This is one of those really, really important things when living with a dog, especially a dog who isn’t always on-leash. A reliable recall is at the top of almost everyone’s list (at least the folks that I talk to). The Grand Peanut has come a long way, though he’s not fool-proof at coming when called. Here is my experience with working with the Honorable Grand Peanut (granted, this has been an on-going exercise beginning when he was just 10 weeks old).

There are several pieces of the puzzle that I had to gather through various means. The first is to find that “very high value” treat that my dog loves. It took me a while to find it, but for the Grand Peanut, that thing is lamb jerky. Second to lamb jerky is microwaved hot dogs, cut up into small bits, and third is a mixture of Innova Brand EVO Red Meat Small Bites dog food microwaved with small bits of cut up hot dog. The main thing to remember is that the treat can be anything, as long as it is “the bomb” to your dog. I prefer lamb jerky (or duck or chicken or turkey) because it’s not greasy and I can keep pieces in my pocket at all times.

The second piece of the puzzle is to only use this treat when working on the recall. If you start giving the treat at any time, for any behavior, it tends to water down the value of the treat and the dog may not offer the behavior reliably for that reward. Therefore, I keep a stick of jerky in my pocket or on my person as often as I can remember to do so, so when the opportunity arrives to practice the recall, I’m armed.

Remember to always reward the dog when he/she comes to you after giving the command. And always use the high value reward. Just a small piece is all it takes, because the food is a piece of information. “That behavior got me something really yummy. I’ll get some more if I do it again.” I do marker training with the GP, and since I don’t always carry my clicker anymore, we’ve progressed to using a marker word (in our case, “yes!”) just before offering the reward.

Another thing to remember is that your dog will (most likely) only listen to your commands when he is focused on you, so what I have been doing is whistling for his attention before I give the command “HERE!” and the hand signal of my raised arm — I saw something similar on an episode of “It’s Me Or The Dog” with Victoria Stilwell.

And the last piece for now is to practice this at all distances, in as many different environments as you can, but only when you are very certain your dog will come to you; so start with short distances in low-distraction environments first, then work up to higher distraction areas.

Stay tuned for part 2…

The Honorable Grand Peanut and I went to our friend’s house for dinner last night and she has a small growing farm that includes 3 goats, 10 chickens, 4 ducks, and 2 dogs. This was  Honorable Grand Peanut’s second visit to the house, but his first introduction to the farm animals.

The goats were loose on the property, as were the chickens and ducks. There’s a acequia (ditch) running through the property between the house and the goat/chicken pen. HGP was the well-behaved dog, even though he’s never been in close proximity to a goat, chicken, or duck before. There was no chasing, no barking, no running around the animals. Just calm inquisitiveness, then he made a bee-line for the water buckets in the corner of the yard. One of his favorite things to do is to dig in the water, whether it is a ditch, a lake, or a bucket. Even when the ducks were in the ditch, HGP left them alone.  I’m so proud of how far he’s come, and he’s only 16 months old!

At one point, the goats were on the mesa behind the house, with HGP and my friend’s two dogs watching them. Both HGP and Azule climbed the hill but more out of curiosity (it looked fun) than to mess with the goats. Azule is an Australian Cattle Dog, and my friend is training him to herd the goats back home.

HGP and I practiced a long down-stay outside of the path of the goats, while Azule practiced herding the goats back to their pen. It was a lovely end to a great day with the Honorable Grand Peanut.

The Honorable Grand Peanut went swimming over the weekend for the first time since his leg was broken (which was over a year ago!). Because he’s so large, most of the water that’s available around here (ditches) aren’t deep enough for him to not touch bottom. He loves the water and gets into it as much and as often as he can. He even tolerates the bath. He did fall into the ditch that runs through the property twice as a small puppy, once I was able to scoop him up and the other he had to scrabble out himself, and I think that traumatized him to actually swimming. For months afterward he would bark at the water. Then I had the bright idea to click and treat every time he went into the water without barking. He loves to dig in the water bowl, bucket, pan, and he stands in the small water pool that we have in the yard. He also likes to get into the small pond at my mom’s house.

