Posted by: raecolin on: May 20, 2009
Video of a Labrador performing commands from an expert trainer
Part of owning a Labrador (or other dog for that matter) is the need to keep it clean – and that goes for the environment it lives in. Dogs are, by nature, scavengers and will eat whatever comes their way (or roll in it!). Labradors, if left unchecked have, as a breed, a tendency to overeat and this can make for some pretty smelly and messy dog poop and they are not the smallest of dogs.
I had the recent misfortune at home where a large dog was being allowed to do its business on my drive. It didn’t take many dark nights of me stepping in it when getting out my car and walking it into the house for me to get very angry about it and hell-bent on catching the animal responsible. Judging by the size of the stools, it was a large dog – at least the size of a Labrador. I guessed that the owner was leaving his dog to run free, off the lead and letting the animal go where it felt and then leaving it for someone else to clear up.
Of course, I reported it to the local Council who set up a watch. It took an accidental occasion for me to be working on the drive when the dog came along and did its mess. The owner duly walked past a few moments later – and then stopped when he saw me glowering at him. Of course, he was very apologetic and said something about, ‘forgetting his scoop and plastic bag’.
Posted by: raecolin on: May 11, 2009
Labrador training video here
When we think of a domestic dog it is easy for us to imagine an animal walking contentedly at its owner’s side, watching their every move, and acting upon every command, perhaps even to Cruft’s standard. So why is this image not always the case?
All domestic dog breeds originated from the wolf and, as such, hunt and interact in packs with each breed needing a pack leader – or Alpha Dog.
The pet dog – especially single animals within the family – will need to be influenced by another pack leader; its owner. As such, an owner, in training their dog can have a huge influence on the acceptable behaviour of the animal.
However, the skills required by a dog owner to teach a dog right from wrong have to be learned. An owner’s perception of what is, or is not good dog behaviour will vary from person to person and may, to some degree, depend upon the breed of dog. After all, there is a magnitude of difference between a poodle and, say, a Rottweiler, is there not? Well, at a base level no, not really. They all respond to the pack leader. So, the level of behaviour of the dog will be entirely dependant upon the level of training from its human owner. I’m not talking about the specialist, breed-specific skills, but more the basic interaction skills between human and dog.
We all know the Labrador to be great guide and assistance dogs, but when they are poorly trained (for general domestic use) like any other breed they can be dangerous. Years ago when I was delivering milk for a living, an owner walking his Yellow Labrador was pulled off his feet as his dog launched itself sank its teeth into me.
Labrador training video here
Posted by: raecolin on: April 22, 2009
You could start with a strange dog, and in fifteen minutes of work, have him responding just as though you’ve been ‘good buddies’ for a ‘dogs age’!!! Once again, things seem simple enough, so we’ll throw in a little extra.
Initially, just getting Rover to come, in response to the “recall” command, close enough to be able to pat him, would seem to be sufficient. While that may be good enough for most people, the puppy training Method promises and requires strict, exacting, discipline.
For now, in this initial phase of puppy training, it would be counter productive to be any more exacting. However, after this initial phase of training is complete (maybe just one session of work, but do follow directions, and do this four times), you will be expected to cause your dog to sit directly in front of you during the “recall” or “come” exercise.
This will be extremely important in the “big picture”. But, for now, we do not need to be so exact.
The hard part is done!
* The “Hot And Cold ” Exercise
Remember the children’s game where an object is selected, and the one who is “it” is directed to find same based on directions of “hot or cold” to indicate proximity to the object?
(We call this the hot and cold exercise. Actually, we hate calling this the “hot and cold exercise”, and do so, simply for lack of a better name for it!)
We are going to do the same with your dogs attention, with you being the selected object. This “hot and cold” exercise takes about two minutes to perform. Done properly, this exercise will have the effect of shutting off his attention to anything other than you.
This practice should be used any time your dog becomes distracted or is not keeping his attention focused on you. Our objective is to cause your dog to always have one ear and one eye focused on you.
Done properly, your dog will end up directly in front of you, relaxed, and waiting for your next idea. As your dog moves forward and back, around and in front of you, allow your lead to flow smoothly through your hands, the free hand reaching out to collect your lead at its mid point, and place it in the palm with the handle, playing it out as he moves away, collecting it as he returns.
