Bob's Dog Blog

Everything you do with your pup or adult dog is essentially training. It might not fit into the category of formal obedience work, but it is training nonetheless.  For example, when you come with your dog to the front door after a walk, does it sit and wait for you to open the door, or does it scratch the door and whine to be let in? Both of these actions are trained behaviors.  The difference is that the dog in a sit position was trained by you and the dog jumping up and down and ruining your front door was trained by itself.

This is why I frown upon leaving a young pup alone with an older dog to ‘keep each other company’.  If the older dog has some poor habits, you can be sure that within a few days, the pup will have learned them. Dogs learn by watching and then become conditioned through repetition, even if self taught. If you let a dog act like a dope every day, pretty soon, you have a problem on your hands that appears impossible to handle.

Forget about all of this ‘dog whispering’ garbage.  Dogs learn to do bad things by doing bad things, over and over. It’s not more complicated than that, I assure you. So, conversely, if you want to undo bad behavior in a dog, you need to recondition the dog, repetitively, daily, until the dog behaves differently. I emphasize the word ‘you’, because you are the only individual who can change the dog’s actions, behavior, habits, etc.

I have reconditioned four and five year old dogs, as well as puppies. Age is not as important as the handler’s willingness to repeat the exercise as often as needed to get the desired result. That means every day, four or five times a day, and so on. You can incorporate obedience and conditioning into daily routines. For example, training the ‘sit’ command can be done when  coming to the door (both inside and out), feeding , entering and exiting the crate, car and so on. After two weeks of this, the dog will get the idea that it has to sit before getting the reward (whatever your reward is for that dog).

Do not expect a dog to change because you yell at it or tell it ‘no’ a million times. That is not dog training. That is you being trained by your dog to react to its behavior.

Actual dog training is for real life situations and is done in real life.

Think about it.

Anyone working on training their dog in basic obedience or competitive obedience has at one time or another used motivation to get their young dog or pup to follow a command. Some dogs like the food more than the toy and other dogs really like the toy so much that they can go pretty far with the toy alone. Of course, training without motivation gives you a dog that simply goes through the motions, either through fear or submission.

However, sometimes using the toy isn’t enough motivation. For example, I have some pups that easily climb up steps to go into the house (you’ll see why later in the post). The problem came when we tried to get them down those same steps. There just wasn’t motivation for them to follow the toy as the stress that had to be overcome in figuring out how to climb down steps was greater than their drive for the toy. So, in this case, dropping bits of kibble on each step with a big kibble reward and lots of praise at the bottom did the trick right away. Five or sex reps later and they are getting the hang of it. At some point, I will move over to the toy/praise to continue conditioning and motivate to do the action called for. Which brings me to the next issue.

If you attempt to use food for motivation while doing, let’s say, heeling or leash work, then the pup will start to anticipate food as the motivational tool every time heeling or leash work is begun. They will expect the food and when you bring out the toy, they are suddenly not interested in the toy at all. This is not a drop in drive, but a conflict that the dog now has as regards the game you are playing. I mean, you just spent a week using kibble or hot dogs or whatever food to get the dog to heel or sit and now you are trying with a ball. At this early stage of training a dog, you are mixing basic drives and the dog may become confused.

The solution is to learn to think with your motivational tools. For example, I use food in the house, getting pups or young dogs to sit or come or load up in the crate. This gets the pups really excited about coming in at the end of the day, loading into their crates, etc. I already gave the example of walking down steps.

Outside, on the field, I use the toy most of the time, especially in the first stages of puppy training.  Some times I switch things up. For instance,  we sometimes use a bit of food on the field to motivate the pup in heeling, for position or to train more precise movement.  This is not consistent, so the pup is not always expecting food, so it is not conditioning the pup to constantly expect food on the field.

You will need to experiment with both methods to see where your pup or dog does best. This is a lot of fun as you can also learn a lot about your dog’s drives and motivation, which in turn will help you in getting your dog to do what you want, which is the point of dog training!

