learn how to talk to Aunt Sally without bringing up the horrible things she said about Uncle Paul that last Christmas. Just do it. If you like being with your dog and you learn the basics, it’s fun. Really fun. You did get a dog to enjoy doing things together, yes?

DEVICES: I’m the first to agree that it takes a while to teach a young dog especially to not pull on a leash. No one walks a young horse through a crowded stable yard with the expectation that he’ll follow along quietly without a halter on while you’re doing your other training. That’s why I used a Sensation Harness on Willie when he was younger when I was walking him in town or to the vet’s. It’s one of the body harnesses that attach in the front — my favorite tool for controlling a dog while you teach him to stay by your side (and walk at the undoubtedly boring-as-death pace of an adult human on a walk.) Another good brand to consider is the Easy Walker by Premier. Some brands fit some dogs better than others, you’ll just have to see what works best for you. These harnesses work very well for small and medium dogs, but if you have an especially large or strong dog, you might consider going to a head collar, like a Gentle Leader or a Snoot Loop.

YOUR HEAD AND YOUR HEART: You can’t teach a dog to walk by your side without engaging these. Your head needs to know that walking side-by-side isn’t something dogs do naturally. Just because us primates do it doesn’t mean our ‘best friends’ understand the concept, or want to play along once they do. Your heart needs to know that your dog is a good dog, really he is, and he is just being a dog if he tries to pull to sniff where the squirrel just peed. He doesn’t need to be hurt and scared just because he wants to sniff something, does he?

AND YOU? What are your tips for people with dogs who pull? With new dog owners with enthusiastic puppies who haul them across the lawn to the neighbor.. the one who hates dogs?

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Rain! Not much here, but still, I now have faith that it can rain, and that it might sometime again in the future. We actually got very little here, only a half an inch, while friends 6 miles away in one direction got an inch, others the same distance in another direction got 2 and a half. Go figure.  It’s going to be brutally hot and humid this weekend though, so Willie and I are going to take advantage of a slight cooling off today and go up the hill and work sheep. Wheeee! We’ve done it so little I barely remember his whistles. (I actually went to the car to remind myself how to whistle his signals at the trial on Sunday. All of a sudden I felt like, “Wait! What does it feel like to whistle Come Bye?” (Which means go clockwise around the sheep in herding speak.) Barbie, get ready, here we come.

And more good news: no watering necessary today for the first day in… how long? Don’t know, I’ve lost count. I’ve mostly watered the trees and my perennials, it’s really been a kind of a triage operation. Here’s my primary flower garden that I have kept up with watering. It’s starting to fade, but still colorful and brings me so much happiness. The grass right around it is bountiful, the grass farther out is the color of potato chips. The botanists say that much of the grass that is brown isn’t just dormant, it’s might actually be dead. I don’t care so much about the lawn, but I am truly worried about my two acre pasture up the hill. It’s convex (with a hill in the middle and tends to be pretty dry anyway), but only time will tell if our little bit of rain came soon enough.

And here’s Calico, finishing a stretch when I woke her up from a nap:

It makes me so happy to say that Tootsie is doing great. Right now she’s sleeping in her crate beside my desk. The door is open, but she loves it there. The only places she likes as well are 1) being in bed with me, 2) being on the couch or 3) being by herself in the crate in the back of the car. She likes it so well in the car crate that I am actually having to train to leave it. I’m assuming this is baggage from her puppy mill days and that she feels most secure and comfortable in a small, confined space.

She’s progressed so well in so many ways: I’m especially taken with her flipping around mid-air when outside after I call her to come, ears flying like a furry dumbo, her open, happy mouth taking up half of her tiny little Cavalier head. As I mentioned in an earlier post, now that house training is behind us (wheee!), she can be outside off leash as long as I watch her like a hawk and keep her close to the house, she no longer barks to wake us up and produce her dinner, so it’s time to continue work on standard training. We’ve gotten started on sitting on cue, but I thought it would be fun to start her on clicker training at the same time.

I’ve worked on sit off and on, never with much diligence, but she is getting the hang of it. I started with lure training–using the smell of a great treat to ‘lure’ her body into a sitting position. Now that I’m going to start her with a clicker, I find myself thinking about the two different methods of training: luring and clicker training. Both have advantages and disadvantages, but I find that combining the two of them can be especially effective in some contexts.

Luring has the advantage of initial speed: In the case of sit, a la Ian Dunbar, you hold a tiny, tasty treat at the crown of a dog’s head and move it back toward their tail (not up, straight back.) As a dog’s nose follows the treat straight back toward their tail, their body finds it hard to stay standing, and so the hips automatically collapse and voila, your dog is sitting. Bingo, the treat gets popped into the mouth and your dog just got rewarded for sitting. Once you have the behavior established, you turn the motion of luring into a visual signal, and then bring in the verbal cue and start minimizing the hand motion.  (For a more detailed description, see The Puppy Primer.)

Luring also has a disadvantage: If you’re not careful to drop out the lure and the visual signal early on, the movement becomes the cue. You can end up with a dog who only sits when you move your hand, not when you say “Sit.”