Just get used to the feeling of allowing your lead to flow through your hand, collecting it again, and allow it to feed out as your dog moves.
Be sure not to pull or allow tension on the collar. Do not lean toward your dog or move toward him, as this will cause the opposite effect, consequently subordinating our efforts.
To begin, ask your dog if he “wants to go to work”, tell him “good boy”, as you show him your lead, and lean back from him. This will help command his attention up and toward you, without focusing on putting on the lead.
We want to be sure not to give the impression that we’re assaulting him with the lead! Bend at the knees, keeping your back straight as you affix your lead to his collar, gently talking, but not physically touching any more than necessary.
Tell him he’s a good boy as you head out the door. As soon as you have cleared the area in front of your door, come to a halt. If your dog looks toward you, you’ll tell him he’s a good boy. Always, every time, no exceptions ever, no matter what, when, or where,: if your dog looks toward you, even a brief momentary glance out of the corner of his eye, that requires praise.
This rule will never vary. If he looks away, gently, in a conversational tone, tell him “no”, followed by “good”. Always, every time, no exceptions ever, no matter what, when, or where: Anytime we say “no”, we must always say “good” immediately thereafter.
This rule will never vary: any time you say “no” you must say “good” instantly, otherwise he’ll not figure out what we want. (Remember, we are using a system that allows your dog to think through the process of elimination.) If he looks toward you, tell him “good boy” again, and continue to repeat “good boy” intermittently until his attention drifts away.
As soon as his attention fades, once again say “no”, immediately followed once again by “good boy”.
Continue praising until his attention drifts once again. As soon as his attention becomes fixed elsewhere, say “no”, and again follow with praise.
Posted by: raecolin on: November 26, 2008
In this example, let’s say the dog properly (maybe coincidentally) performed. However, that does not mean that he will always respond. Remember, a conditioned reflex means that your dog has ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE BUT TO RESPOND PROPERLY!
Later, when you are done with all of the intricacies involved, test it out like this: Find yourself and your trained dog in a comfortable situation, like yourself sitting in your easy chair and him snoozing by the fireplace. Ask him to come in the proscribed manner.
When he gladly jumps up and sticks his big wet nose in your face, tell him he’s good, and tell him he’s free. Let him resume his leisurely pursuits and call him again.
Repeat this until maybe on the fourth or fifth occasion that you call him, he believes there is no point to getting up and coming all the way over to you just so you can tell him he’s cool and that he may resume his pursuits. Just as soon as he refuses your trivial request to come to you, follow the procedure to make him come.
Remember; any time that your dog does not respond the first time you ask him to come, regard this as a major behavior problem and take the appropriate action to remedy the situation.
So now we must try again to set up the situation whereby your dog refuses to perform a request. Once again, repeat your (1st request) “dogsnamecomegoodboy”.
If he does not spin immediately to respond, instantly repeat the phrase with the accompanying sound: your (2nd request) “dogs-name-COME-good-boy”, this time, using the can, by giving it one brief, hard, downward shake, (not a rattle), and only on the “key” or “cue” word, in this example, COME.
Posted by: raecolin on: November 17, 2008
Watch the video here
* Praise Must Always Accompany Sound, with one exception.
That is, when a behavior is being addressed after the fact.
When you have discovered a behavior that occurred outside of your presence, this would be the only time the sound shall be presented without verbal praise.
The details are covered later in “using sound to break bad behavior.”
To teach your dog the “recall” or “come” command, we must first create a phrase, and select a “key” or “cue” word in that phrase.
Example: “your dogs name, come, good boy”. In this phrase, we shall select “come” as our “key” or “cue” word.
The objective is to create a brief sound exactly on the “key” or “cue” word. The phrase must be spoken with no pauses, commas, or breaths in between words.
The phrase must be spoken quickly, in an even-tempered tone of voice.
The sound will be applied ONLY on the second and fourth requests.
In other words, give him the opportunity to respond correctly on each first request.
The second command must be accompanied by sound.
The next request would be treated as a first request. You’ll see later.
The first instance of any phrase you will use must be presented without the accompaniment of sound.
If your dog should respond properly to this first request, “your-dogs-name-good-boy,” praise him immediately-even before he begins to move.
