The Other End of the Leash

Patricia McConnell, Ph.D., a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist, has made a lifelong commitment to improving the relationship between people and animals.

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Welcome to an ongoing inquiry about the behavior of people and dogs.
Blog Home >> Dog Training >> Visual Signals Don’t Have to be Big if they are Relevant

Visual Signals Don’t Have to be Big if they are Relevant

August 11, 2008 >> 5 Comments

I got back recently from doing a seminar in Ann Arbor, Michigan for the Ann  Arbor Dog Training Club.  What a wonderful audience; we had a fantastic time together. At least, I did, so thanks to Tammy and everyone at the club  for having me. One of my favorite parts of this seminar (Both Ends of the Leash) is its focus on signals, or cues. The question we looked at in depth was: what sound or movement is actually the one that is salient to your dog?  You may say “Sit,” and think your dog is responding to it, but so often it’s the tightening of the leash or the nod of the head to which your dog is responding. (okay, “to which” is grammatically correct, but good grief it sounds awkward!)

We had a great example of that in Ann Arbor. A lovely Golden (perhaps the most perfect example of “Life is good if you’re a Golden” I’ve seen in a while…. I mean, this dog was HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!) was being asked to sit and stay. The dog was young, and was just in the beginning stages of understanding stay.  We were working on practicing body blocks as a response to a break.  Two women, great observers, noticed that the dog broke, every time, when the otherwise almost motionless owner let the leash unravel just the tiniest little bit.  After saying stay, she backed up one foot and didn’t move, keeping eye contact with the dog. But without knowing it, she let the coils of the leash in her  hands unravel an inch or two, and every time she did the dog broke.

That was an especially interesting observation, because I had just suggested to the owner that the only change I would make in her training was let her body loosen and move a bit while the dog was on stay, because otherwise the stillness would become the cue to stay, and any motion would cause the dog to break.  Sure enough….

What a perfect example of a wonderful dog and a super trainer (she was great, and I apologize profusely for not remembering her name!) communicating on slightly different planes.  It’s just amazing how tiny a movement can be and still get an effect out of a dog sometimes.. sometimes I wonder how we ever manage to communicate correctly at all!

Speaking of, last week I got myself spoiled silly with an entire morning spent with Ken Ramirez at the Shedd Aquarium. He indulgently let me work with Nya a beluga whale (I’ll tell you next time how I screwed up) and let us watch behind-the-scene training of a sea lion and a sea otter.  The morning brought up lots of questions in my mind about the similarities and differences between training captive marine mammals and animals who live in our homes. I’ll talk about that next time…

Meanwhile, here’s the  Golden of our Office Manager, Denise Swedlund, channeling HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY for all of us.

« Us, Our Dogs and Sound Pollution
Visual Signals before Acoustic? »

Comments

  1. puppynerd says

    August 11, 2008 at 1:00 pm

    A good article that provokes a lot of thought. Do you think it’s better to start with conscious visual signals to help the animal figure things out, and them phase them away, or try to avoid them unless you want to use them all the time?
    Any ideas on tricks for recognizing (and avoiding!) unconscious cues we might be giving?

  2. Kevin says

    August 11, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    I was at that seminar, (It was WONDERFUL), and that dog really brought home just how subtle a cue can be and still be like a billboard to the dog! It was a great experience all around. Thanks for presenting to us!

  3. Amy says

    August 13, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    I am reading the book, Dogs Never Lie About Love (author- Jeffery Moussaieff Masson), and I just came across an interesting passage pertaining to the issue of visual signals in Chapter 13 where he is comparing/contrasting dogs and wolves.

    “A wolf, to survive, needs to know many things. Dogs just need to
    know us….It is much more avantageous [for the dog] to develop a
    very keen understanding of human behavior and to communicate wishes
    to humans, because the human is the most important feature of the
    environment, and we give a lot of visual and auditory cues….
    Evolution hasn’t honed the dog’s problem-solving skills, just its
    people reading skills.”

    Just thought I’d share. Have a great day!

  4. Annie says

    August 21, 2008 at 1:44 am

    It’s been very interesting to me to realize all the ways my interaction with my 13-yr old Shepherd mix have changed since he has lost most of his hearing. As I switched to speaking less and using simple hand signals, my overall body movement calmed down, my physical positioning and focus on the dog has become very finely honed, and all this has resulted in a more pleasurable interaction with my dog. I feel less self-conscious managing his behavior in public and he is better behaved in many situations, probably because I’m confusing him less! I plan to work with more of these techniques as I train any and all of my future dogs. It works, and you can use same signals as they age and go deaf!

  5. Erick says

    March 14, 2013 at 8:41 am

    I am currently training to become a dog trainer, your books and information came highly recommended from the person training me. this person has been training dogs for roughly 27 years. he has evolved from the old fashioned aversive methods on towards and into the positive re-enforcement clicker/rewards based training. I am stuck in a hotel with really slow wifi, and reading anything you currently have available on the internet for information has become my self assigned home work. In just the few pages I have had the opportunity to read you have imparted a wealth of new information and enlightenment. I hope to become more than proficient and shall devour any information you have. I will be purchasing your books I just wanted to drop a line and thank you for the information on this site. the information here about visual signals re-enforces somethings I witness while observing a training class, the dogs in an intermidiate class were doing almost what the owners wanted but were anticipating the commands due to the owners actions before the command one owner would readch for their treat bag jefore giving the break command from a stay, and the dog would begin to break at the reach instead of the vocal command. this article brings new relavance to this and will definitely help me in teaching and gettting them to eliminate anticipatory and unintentional visual signals. thank you.

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About the Author

Patricia B. McConnell, PhD, CAAB Emeritus is an applied animal behaviorist who has been working with, studying, and writing about dogs for over twenty-five years. She encourages your participation, believing that your voice adds greatly to its value. She enjoys reading every comment, and adds her own responses when she can.

LEARN MORE FROM PATRICIA’S BOOKS & DVDs!

Patricia is known the world over for her clear and engaging books and DVDs on dog training and canine behavior problems. You can also “meet” Patricia in person on her seminar DVDs, from The Art & Science of Canine Behavior to Treating Dog-Dog Reactivity.

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