Clicker training has the advantage of creating razor sharp precision, which helps you communicate clearly with your dog. It’s a great thing to teach a dog that their behavior can influence your own, and in a good way at that. I especially like that in most cases, the dog initiates the action, rather than you ‘helping’ him or her. However, strict operant conditioning suggests that you don’t do anything to initiate the behavior, you wait until the dog initiates him or herself, then click and treat to reinforce it. But truth be told, I’m not someone who is going to wait for a dog to sit when they feel like it, click opportunistically and then wait again for the next time. Not when I can lure a dog into a sit, get 15 reps into one sessions, and then take over with a clicker once I’ve got the behavior started. I tend to mix methods for actions that are easy to lure and for movements or behaviors that dogs do naturally. I should warn you: some trainers feels strongly that methods should never be combined, but I’m an equal opportunity employer, and so have no problems doing so as long as you know how to use them together without confusing your dog.

[10 minute break while Trisha goes to work with Tootsie]

First I used a lure/hand signal (with treat) to raise her chin and get her to sit down. My hand was just inches from her mouth and head. She responded well, and I repeated it 3 times.  Then I moved my hand 2 feet from her head, moved it with the same motion as while luring her (just farther away). She responded well until I moved my hand farther away. Now my hand was so far away from her head its motion probably  looked like a completely different signal. I stopped there because I wanted to  move on to clicker training.

I “loaded” the clicker with 25 click/treats (small dog kibble, which she adores… she adores bird seed shells for heaven’s sake, so finding a motivating treat is not a problem with Tootsie.).

Then I lured 3 times relatively close to her head (to create a success) and click/treated when she sat. I then proceeded to disappear the visual signal, added the word “Sit” and in 20 trials had her sitting just to the word “Sit.”

Ah, but here’s an important lesson: I noticed that while saying “Sit” I held both of my hands behind my back. Wondering if that might in itself be a visual signal, I moved the position of one of my arms. Sure enough, she looked at me as if completely confused. When I put both hands behind my back, she sat again when I said “Sit.” But the cue that she was responding to wasn’t the word, it was the position of my hands. Easily fixed, I just began moving my arms and hands into different positions, saying “Sit” and waiting up to 3 seconds for a response, and clicking immediately when she responded correctly. By the time we stopped she was sitting to the word sit no matter what I did with my hands.

And then… experienced trainers can predict the next stage…. I moved three feet backward into the kitchen. Now I was in a different room. Tootsie again looked completely befuddled. Easy to fix; just critical to remember that any action, any posture, any context, any location can be a relevant cue to a dog. In just a few trials she was sitting just to the word in the kitchen as well as the living room. We stopped so that Tootsie didn’t become a Tootsie roll sausage and I could finish this blog.  We’ll take it up again tonight and tomorrow, and start on some tricks this weekend. Ain’t training grand!!!

Question for you all: I know that some trainers are true purists, only using one method or the other. I’m a fan of mix and matching, as long as one understands the potential pit falls. You? [And fyi, I haven't forgotten about following up on the clicker study I wrote about earlier (clickers versus just food as reinforcement): I'm playing phone tag with the author, but I'll let you know as soon as I know more.]

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: Willie and I have 3 new sheep to work. I don’t like working him on my small ewe flock now, because they have young lambs and huge bags of milk that have got to be miserably uncomfortable when they flap/slap around whilst the poor ewe is being pushed by a dog. Willie and I try to work them slowly and carefully, but there are times it’s just not possible to keep them from speeding up. There’s another reason: Willie has lost a tremendous amount of confidence since his surgery and confinement, and my most aggressive ewe, Barbie, has gone after him and won several times now. I hate having a dog fight a ewe with a young lamb but I don’t want her winning over and over again and continuing to erode Willie’s confidence. So I have 3 new Katahdin ewes with no udders and no lambs. They are flighty and easy to move and will be great for Willie while he builds up his confidence. Jim, Willie and I just split the 3 newbies off and put them in the orchard pasture high behind the farm house. It took split second timing and quarter-horse short stopping by Willie, but we got it done. Everytime I see him slam his forequarters into the ground I wince: cross your paws for him that he’s not lame tonight, I can’t help but worry. I’ll do some stretching as soon as I’m done here and ice him if his shoulder feels hot.

Here are the new girls, as yet not named (though I’m leaning toward Chili for the red one in the middle). Okay, they aren’t bathing beauties, but they will have a good life here this summer and will be perfect for Willie and me to get our paws back into the game. Those of you who work sheep know that the one in the middle is going to be the challenge: see that lifted chin? Oh my!

Here’s a wider shot, showing you the only reason I could get a close shot of the sheep! Good boy Willie.

Thanks to all who have commented so far in answer to the questions “Are you a 100 % positive trainer?” and “Would you sign a pledge to only use positive reinforcement and never use punishment?” I appreciate the thoughtful discussion that the questions have generated. I’ll jump in now, with the caveat that this topic deserves an all day seminar (at least) and I can’t begin to say all I’d like to in one post. I’ll start however, by summarizing some of my thoughts on the issue.

Let me start by saying that I consider myself to be an overwhelmingly “positive” trainer.  I would imagine that those who have seen me work would agree that I am a kind and gentle trainer, and primarily use positive reinforcement when working with dogs. That said, I’d never sign a pledge saying I’ll only “use positive reinforcement” in all my dealings with dogs. I wouldn’t consider it for a moment. Here’s why:

1. As most of us are well aware, the word “punishment” itself refers to two completely different concepts, depending on whether you are talking to the public or to professionals in animal training or psychology. I virtually never use the word when talking to the general public or a client, unless I define it first in operant conditioning terms. That’s because the public and generic dog owner usually defines “punishment” as something inherently aversive, and often as something involving pain or fear. But in operant terms, punishment simply means anything that decreases the frequency of a behavior, and that should be well understood by any professional group involved in dog training. If someone in the dog training field asked me to sign a pledge that I’d never use “punishment,” I’d assume they were aware of its precise meaning, and decline, being unable to say “I’d never do anything to decrease the frequency of a behavior.”