Any response, the twitch of an ear or tail, a shuffle of a foot, a brief glance, any reaction at all, to any command, always requires spontaneous, instant, continuous praise, for however long your dog is thinking about your request, (even if he’ thinking of leaving!)
Continue praising constantly until your dog comes all the way to you, even if it requires that you move backward as you continue to speak praises and coax, even plead or beg, (but not to repeat the command phrase).
Posted by: raecolin on: November 10, 2008
Just as a child steps into the street without being aware of the meaning of the blast of a car horn, and continues on his way in oblivion, it takes experiences to become conditioned. I’ll bet that when you step off of a curb, and hear a car horn blow, your head spins both ways at once, as you jump back, looking for the impending accident.
The difference is conditioning.
This is going to require a few minutes of practice, outside of the presence of your dogs. It would be preferable to do this with any family members available, but may be successfully done alone.
What we need to do is develop a sense of timing. Here is where the previously called for cans with the pennies will come in. Have the cans rinsed clean and dry. Insert six pennies in each can, tape the top shut, and crush the sides of the cans, so as to make them square to prevent the cans from rolling, to avoid creating a prolonged sound.!
Silence is Golden!
It is imperative that you handle these cans silently!
At any time, should these training aids accidentally create a sound, praise must accompany the event. This will tell the dog you were not addressing his behavior, and that he should disregard the incident.
When more than one dog is present, and any dog is being addressed through the use of sound, each dog must be individually praised and acknowledged with direct eye contact and non-physical praise.
Posted by: raecolin on: October 29, 2008
* What Is A Conditioned Reflex
Conditioned reflex was discovered by Dr. Ian Pavlov in the first decade of this century. He came upon this discovery quite by accident while working with some dogs in an experiment for human psychology.
He noticed that some of the dogs coming to his research laboratory began to drool in anticipation of the food rewards that were going to be offered during his experiment, even prior to entering the laboratory.
This piqued his curiosity to the point that he needed to see what was going on. He invited some dogs to stay in the lab for this study. No doubt, you have heard of “Pavlov’s’ bell”. If not, surely you’ve heard the expression “that rings a bell”. Well, that’s where it comes from. The dogs were presented with some liver while a bell was struck.
After several occasions of this conditioning, the bell was struck without the promised treat. The dogs naturally got excited anticipating the liver, and began to salivate (drool).
Thus, the discovery of conditioned reflex. * Conditioned reflex is just that.
Conditioning, which simply put means the same stimuli, presented in the same manner, so as to be exact, and reflex, that is to say, a reaction that one has no control over.
Be aware, that in order to successfully meet these criteria, each element must be adhered to precisely. That is to say, the exact same treat presented with the exact same sound, in the exact same manner each time.
Be aware that we are not suggesting that you use any food for our purposes, as it would be contra-indicated.
Posted by: raecolin on: October 7, 2008
A flat collar, one that does not choke, is required to prevent unintentional constriction or pulling. If you expect your dog to try to slip out of his collar, you may “back it up” with a choke collar to prevent his slipping free.
One word of caution: you should never need to apply enough tension to cause your dog to back up and slip his flat collar.
Whenever pulling occurs, just say “no”, immediately give slack into the lead (without stepping forward) and follow with “good boy”. Tension on the collar must be released instantly.
If pulling continues, you may need to pull your dog back just one inch, as you say “no”, just enough to gain the slack necessary to give it back to him, while praising.
This technique and a practice exercise will be covered in detail in the trouble shooting section. Here’s something arbitrary, and a brief aside you may appreciate.
While instructing a “burly truck driver type” (no offense meant to either burly men, truck drivers, lady truck drivers, burly lady truck drivers, trucks, any others, or any breeds of dogs), regarding praising his terribly out of control Cocker Spaniel while training with me, told me flat out, that he could not “do that” (meaning praising his pet as I requested).
My chin hit the floor, my heart lodged in my throat, my temples began to throb, my hands began to shake, and I knew I would be leaving this appointment suddenly, and maybe not in the same state of health with which I had begun this session.
It had happened once before, that a “macho” student of mine refused to follow directions at the onset of our lesson. His issue was that my approach to handling his out of control Great Dane was not in keeping with appropriate handling techniques, he “knew better”, as he had “experience” with police dogs, and he simply was “not going to do that”.