Going to the lake was fun for both of us. He went into the water right away, but wouldn’t get deep enough to actually swim. I coaxed him in several times, using the long line, and treated him (lamb jerky is his new favorite) each time to let him know that water was a good thing. He did end up swimming a couple of times, and the more we do it, I think he’ll get used to it, and hopefully even learn to love it. I own a whitewater raft setup and want him to go on trips with me.

He also was really good around the kids that were at the lake. There was a gaggle of kids on a camp outing wading, swimming, kayaking, etc. The Grand Peanut went up to almost every one of them, sniffed, then moved on. If there was petting offered, then he stayed a bit longer, but there was no jumping and no crying. The camp counselors congratulated me on his great behavior. So all my hard work creating a polite dog is paying off!

The Honorable Grand Peanut has come a long way in his overall behavior. He spends a lot of time around familiar dogs, familiar people, and new dogs and people because he comes to work with me at the kennel. We also groom at the kennel so there are new dogs and people coming and going twice a day. He eats his meals, and plays with the house dogs, and often, if the owners of the boarding dogs request it, he’ll play with those dogs as well. The one area where he still needs work is his attention barking.

He rarely barks at me for attention, but he does bark at other dogs when they won’t play with him. He also barks at other dogs when they have a toy or something that he wants. My system for this training is to let him know that that behavior is not wanted by saying “nope”, then waiting. If he continues to bark, I’ll put him away for a short time-out. If his crate is nearby, he’ll go into that. If not, he’ll go into an safe-area that isn’t a play area. When I say a short time-out, I usually limit it to no more than a minute or two. Just enough time for him to “get” that the behavior created the time-out.

He’s a large dog, but I still have to remember that he’s still a puppy: he just turned 15 months. While his attention span is now longer than that of a lima bean, he’s still in adolescence. My motto is practice, practice, practice, and consistency is key.

I’ve been hearing the phrase “set your dog up for success” since I’ve started training with the Honorable Grand Peanut almost 10 months ago. But I never really understood those words until now. I’ve not been setting him up for success on a regular basis. I’ve been letting him be a dog, and training here and there throughout the day, but mostly I will only “catch” him doing something I want to work on after he’s already started the unwanted behavior (it becomes a reminder to me that we still need to work on it). That’s not setting him up for success.

This morning we had an incident where I could have handled the HGP much better and managed the situation before it got out of control. Here’s the scenario: He saw some new dogs that he really wanted to interact with and started barking (attention barking) at them through the chain-link fence. I should have seen this coming and put him out of eye and earshot from the dogs before he started to bark. But I didn’t. I was able to distract him with some click/treat for a couple of sits/downs/here, but then he grew weary of that game (another red flag that I was not setting him up to succeed), and began barking again. The dogs were being restrained by their owner and they were not barking, I might add.
What I wasn’t aware of until now, is that I am actually reinforcing his barking at other dogs by training him after he barks at other dogs.

So in a different (successful) scenario, the HGP would have been in the yard doing dog stuff. I would have noticed the dogs coming (we were next door to a kennel, so there was a good chance there were dogs in the truck), and put the HGP away in the house. I would do this because I know that he wants to interact with the dogs, and he can’t, so he barks.

Success means that the dog wins, and this can mean that the unwanted behavior doesn’t even happen because I’ve managed the situation correctly.

I’ve recently been introduced to a new book by Gail Fisher, called THE THINKING DOG – CROSSOVER TO CLICKER TRAINING. I have had the good fortune of “speaking” directly to her through a forum I belong to, and subsequently have bought her book. There are so many aspects to this book that I find helpful, but for now I’d like to write about how it’s affecting me and my relationship with the Honorable Grand Peanut (HGP).

First of all, all this time (10 months or so) I thought I was clicker training, but it turns out that what I was doing was training with a clicker. There are many differences between the two, but a couple of my misconceptions were that I was actually bribing the HGP to do the behavior in the first place,  as well as luring him into position, neither of which is clicker training.

The click in Clicker Training marks the end of the behavior, and there is no cuing, verbal or otherwise, to help the dog “get into position”. The idea is that you want your dog to “figure it out” on his or her own. So that’s what we’ve been doing for the last two days (I just got my book in the mail). It’s hard for me not to “help” the HGP when I see him confused. But, as Gail points out in her book, helping the dog is actually more detrimental than letting him figure it out on his own. At least, learning the behavior will take longer if you “help out” than not. I’ve seen this to be true with the HGP. He picked up right away on the sitting after coming to my side, and I didn’t prompt him. It only took him coming over to me twice, before he offered the sit. Now, I don’t c/t if he doesn’t sit after coming to my side. I only want to reinforce the wanted behaviors.