2. I love “Negative Punishment.” What? Trisha loves “negative” and “punishment?” Oh my, say it isn’t so. But remember: in learning theory terms, “negative” means to take something away and “punishment” means to decrease the frequency of a behavior. Period, that’s all. Nothing about aversive, or even “good” or “bad” for that matter.

Here’s an example: Say I’ve been working with a young dog for six months on sitting when asked. We’ve proofed the behavior in a million contexts, and Fido has gotten 10 gazillion pieces of chicken and 5 gazillion other times he’s got to run and play with another dog when he did as asked. Now we’re at home, there’s little going on, but Fido didn’t sit when I gave the cue. I’m as sure as one can be without speaking ‘dog” that there’s nothing physically bothering him, he just seems more interested in ignoring me and going somewhere else to sniff. I’ll take a piece of said chicken, let him sniff it and then withdraw it, saying, melodramatically, “Too bad…. ” and possibly, depending on the state of the chicken and my stomach, “Mmmm, this sure is good! Too bad you don’t get any.”

That’s “negative punishment:” I took something away (food) to decrease a behavior (ignoring my cue). I didn’t learn this technique until I’d been in the business for quite awhile, but I use it, in the right context, and have found it to be really and truly effective. (Leslie Nelson, for her great Reliable Recalls, uses a similar technique in which one dog ends up watching other dogs get treats when he didn’t come when called.) In the example above, once I’d withdrawn the food, I ask for a sit again, and then I’d back up so that my feet don’t get squished by the dog’s hindquarters hitting the ground. That’s how effective it is. I only use this once a dog has received positive reinforcement literally over and over and over again, and when I feel confident that he understands the exercise and is capable of performing it (not feeling poorly that day, not overwhelmed by a new environment, for example). But let’s be clear: it’s punishment, if you are going to use the term correctly.

3. What’s Positive for the Trainer may not be Positive for the Dog: As the opposite of “Punishment,” “Reinforcement,”is something that increases a behavior, period. If it’s “positive” (I’ll use +R here for Positive Reinforcement) then you have added something to the system, if it’s negative (-R), you’ve taken something away. In either case, you are looking for a behavior to increase. So how would you evaluate these  scenarios:

Scenario One is, regrettably, astoundingly common: A shy dog is greeted by a person, whether it’s a vet tech or a neighbor, with shrieks of joy and looming hugs and/or kisses to the nose. The person is being “positive” in their eyes, but the dog is being punished for its very existence, terrified as it is by the rude and overwhelming approach by the stranger. A perfect of example of +P to the dog  and +R to the human.

In Scenario Two, a trainer is waiting for a dog to raise it’s paw so that she can use +R and give it a treat, on her way to shaping a “high five.” The dog, having no clue what the trainer wants, tries sitting, circling, and lying down. The trainer stays still and quiet, an atypical posture for her, and turns her head away very slightly. She has just used +P to communicate to the dog, adding in an unnatural posture and an obvious turn of the head (obvious to the dog anyway) to decrease the frequency of the dog’s response in that context.

4. Positive Punishment (in which something is added to decrease the frequency of a behavior) isn’t always aversive. For example, after watching herding dogs influence the behavior of sheep without touching them, I took a page from their lesson plan and began using what I called “Body Blocks.”  For example, while teaching Stay, I’ll give a dog infinite quantities of treats for staying still when asked, but also move forward to block her movement if she starts to get up. “Taking the space” I’ve called it, and I’ve found it to be incredibly useful in helping dogs understand what you want. (This is similar to the Psych study one commenter noted, in which students were “trained” to perform a new behavior by either 1) only being told “Yes” when they did right, 2) only being told “No” when they did wrong or, 3) being told both “Yes” and “No.” The students who were told both what was right and what was wrong learned fastest.)

I realize that some people consider Body Blocks to be highly aversive to dogs, and don’t use them. One commenter noted that she never used Body Blocks, feeling that they were too aversive to use on her dogs. Two things come to mind here: one is that I’ve done Body Blocks on one or two dogs now (or maybe 5,000), and can tell you that they respond in a myriad of ways. Some field-bred Labradors seem to think it’s the best game in town, and try their best to beat you, eyes shining, until they figure out soon enough that something even better happens if they just stay still for a moment. They behave as though, if they could, they’d say “That was fun! Got any more cool games up your sleeve?” However, super soft dogs, let’s imagine a melty little Shetland Sheepdog, need a quiet little forward lean to be influenced, and if someone moved too fast and too abruptly they could indeed scare them. This is a perfect example of how important it is for a trainer to be able to ‘read’ a dog,  no matter what method they are using I would argue, and adjust their behavior based on the personality of the dog him or herself.

5. However, this does raise the question, the elephant in the room really, of using “aversives.” Are “Aversives” always bad? Ah, here’s where the rubber hits the road, isn’t it? We can all debate about what is +P and -P and +R and -R to our heart’s content, but isn’t the issue really “Is it ever acceptable to purposefully respond to a dog’s behavior with something that they perceive as aversive?” My own answer is another reason why I’d never sign a pledge to never use punishment, even as defined by the public. Life is just too complicated to be summed up in simple categories of black and white.