And, remember to always praise your pup for doing the command, regardless of the motivational tool.

Have fun!

Regarding puppies, crate training and housebreaking are, in part synonymous.  They are, in the beginning of a pup’s life, combined into one action to enable to owner/handler to housebreak the pup while teaching it where to stay when the humans are out of the house, etc.

Having a safe, clean secure space for the pup to rest, chew and otherwise be comfortable for a few hours at a time is vital to the dog-human relationship.

Unfortunately, some people regard the crate as some form of punishment, which it isn’t. These folks somehow equate dogs with people (anthropomorphism) and may have a vivid mental picture of captured POWs being jammed  into bamboo cages or some such thing. It sounds ridiculous, and it should. A canine requires a compact, safe, comfortable space to rest and re-energize and sleeping on a human bed is sometimes just not practical.

That being said, there is a key factor in crate training that one must follow in order for it to be successful. This factor is known as PATIENCE. Crate training is TRAINING, and as such, follows the same rules as other types of training. You have got to give this action enough time and repetition to get the job done.

As an example, I had a young pup (twelve weeks old) that I needed to crate train. At first she wouldn’t go inside the crate at all, so I spent about a week, simply throwing some kibble into the crate and letting her go in on her own. Once in, she would whine and cry, which is not unusual.  I waited until she would stop crying for a moment, then let her out and praised her.

The next step was to see how long she would go before she would start fussing. I spent another week doing this, not making a big deal out of it. I got her up to twenty minutes in the crate with no crying or fussing. I always used food to get her into the crate and to reward for her staying in there.

After another week of extending her crate time, she figured out that it wasn’t so bad. I put a bone in there for her to chew and life was great. Now, she stays in the crate for four hours at a time, no fussing, no crying.

This isn’t some time intensive mega training activity. It takes a few minutes a day, for a week or two and you will have a pup that can stay put when it needs to, stop messing in the house and upgrade everyone’s life.

By the way, I would recommend putting the crate in a place that is populated by as many humans as possible, like a living room. This way the pup is not being isolated from her people and is more apt to move through this training faster.

Best,

Bob

The basic idea behind crate training is that the pup will not go to the bathroom where he eats and sleeps. Using this as the rule, you need to train the pup for a week or two with this method until he gets the idea. Don’t deviate from it as it will confuse him. Be consistent.

So, you put the pup in his crate. Use some kibble or a treat and tell him to load up into his crate. Being in a crate is a reward, not a punishment. Never punish a pup by putting him in a crate. After a while of doing this, he will want to enter the crate because he knows he will get a reward from you. Now that he is in the crate, he can chew on a bone, sleep, whatever.

Always position the crate in a place that is near human activity. This helps to reinforce the fact that he is being rewarded by being near his humans,etc. Never leave him off in an isolated part of the house.

Now, being a pup, he will only last a couple of hours in the crate before he needs to go, so keep an eye on the clock for this and after around two hours, let him out of his crate and take him immediately outside to go potty. Give him the command ‘Go Potty’ and when he does that, praise him “Good Boy Potty’ and then spend time playing, exercising, socializing, etc.

When you are done with the pup, load him back up in the crate with a treat, praise him for loading up and let him take his nap. Repeat throughout the day.

This is not a permanent set up. This routine only goes on until the pup is crate trained. Then, he will get the idea that your house is like his crate and he won’t mess in the house. You just have to keep your timing there, because even a crate trained pup will only last a couple of hours in the house before having to go outside.

Don’t mix other housebreaking methods with crate training. It will work on its own if done correctly.

Remember to cut off his water intake after around eight pm. If you don’t he will pee all night long.

Also, do not put toys in his crate. Toys are for play with humans. Bones are for dogs to work on themselves in a crate, ete. Otherwise you will have a dog that destroys his toys and won’t play with them.

Bob