I can only presume what he meant by “do that” was show respect and common courtesy to his charge.
On that occasion, I was fortunate (rather, his Great Dane was fortunate) that his wife was observing the lesson and I was able to obtain permission to begin the lesson over again, using the wife as primary handler. Continuing with the original aside… As I sadly began to collect my equipment, I asked, “why can you not speak to your pet as I request?”
He lowered his eyes, and mumbled that he just cannot talk to his dog “like that”.
In a last ditch effort I asked, “well, how do you talk to your dog?”
He said that he had a very special relationship with his critter, and he always talks to her in a particularly loving manner.
“Show me how you do talk to her”.
At this point, he began a litany of cooing and prose that still cause me to wretch with laughter! I realized then, my concern was for naught, and my efforts would be valued and appreciated.
So as to not lose the point, feel free to use your own choice of words for such commands as “praise”, or “take a break”, “your free”, “back to work”, even the other commands such as heel, sit, stay, etc.
Contrary to customary belief, we know that dogs do understand words. We do not anthropomorphise (give human qualities to animals), but do recognize a dichotomy of cognitive intelligence based on our experience and empirical evidence, versus traditional ideology, that sets apart the Training Method, for which we will remain eternally grateful.
One point of caution, however: be careful not to use words such as O.K. in any command sequence, as it is so commonly used, you may find yourself accidentally releasing or otherwise inadvertently signalling your dog.
If you are new to labrador training start with this article.
Alternatively watch this video
Posted by: raecolin on: September 3, 2008
video of a well trained labrador
Your left hand must never (until you are trained) hold the lead while in the heel position, except to collect the length to return it to your right hand.
The length of your lead shall break just below your left kneecap.
If you need to work your dog on your right side, or from in front, or at a distance, the lead will be in your left hand. (If you are going to heel your dog on your right side, for our purposes, you will need to make the appropriate adjustments with regard to left and right signals, turns, etc.
I recommend not doing so at this time, unless physical needs dictate).
The heel position means your dogs shoulder is at your knee. It does not matter whether he is standing, sitting, walking, lying down, or jumping straight up in the air! In fact, if I could get all of my dogs to heel while jumping straight up in the air, I would be ecstatic.
If your dog’s shoulders are aligned at your knee and he is facing the same direction as you, that’s the heel position.
Trivial as this may seem, nothing in the Wits’ End Dog Training Method (at this point) is arbitrary.
Pay close attention to the above details. Notice that the running length of the lead should easily flow through the closed fingers. The arm should hang relaxed at your side. Keep your back straight; don’t lean over your labrador dog during training.The length of the lead should break at your kneecap.
Never allow the length of your lead to loop over or between any fingers, as this will create a block, creating tension in your hand, causing a bend at the elbow, creating tension on your dog’s collar, triggering the opposition reflex, thus defeating our method. There should never be any tension applied to your dogs collar.
Posted by: raecolin on: August 26, 2008
Watch the video of a well trained labrador here
Your left hand must never (until you are trained) hold the lead while in the heel position, except to collect the length to return it to your right hand.
The length of your lead shall break just below your left kneecap.
If you need to work your dog on your right side, or from in front, or at a distance, the lead will be in your left hand. (If you are going to heel your dog on your right side, for our purposes, you will need to make the appropriate adjustments with regard to left and right signals, turns, etc.
I recommend not doing so at this time, unless physical needs dictate).
The heel position means your dogs shoulder is at your knee. It does not matter whether he is standing, sitting, walking, lying down, or jumping straight up in the air! In fact, if I could get all of my dogs to heel while jumping straight up in the air, I would be ecstatic.
If your dog’s shoulders are aligned at your knee and he is facing the same direction as you, that’s the heel position.
Trivial as this may seem, nothing in the Wits’ End Dog Training Method (at this point) is arbitrary.
Pay close attention to the above details. Notice that the running length of the lead should easily flow through the closed fingers. The arm should hang relaxed at your side. Keep your back straight; don’t lean over your dog during training. The length of the lead should break at your kneecap.
Never allow the length of your lead to loop over or between any fingers, as this will create a block, creating tension in your hand, causing a bend at the elbow, creating tension on your dog’s collar, triggering the opposition reflex, thus defeating our method. There should never be any tension applied to your dogs collar.