Do I think that we have a responsibility to be kind and gentle to our dogs? Yes.

Do I think that Positive Reinforcement is overwhelmingly the most effective method of training? Yes.

Do I use it 99.99% of the time? Yes.

Have I ever done something to a dog that I knew he would think was aversive to get him to stop doing something? Yes. Would I again? Yes.

Here’s an example:

When Willie first started working sheep, he had a bad habit of dashing into the flock and scattering them as if he was playing pool. Alisdair McRae, a brilliant trainer and teacher, explained that I simply had to prevent it from happening during the early stages of training, because there was nothing I could do that was more reinforcing to Willie. Not only did he get to watch the sheep bolt away (look what I can do!) and then chase them (wow is this fun!), he got to disperse the tension inside of his own body (and boy do I feel better!). So I set up practice after practice in which I was between him and the sheep, and just my presence was enough for him to stay back where he should when working. But once I had to move back away from the flock to begin short outruns, he began doing it again. We went back to working in closer, but every time I backed away far enough he’d eventually dash in, scatter the sheep and turn around, body relaxed, eyes shining, mouth open, having gotten the best reinforcement he could possibly get.

I began walking him away in response: you bolt in, session over. This helped a great deal, but not enough. Eventually, after several months of work, Willie charged in, for what I believed to be the simple joy of it. I responded a gruff voice (“Cut it out!”) and a fast and direct march toward him. I stopped a long way away but looked directly at him and said again, in no uncertain terms “You cut that out!” Willie, an extremely biddable dog, backed up and looked absolutely shocked . . . and didn’t do it again. He now has the most gorgeous outrun you can imagine, and he works right on balance 99.99% of the time.  Every once in a while, when he’s very tense, he’ll begin to dash in and I’ll say his name low and quiet, and he’ll curve back out again. Do I feel badly about raising my voice in that context years ago? No, not at all. Does that mean I use aversives often in training? Not at all. I quite literally never use them in any trick or “obedience” training, and primarily use +P and “Premack principle” methods to solve behavioral problems. (For example, Willie learned to lie down while working sheep because lying down on cue became the window to getting to work more.)

I’ll talk more next week about what’s critical to do or not do IF one is going to use punishment, but right now it’s time to go let Willie out to pee. No doubt relieving his bladder will be +R for him!

MEANWHLE, back on the farm: We’re pretty much at storm central here, being pummeled by ice and sleet at the same time that the politics of the area are swirling around in a social and legislative blizzard of epic proportions. (I’m right outside of Madison WI, and teach at the University, which is pretty much the eye of the storm here. FYI, for those of you out of the country, there is a huge political debate going on here, involving almost 70,000 protesters at our state capitol over the weekend. Enough said about that, except that everyone I’ve talked to agrees that the energy of the entire area is palpable, and not so much in a good way. I wonder if the dogs can sense it?)

Poor Willie injured his left foreleg again on Friday, darn. He’s been on leash restriction since then and he’s improving nicely, but not enough to let him off leash yet. If it’s not better in a day or so I’ll take him in to my sports medicine specialist vet. So Willie is bored and Sushi is disgusted–last week the warmer weather had her happily outside for hours at a time, now she’s sitting at the window slashing her tail. After I slide my way to the barn and feed the sheep we’ll do a bunch of trick training tonight a perfect time to exercise their brains instead of their bodies!

Here are some lovely clouds from a few mornings ago:

Recently there have been some debates and discussions about whether it is possible to be a “100% positive” trainer. This has become an issue because some seminar hosts have policies that they will not hire anyone for a seminar unless they only use positive reinforcement and “never use punishment or aversives.” Some people are being asked to sign pledges that they will never use punishment as a trainer.

I’m curious what you think. Are you a “100% positive trainer?” Do you ever use “punishment?”  Do you use what some people call “aversives”? Ever? If so, what kind and when? I’ll weigh in on this debate next week, (as you can guess I have a few opinions about the matter) but I’d love to hear what YOU think.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: The snow is melting! It’s been well over freezing during the day all week, and as a result 1) we can actually see bare ground in some places, 2) the snow that’s left re-freezes every night so walking most places involves either teetering on a mouse-size mountain range of ice peaks and valleys, sinking into ankle deep mud, or having your boot fall through a foot of snow with a thin cover of ice on it. Let’s just say the footing is highly variable. There’s enough open ground that it’s muddy paw time here now, and I am reminded of how valuable it is to cue your dog when you are about to lift his feet. I’ve been saying “Ready” before I pick up each of Willie’s paws (I also do them in the same order) and he now lifts up 3 of his 4 paws for me when I say the word. It’s always the same one that he doesn’t pick up himself, and I suspect that it is because it is harder for him to do so. We are always working on some problems he has in his left shoulder and right hip, so I go especially slowly picking up his right hind paw, and wipe it off as fast as I can. Willie’s behavior is a great reminder to us all to be observant and thoughtful about our dog’s responses.

Besides the discovery of lots of dog poop (a universal sign of spring in snow country), I discovered something far more interesting today. I found a dead hawk below the pines lining the driveway, clearly one who had died recently. I believe it is an immature Red Tail, (Buteo jamaicensis) the most common hawk in the area.  There’s a pair that nests less than 100 yards from the farm house every year, and I wonder if it was one of their young from last year. Egg laying begins in late winter, in March or April, but I often have seen courtship begin in late February. I don’t know why the hawk died, it has no superficial injuries. The best guess (and it is only a guess) is that it starved to death. As I explained to my UW students recently, deep snow favors small rodents who can move through tunnels under the snow while staying out of sight of predators, and disfavors aerial predators like Red Tails. I wonder if the snow is melting just a few days or weeks too late for this one. I’m sorry that it died, but grateful to have a chance to appreciate its beautiful feathers.