Shaping behaviors is also much quicker with clicker training than other methods. I’m new to the concept of shaping; it’s been hard for my brain to wrap my head around “how” to shape, though I understand the concept. Today, the HGP offered dropping the toy at my feet more than once, and I was ready with the clicker each time. I think he’s getting it. Now for the shaping: what I ultimately want him to do is to drop the toy at my feet and sit. But I don’t want to rush this; so for now, I’ll continue to c/t for just dropping the toy. We’ll practice in as many locations as we can. This is a HUGE step for the HGP. I’m so proud of both of us!

Here’s the thing about owning a 100+ pound dog and living with an elder. The dog has a good chance to knock the elder down, just by standing around. And knocking down an elder can lead to broken bones or worse. A small dog could trip a human up just as easily, so teaching your dog to back up is good for any size dog. Go grab some tasty (to your dog!) treats and a clicker, and let’s get started.

What I’ve been doing with the Grand Peanut is asking him to back up just three steps (that’s my starting criteria) whenever I take one step towards him while he’s facing me. I’m working with him without words at this point (which, by the way, is difficult for me because I’m a talker). I load up my hand with small pieces of yummy treats and a clicker, then take ine large step toward him. As soon as he takes three steps back (and this is counting his back leg steps), I click and reward by throwing the treat away from both him and me. As soon as he looks up at me I’ll call him to me and do it again.

Sometimes he’ll sit instead of backing up. In this case, I just reset him by calling him to me and don’t treat him for the sit. He and I are at the place now where I’m no longer rewarding him for doing his default behaviors, such as sit and down, unless I’ve specifically asked for it.

Once your dog can do this behavior on cue, you can add to it by requesting that the dog back up in a straight line. To practice this, either use a long, narrow hallway, or simulate one by using a wall of obstacles along a real wall.

The Honorable Grand Peanut and I have been working on a new way to stop him from pulling me when he finds something he wants to sniff, or paw, or chase. I used to use a front-clasp chest harness, then progressed to a Gentle Leader Head Collar, and am now weaning him off the head collar (or at least trying to; I still carry it with me on walks, just in case he becomes more than I can handle). This morning he saw the neighbor’s cat in our field and wanted desperately to chase after it. The problem is that because he’s attached to my waist, instead of my arm so I can immediately feel him pulling, he jerks me quite hard. I want us to get to the stage where when he wants to do something, or smell something, or even go after something, he’ll check in with me first for the okay signal. When the leash is in my hand, my arm will swing forward when he pulls and every time he pulls, even a little bit, he gets rewarded.  This is why I like to wear the leash around my waist; and it has the added bonus of freeing up my hands to manipulate the clicker and the rewards.

What’s been working for us for the past couple of days is that when I feel the leash go taut, I stop in my tracks. I then wait for him to re-orient himself back to me, I click and take a step back to get him to come to me for the reward (a yummy treat, in this case). I got it from the book called Control Unleashed – Creating A Focused And Confident Dog, by Leslie McDevitt. This method has been working better than the other two methods I’ve tried in the past.

One method starts out with your dog at your side, the handler takes one giant step forward and stops. The dog keeps going to the end of the leash, then eventually sits, gets praised and/or rewarded, then the handler takes one more giant step forward, and the process begins again. This particular method frustrates the Grand Peanut, and when he gets frustrated, he usually goes over threshold with biting the leash. Once that happens, it’s very hard for me to do much him with except end the walk and put him away to calm down. So this method doesn’t work for us, at least not at this time.

Another method that we’ve tried is to start out with the the Grand Peanut on my left side, I hold about 20 small treats in my left hand, have the leash tied around my waist. Each step I take, I click and give him a treat. This works up to a point; at which time he decides that the grass or the cows or the smells take priority over the treats and he loses interest in me. This method works really well with a dog that lives and breathes to be beside their handler (and we are working toward this goal), but The Grand Peanut and I are just not there yet. And I’ve tried his favorite treats, namely roast beef and raw hamburger meat, to the same outcome.