The seminar in Seattle was great fun, lots of good folks  and excellent questions from the audience. In the morning I talked about treatment for dog-dog reactivity, and I promised a summary of that on the blog. Here it is, with the obligatory caution that the morning itself wasn’t close to enough time to cover the topic in depth, so the summary here will be chapter titles (but hopefully helpful ones). Knowing that I couldn’t possibly talk about how to handle every type of case, here are some highlights:

REACTIVITY? What are we talking about here? When I use the term I am talking about what we usually think of as “over reactivity,” or “reactivity” that we see as inappropriate. After all, a loose body greeting is a “reaction” to another dog, right? In this case, I am talking about barking, lunging, snarling, snapping, stiffening etc… in other words, doing things we humans don’t like that makes us nervous that the behavior might be followed by aggression or trouble of some kind. It’s not a great term, but it’s better than “aggression,” since so much of behavior that we consider problematic is not aggressive at all.

MOTIVATION: I showed a video montage that illustrated that ‘reactivity’ can be the result of many internal states or desires: a dog who is barking and lunging could be : 1) afraid of the approaching dog and trying to get it to stop or go away, 2) frustrated because it can’t get to the other dog to play, 3) warning the other dog to stay away because whenever it gets close the barker gets a snap on the neck and it hurts, 4) begging the other dog to come closer so that it can get into a fight, which the barker heartily enjoys (rare, but it happens).

THRESHOLD: In all cases, in my humble opinion, one can’t work on cases like this until you understand a dog’s individual threshold of response. I want to know what is the lowest intensity of the trigger stimulus that elicits the lowest intensity of the “reactivity.” Some trainers let dogs go over threshold and bark/lunge for example until the behavior extinguishes, but that leads to what’s called the “rehearsal effect” (like repeating a bad habit) and I’m not personally a fan of it.

TREATMENT: My Ah Ha! moment was when I was working on this talk, and realized that all the methods I was going to discuss had, in a way, a similar result: the dog is reinforced for either increasing the distance between him and another dog, or for decreasing the potential of a direct, highly aroused  confrontation. Treatment modalities can be categorized into 4 groups:

1. Classical Counter Conditioning (Note: I talked about this in the seminar, but didn’t at first include it in this post. A comment to the first version reminded me that I should have put it in in the first place!)

2. Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, On Cue

3.  Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, No Cue, Dog Initiates Behavior

4. Operant Conditioning, Positive Punishment (yup, but not what you might think!)

[#2 and #3 have the benefit of creating a Classical conditioning effect: See dog, feel good!]

A1. Classical Counter Conditioning: Easiest by far for a novice owner, because it requires linking the appearance of another dog with food. Dog looks at other dog, food falls from the sky (or falls on the ground, or a toy is presented. I use this sometimes to get dogs started, especially if they are super reactive. The problem with it can be that you need to be sure the dog is linking feeling good with the another dog, not a dog paired with a person, or a person with a yellow jacket, etc. [Again, I talked about this in the seminar, but skipped it in the first version of the blog when Willie was reminded me that if we didn't get going it would get too dark to walk! I was inspired to add it back in by a comment from someone who found it extremely useful....]

2. Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, On Cue: In this category, a dog is taught that the stimulus of another dog approaching is a g0od thing, and it becomes a stimulus that causes the dog to feel relaxed rather than tense, and usually (at first) to turn away and look at its owner for a food treat or play session. This includes “AutoWatches” and “Where’s the Dog” as described in Feisty Fido or “Look at That” in Leslie McDermitt’s Control Unleashed. “Autowatches” (turn away from the dog and look at your owner) and “Where’s the Dog/Look at That” seem to be polar opposites, but in my experience, they lead to the same response, which is that the dog becomes comfortable with the approach of another dog, and instead of barking and lunging, tends to turn away from it and look toward its owner for reinforcement. This inherently avoids the direct face-to-face confrontation that is forced by 2 dogs approaching on a leash, and has the advantage of making nervous dogs classically conditioned, such that they associate other dogs with feelings of comfort. It also teaches rude dogs (who either are frustrated that they can’t get to another dog or would love to start a stare fight) to engage in an incompatible behavior and get reinforced for it.

3.  Operant Conditioning, Positive Reinforcement, No Cue, Dog Initiates Behavior: In this category, which includes what is called CAT and BAT, rather than the owner teaching the dog an incompatible behavior, the dog is exposed to the trigger stimulus and then is reinforced as soon as it performs a behavior voluntarily that is more acceptable. For example, if a dog is barking and lunging, it might be brought to a distance just close enough to elicit a reaction (I would advocate just looking at the other dog, NOT barking and lunging already). The owner/handler stops, and waits for the dog to offer a different behavior, like looking down, or turning its head to the side. As soon as that behavior is offered, either the other dog is taken away (CAT) or the subject dog is taken away (BAT). However in BAT, (Behavior Adjustment Training, Grisha Stewart), unlike in CAT (Constructional Aggression Treatment, Jesus Reosalez-Ruiz & Kelli Snider), the dog is first reinforced with a click for even looking at another dog and then is moved away and given a treat after the click has marked the “looking at”. In the next stage, the dog is exposed at the edge of threshold to another dog and the owner waits for the dog to turn his head away or sniff the ground, etc, marks that with a clicker, moves backward a good distance and treats the dog. In stage 3, the dog is again exposed sub-threshold, but the marker is a verbal ‘yes,’ the distance between dogs is again increased but no treat is given.

Both methods are derivations of John Fisher’s early work, and their greatest strength is that sometimes it is preferable to let the dog choose the behavior, and also to be less focused on the handler or the food/toy and more focused on the other dog. When CAT first started a few years ago, it appeared that the dog was often allowed to go past threshold into a full blown response. The owner/trainer would wait it out, with no one moving (thus no reinforcement from the other dog leaving) until the problem behavior extinguished. From what I have seen, it being a work in progress, its advocates have begun working harder to keep the dog at lower levels of arousal. I think that’s a plus, I never like to see a dog allowed to ‘practice’ a problematic behavior, and it’s tough to wait out some dogs, given that barking can be extremely self reinforcing.

What I like about BAT and the seminar on it last Saturday is that the dog is always kept just at below threshold, and is reinforced both with a secondary reinforcer (the marker) and 2 primary reinforcers at first (food and getting to increase the distance between dogs). The steps are clear and I think that is extremely helpful to owners. I would add though that ‘increasing the distance’ between dogs is not always positive reinforcement, and is most useful if the dog is barking and lunging (or just stiffening) because it is fearful of other dogs. It also requires a relatively sophisticated ability to read dogs, and to respond instantly to the desired behavior (and a decision about what that behavior should be–one thing, or anything that is not “the problem” behavior?).

4. Operant Conditioning, Positive Punishment: The only example of Positive Punishment that I ever use in these cases is Trish King’s “Abandonment Training.” In this scenario, a dog is both on a leash and a long line, with the owner holding the leash as usual and a trainer holding the long line as a safety net. As they approach another dog, if the subject dog barks and lunges, the owner throws the leash onto the dog’s back (tactile cue) and runs like heck the other way. Basically, the dog is ‘deserted’ by the owner, and if it is bothered by that, it stops the behavior very, very quickly. I’ve seen it work beautifully on some dogs, but as Trish advises, this is only for clingy dogs who care deeply about being with their owner. (Can you spell German Shepherd? Forgive me, but do the GSD folks out there agree that GSDs seem to care deeply about being with their humans, more so than many other dogs? I am NOT saying this is appropriate for every GSD, or not for other breeds, don’t get me in trouble by misquoting me!)

I’m a big advocate of having lots of tools in your tool box (thank you Terry Ryan for that phrase!), and personally I believe that being able to use all the methods described above, or some variation on them, is important for anyone who wants to do consults. For private owners, one needs to think about which method fits best with them and their dog. BAT and CAT require, I believe, a sophisticated ability to read a dog. AutoWatches and Where’s the Dog require an owner who likes to train, and can learn the timing required. All methods require setting up wins, in which the dog can be gradually exposed to an increasing level of intensity (dog far away, dog closer; dog standing still, dog moving forward, etc.) and an ability to respond at the right time.

I used AutoWatches and Where’s the Dog with Willie (I’ll post some video of that later this week, right now Willie is reminding me it’s past his dinner time!) and I think they are great for dogs who are easily aroused (Willie would launch just when smelling another dog’s urine. seriously), or tend to want to approach for whatever reason. CAT and BAT are good for people who can read dogs well and have dogs they are sure want the other dog to go away, not get any closer. Argh, I am simplifying way toooo much here, but it’s this is getting too long!

I ended the seminar talking about safety measures, including the Emergency U-Turn and the Emergency Sit/Stay (so that you can put your dog behind you, move forward and distract the other dog). The Sit/Stay requires some serious training, but is amazingly effective if one can put in the time, while the  U Turn is so easy that you have to encourage people to practice it. The idea is to get your dog conditioned to feeling good when you say “Oh Wow!” (other cues have been used by my clients, but they are not repeatable here) when you are surprised by a dog, to pivot and move in the other direction so fast that neither one of you even realizes you’ve done it until after it’s over. (There’s lots more on that in Feisty Fido, but Willie is starting to look at me cross-eyed.)

I’d love to hear: who out there has used what method on their own reactive dog? I’d love to start a discussion on this. I’ll post videos of Willie boy and other dogs soon….

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: I am back on the farm! Wheee, good to be home. It’s gorgeous here, and I get one evening of great weather before it gets cloudy and rainy, and boy am I enjoying it. Willie and I got to work sheep (practicing those straight lines, long way to go, but having fun) and we’re about to take a long walk.

Here’s poor Redford this afternoon, our Dorper ram, in his private pasture. We lost the ram lamb we kept in with him, and now the poor guy is by himself. Worse, the ewes are cycling, so they stand beside the gate and tease him. Right now he’s looking at Willie. Redford is one of the gentlest rams I’ve ever had, but I never go into a pen with a ram without a dog, and I never turn my back on one. There is a reason that the noun ‘ram’ was turned into a verb.

Here are some of his lambs, on the hill behind his pasture, back lit by the setting sun.

I wish the world could have seen Ken’s seminar on Sunday in Worcester MA, it was fantastic. For those of you who don’t know his name, he is the Training Director and Senior Trainer at the Shedd Acquarim, has trained exotic animals for over 30 years, and could train just about anyone to do anything. I left inspired and crazed to train something, anything, and had to stop myself from trying to teach the flight attendant to scratch her head on cue.