I want a dog that thinks things through and decides to come to me for further instructions, rather than a robot dog that only obeys my cues. The Honorable Grand Peanut and I are on our way to this through the use of positive training. Yay for us!

The Grand Peanut and I are learning to play fetch. Play time is important, I know, but whenever I throw a toy or ball, he’ll run after it and not give it back. He likes to play “keep away”. I usually have to bribe him with a treat in order to be able to get the toy so that I can throw it again. Fun for only one of us. Meanwhile, the GP and I are seeing a behaviorist one-on-one, and during our last session she pointed out that his guarding of whatever is in his mouth (be it toy, shoe, glove) is because he doesn’t trust me. That tells her that we don’t play enough. That’s when I explained to her his propensity for not wanting to Give. So that’s one of the things we worked on. She explained that it’s important to have two of everything, so that I can toss one toy (not too far in the beginning) and the GP will run after it. As soon as he has reoriented to me, I click (the reward in this training session is play time or throwing the ball, so no food treats) for coming back to me, and I show him the second ball. If he doesn’t drop the first one right away, I act like the one I have is so much better than the one he has. As soon as he drops it, I click and reward by throwing the other ball. In the beginning, I’ll keep this up for only a few minutes. It’s important that play time stops when he still wants to play.

I’m really looking forward to practicing play time with him. Since yesterday was his one year old birthday, I bought him three sets of new tossing toys — yes, he’s spoiled — as he’s chewed up a lot of his older toys. I make sure that I put away the fetch toys and only bring them out when we are going to play, so that they stay “new” and exciting. As with all behaviors, whether they are wanted or not, re-teaching takes longer than teaching it correctly, in the first place. But that’s okay, more time to practice!

The Grand Peanut and I have been working on new ways to help calm him when we are out walking. Every so often he gets over stimulated and acts out by biting the leash, and sometimes he’ll grab hold of my hands/arms and play tug. I don’t play tug with him, in general, because of this and also because he’s 100+ pounds and very strong. A couple of times, in his exuberance, he’s broken skin, but it’s play biting not aggression. Regardless, there are some new techniques I’ve recently come across in my search to help calm him down.

The first is a wonderful video on the Internet, called Teaching “Calming Ovals”. If I don’t catch the behavior in time, and things have escalated, I’ll tie him to a tree or a post and let him settle down by walking away and ignoring him. Once he’s calmed enough to start walking again, we’ll start the ovals. I really notice a difference in the both of us after 10 to 12 repeats. At first, the Grand Peanut (GP) doesn’t understand what (and probably why) we are walking around and around, but after awhile he gives in to it. It calms both of us, nicely.

The second thing I’ve recently changed is that I’ve shortened his walking leash down from the 20 foot line to a 4 foot leash that I clip to my waist. The Grand Peanut is a big dog, but even so, the 4 foot leash is a tad short. He chewed his 6 foot leash over the weekend, so for now, it’s what we have. I think I was actually inviting his snarky leash-biting behavior by letting walk on the 20 foot line. The GP always wears his Gentle Leader head collar on walks so I can have a bit more control over his head — where a dog’s head goes, his body follows — and when he’s 10 or 15 feet away, he has more control  to bite and jump than when he’s on the shorter line, and my timing was off in terms of trying to redirect him. Also, I noticed this morning that when he’s closer to me, I notice faster when he’s about to snark and I can ask for another behavior sooner, thus mitigating his snark-factor before it starts. Bonus!

The third thing we’ve recently learned, this from the book Control Unleased – Creating a Focused and Confident Dog by Leslie McDevitt, is to click and reward the GP for looking at the things that tend to get him overstimulated, rather than asking him to foucs on me. First of all, his Focus is not 100% reliable, especially when there are llamas or cows or birds close by. He’ll either ignore me completely when I ask for a Focus, or take more than 10 seconds to comply. By allowing him to look at the distractions, and rewarding him for doing so, he’ll learn to calm himself rather than get overexcited. Or that’s the theory, anyway.

All of these techniques seem to be working for us. Stay tuned for more adventures of the Honorable Grand Peanut.