When I got home, close to midnight, I sat down with Hope and taught him to flip his hips sideways while lying down to “Settle” before I even walked upstairs. Took five minutes. Scary easy, and extra fun because of being inspired by Ken.

However, in order to get home Sunday night, I had to miss the last hour of Ken’s videos. I heard they were great… anyone care to tell us what I missed?

Here’s what I didn’t miss: some excellent points about what are often called “Secondary Reinforcers.” [Note to training geeks: there are some details about terminology that Ken went into that I found fascinating, but it would take a couple of posts to explain them, and you're better off going to see Ken in person if you are interested in terminology.] But here is a summary of points that I think are  relevant to all of us:

First, many of you know that “Primary Reinforcers” are things that are inherently reinforcing (that automatically cause an animal to increase the frequency of a behavior). Strictly speaking, they are things that an animal needs to survive: food, water, etc. When you give your dog a treat for sitting on cue, you are using a primary reinforcer.

Secondary reinforcers are things that are learned by an animal to be associated with Primary Reinforcers, and thus eventually elicit a similar response through classical conditioning. For example, if you repeat “Good Dog” and follow up it with a treat enough times, eventually your dog will work to hear you say it. But here’s what I learned from Ken:

It is critical to continue to link a secondary with a primary  part of the time, no matter how long you’ve been using it. In his experience with his animals (who have to perform perfectly in shows and when being treated medically), even if the animal inherently enjoys the secondary reinforcement, it has to be maintained with a primary if you want a totally reliable behavior. That’s true even if the animal loves the secondary reinforcement. For example, at the Shedd, Beluga Whales love having their tongues rubbed, it clearly feels good to them and they seek it out. However, Ken considers it still a secondary reinforcement, and is very careful not to over use it.

He advises that you condition ALL secondary behaviors as if they were a behavior. In other words, rub tongue, give treat. Rub dog’s belly, give treat. Even if your dog likes it inherently, initially reinforce it with food if your dog likes food. That makes it much more powerful in the long run.

Once your dog is clearly thrilled with what you are doing, then begin to use it as reinforcement by asking for a simple behavior, then use your 2ndary R, and follow with the primary R. After that, for a long time, use the 2ndary by itself only twice in a session, and never in a row. Gradually increase the use of the 2ndary, but be very careful not to overuse it. (By the way, he is NOT talking about a click for those of you who are clicker trainers. He considers that a marker, not a reinforcer.) Clearly there is a lot to talk about here, but this is enough for now to get us all thinking about the issue.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm, I had a chance to think especially  hard about all this the day after the seminar. I loaded up the dogs, the plastic bags, the treats, the water, the camera and the leashes and drove over to a wonderful place to walk the dogs. Hope has been there off leash 5 times before, but I am very careful because in the beginning it is close to a road. In the past he’s gotten lots and lots of food treats for coming when called, and for checking in with me on his own.

When we arrived I looked for my bait bag and discovered I’d left it on the counter in the house. Whoops, no food. No primary reinforcer for a young pup who was going to be off leash for 45 minutes. I pondered keeping him on leash the entire time (I always start with him on leash) and thus him getting less exercise, but decided to forge ahead because 1) the path has a natural boundary of high grasses 2) Hope tends to follow Will, who always stays on the path 3) Hope has had 5 lessons there and had done very well and 4) I DID have a primary reinforcer: water. It was hot, and I knew the dogs would be thirsty after not very long. So I decided to risk it, but here’s what I did:

1. Unlike our other trips, during which I called him back to me often for training purposes, I decided to call him back only when absolutely necessary. I knew he wouldn’t always be thirsty, and wanted to have the water retain its power. I ended up calling him to come five times in 45 minutes. Every time he came he got water, but I didn’t let him drink his fill. The last time he drank one quick lap and moved away, so I immediately leashed him up. We were close to the end anyway, and at a place I have always put him back on leash, because it gets close to the road.

2. I used Willie to move Hope around in space, calling Willie (by name “Willie Willie!). This helped a lot and meant I only had to call Hope 5 times total. I also used clapping to get the dogs to come. Clapping is not trained as a recall, but is used to motivate the dogs to speed up, sometimes when they are playing with each other, sometimes when running to me. I could use it without polluting my “Hope, That’ll Do!” cue.

3. I managed to keep my hands to myself and never pet Hope when he came back, because he behaves as though he hates it when he is active. He only likes petting when he is sleepy and tired. Petting would have been punishment. Most relevant to Ken’s talk, I didn’t fool myself that “Good Dog” or any other 2ndary R was going to be effective, at least not for long. And I didn’t want to take away its power, so I said “Good Dog” only twice before he started to drink, and kept my mouth shut the rest of the time. Please send chocolate, this is not easy for me.

4. I was ready at any second to bail and put him on leash if I saw the slightest sign that he was going to get himself into trouble. Most of the walk was a long, long away from the road, and there were plenty of scents and sounds to keep him occupied. If he had put his head up and started air sniffing, or completely ignored any signals from me, I would have leashed him up in a microsecond.

Here he is, coming when called, Goooooooooooood Boy!

And here I am Saturday night in Masssachusetts, after a lovely dinner with our host Dana Crevling from Dogs of Course!, another trainer Carolyn whose last name I have rudely forgotten, Ken Ramirez and Karen Pryor (how great that she was there too for the entire weekend!). We ate at a restaurant with a giant crab balloon on its roof. Seriously. And I only had one Corona for dinner,  honest.

Lots of dogs go through a “what’s in it for me?” stage (and this stage lasts longer in some dogs than others, right?). Mr. Hope is dancing around it right now, especially when I ask him to come into the house. Several of you asked about ways to handle it; not surprising, since most dogs aren’t like the Lassie on television and don’t automatically do what we want just because we love them.

Here are some of the things I’m doing right now to get Hope to come back into the house from the yard. Of course, “But I don’t wannnaaaaaa” is going to occur in different contexts, but many of the principles here apply to all situations, they just need modifying to fit the problem.

COMING IN MEANS GOING OUT Hope loves loves loves to be outside. He’d happily stay outside all day long if he could. So, sometimes, his reinforcement for coming inside is . . . wait for it . . . going outside. It’s the perfect example of the Premack Principle:  using a high probability behavior to reinforce a low probability one. I can count on him always going outside (high probability) because he loves it there, so I can use that to reinforce him for coming inside (right now it’s a low probability that he’d do it on his own). That means that sometimes when he comes in when asked, I say Good Boy! and dash outside again for a few more minutes.

JEALOUSY IS YOUR FRIEND This only works if there is some other living thing in your house that loves food or toys. But if you do, it’s powerful stuff. When Hope started pausing 20 feet away when I called him to come into the house, I began calling Willie and giving him a treat when he came. Will always comes when called, and I can give him a treat for coming and entering the house whenever I need to. As soon as Hope saw Willie getting a treat,  he instantly came running, only to discover that treats are only available on a limited basis. “Oh, too bad” I say, with sincere sympathy. “You missed the treats this time!” Right now he isn’t getting a treat for coming to the door ‘late,’ but if he then enters the house I’ll give him a treat once he’s inside.

UP THE ANTE I always have a mix of food treats available, from pieces of kibble to real meat. Right now he gets a jack pot of real meat if he comes, first time, when I call him to the door to the house.

MIX IT UP I’m very conscious with Hope of the importance of varying not just the reinforcement schedule, but what Hope gets as a reinforcement. You want to mix it up with any dog, but for some reason it feels more important with Hope than with others I’ve had. He’s pretty independent (okay, for a BC), and I want to condition him early on that if he does what I ask he’ll feel good (versus the more narrow “he’ll get food”). Although I use high value food most of the time for coming into the house, I also use play, effusive praise in which I get down on the ground and laugh like a loon while letting him leap all over me and lick me like a popsicle and again, getting to go back outside.

IF HE WON’T MOVE, YOU SHOULD If all else fails, don’t stand where you are and continue to call (and pollute your cue!) The few times that Hope simply plants his feet and won’t move toward me, or turns and goes farther outside to dig or look for sheep poop to eat (a favorite), I stop saying anything, ensure that I have a great food treat in hand, and go to him. Moving quietly, never scolding, I’ll show him what I’m holding and lure him toward me and back to the house. I’ll shape this, giving him a treat for just a few steps if he was overwhelmed with a distraction (New stinky sheep poop! Fox poop even better! Do you get the pattern here? … there is a reason the word for dog in Navajo translates: “eater of horse poop.”). If the distraction was only so-so, I’ll expect him to come further before I give him the treat.

Are we done yet? Oh my no, he’s just beginning adolescence after all. I expect we’ll work on these things for at least a year. However, he is already much improved; I haven’t had to walk to him more than once or twice in the last 4 days.  Now he comes voluntarily when we move from outside to inside about 75% of the time, even when I don’t call him to come, we just run into the house together. That’s an increase from — I’m guessing here — about 20% of the time, so that’s great progress.

What about you? Tell us your stories of your free spirit, and what you’ve done to work through it. I can’t wait to read what you send, and will be sure to have Hope read them too.

MEANWHILE, back on the farm: We had 2 days of hateful weather on our short vacation, but thankfully the weather cleared and we were able to enjoy Perrot State Park in western Wisconsin for a few days. Jim got to take off his hateful Iron Man brace for part of the day and I even hiked up a steep bluff for a little bit, although it was a far cry from what we intended. But we got time off and a sweet visit with my niece and her new husband. Ummmm, so good to visit with such wonderful people. And we’re related! Go figure.

We returned home to a dying lamb, spent Friday night trying to save it, but to no avail. Turns out, even though we have wormed the sheep on a careful schedule and have alternated wormers, that worms all over the world are developing resistance to worming medicines, and that’s what is happening here.  The little white ewe lamb, the one I bottle raised, took a dive when we were away and was too far gone to save by the time we got back. The next day we started a new worming protocol, aware that no matter what we do it might not be enough. Seems so strange to lose an animal to worms — that just doesn’t happen in dogs (yet) but I understand it’s becoming a problem in horses as well. Gotta give those parasites credit, but I hate losing a lamb to something that it seems like I should be able to prevent. There are 2 lambs I have my eye on, one looks especially thin, but all the others are thriving, and clearly are inherently resistant to worms. I’ll pay special attention to which ewes have resistant lambs when I breed next year.

On a lighter note, here’s the small prairie at the foot of the bluffs at Perrot State Park (on the Mississippi flyway). It’s a beautiful park and a lovely little restored prairie. Hard to imagine that there were 10,000′s of thousands of acres of this across the midwest.

And here’s a happy scene to any farmer: a winter’s worth of hay being delivered to the barn. Thank you Gary, Gus, Gordy and Brad for doing all the work while Jim and I felt guilty (but cooler) in the house!