Training Basics - Getting to know the clicker

Before you begin: 

• Make sure your dog is hungry!
• You will need a clicker and lots of treats (about 50). Pea-sized treats for a German Shepherd - if your dog is smaller, so are the treats.
• Make sure there are no distractions for the dog - ask other dogs, kids, and people to leave the room.
• "C/T" means "Click, then Treat"

Goal:

Familiarize your dog to the sound of the clicker. You're looking for your dog to recognize the sound of the click to mean there is food coming.

Instructions:
1. Sit down on the sofa in the living room. Place 10 treats in your fist, then place your fist behind your back.

2. At random, click and toss a treat on the floor. It doesn't matter what your dog is doing - all you are teaching your dog is that right before the tasty food falls to the floor, this click sound happens.

3. Always remember: it's a 1:1 deal - one click is always followed by one treat, even if you accidentally click.

4. Repeat this exercise until all 10 treats in your fist are gone. Then praise your dog and play a little game with one of their toys - something fun for a few minutes.

5. Begin a session again, all the way back to step one in this lesson. Continue this until all 50 of your treats are gone then call it a day!

How'd you do? How'd your dog do? 
Important notes: Make sure you and your dog are still having fun!! If at any point you or your dog feel frustrated, end the session and try again later. :)

Happy training makes happy dogs!

Getting Bored Training Your Dogs? Give your kids a try!

It's kind of funny - as patient as I am when it comes to training dogs, it takes a lot more for me to be patient with the kids. I don't know why, but I expect more from them. Which isn't fair - I get that - they're learning too. So this weekend was not only about teaching the kids, but also about teaching me that I can apply the same teaching principles I use with canines: positive reinforcement yields results.

Find what's reinforcing
Months ago, we developed the point system. If the kids did something good, they got a point. Those points could then be turned in at the end of the day or in the middle of the day...it all depended on how desperate we were for them to behave. They got to have a popsicle or something of value.
Advantages: they were really excited about doing things right
Disadvantages: life got too busy and before we knew it, days had gone by and the kids were racking up the points. The reinforcement rate wasn't high enough for them to care after a while.

We decided to go with something more tactile...something they can physically hold on to. Enter: Pennies!

Gather training tools
The kids love when we're training the dogs with the clicker, so we decided to incorporate the clicker in their training too.

J and I carried around a handful of pennies and a clicker so we could quickly reward the kids.

Clearly state the criteria
The rules are: state EXACTLY what we WANT them to do. Words like don't and stop are omitted. If we tell exactly what we want them to do, we make the goal very clear. If we were to tell them to stop jumping on the couch, for example, then that's technically saying that running on the couch might be acceptable.

Good example: When you are done brushing your teeth, wipe all the water off the counter with the towel next to the sink. Clearly states: wipe the water, use the towel to do this and wait until you are done brusing your teeth to do it.

Bad example: Don't leave water on the sink. How? When you're talking to 3 and 5 year old kids, this could mean use your sleeve to wipe the water. Where? They could just wipe the water right in front of them, ignoring the water by the faucet. When? Again, they could wipe the counter before they start brushing their teeth! Definitely not what we're looking for...

Continue to reward the behavior
When the trainee is in the acquisition phase of learning, it's important to remember to continue to reward that behavior every time it happens. This is how good habits are formed.

Use negative punishment, when necessary
Our biggest challenge is the television. So, if we tell them to do something and they don't, we remove the television. No, not the whole thing! That's too impractical! But we definitely walk right over to the remote and turn off the T.V. End of discussion.

Example: "L, it's time to go wash your hands. When you're done washing your hands, go sit at the dinner table." No reply. So, I simply walk over to the T.V. and turn it off. That's when he says, "HEY! why'd you do that!?" I state very calmly, "I asked you to go wash your hands and then sit at the dinner table. The T.V. will remain off until you can do what I tell you."

What we learned this weekend
L learned to maintain eye contact when someone is speaking to him.
D learned to put her fork down once she's taken a bite.
Both kids learned to eat over their plates and keep their bodies facing forward while they eat.

What we found interesting about the training
The kids were VERY quick to point out when we didn't click and reward. At one point, J and I were talking and D put her fork down and wiped her face with her napkin after she had eaten. "HEY! you didn't click me!" LOL...

If one child got rewarded for a specific behavior, the other was quick to correct themselves. I clicked L for eating his green beans with his fork, instead of his fingers and caught D out of the corner of my eye stop using her fingers and grab her fork. Then, before I could even say anything she said "Look! I'm using my fork!"

Challenges
It's not easy to stay on top of their behavior constantly. We were really tired by the end of the day. But we gave ourselves credit: we're using a very powerful tool and if we stick to it, we'll be rewarded handsomely with well-behaved, engaged-in-learning kids!

There were times throughout the day where nothing beat a good timeout. Crying for no reason? That gets you excused to the room for a timeout, just like a dog that's barking gets removed from the room.

Just like when training your dog, what you think is reinforcing or what was reinforcing to them ten minutes ago may no longer have as much importance now. With the kids, the pennies were not always want they wanted. Sometimes they wanted to watch a movie, sometimes they wanted to play a video game...we used these to our advantage.

Teaching people with clickers is not a new thing! To learn more about Teaching with Acoustical Guidance (TAG), go to tagteach.com!

e

Please Don't Call Me That...

When people first meet me and hear that I am a dog trainer, they immediately say, "You're like the Dog Whisperer!" which sends chills down my spine. A million things run through my mind - I want to retaliate, I want to flip through tons of position statements from rescues, veterinarians, behaviorists, ethologists, researchers - all shunning the concept of training that is employed by The Dog Whisperer. But that would just be weird. People would think I am crazy and end up not listening anyway. So, instead, I just kindly smile and say, "well, we have different views about dog training."

There was a time when "whispering" meant being in-tune emotionally and spiritually. A time when "whispering" was a hands-off approach and required the "whisperer" to reach deep into their inner spirit in order to connect with their subject. The phrase has changed and it now means, to the general public, that I am a dog trainer that performs miracles by being Alpha and not allowing dogs to dominate me. What I actually do is so completely opposite that it actually hurts to hear people compare "whisperers" with me.

I won't go in to the details of the quadrants of operant conditioning. I will spare you the scientific babble that happens to make the behavior nerd in me giddy with joy. What I will ask is this: what does a trainer like myself have to say to convince someone that is using punitive, correction-based, whisper-training to stop? Because, let's face it. No one likes an activist unless you're already on their side. And by then, I'm just preachin' to the choir. How do I reach out and explain to people that there is no need to force, dominate, yell, scream, say "NO!", push, yank (how many more verbs can I throw in here??) in order to achieve a well-trained, obedient (and dare I say...happier!??) dog?

The interesting thing is: many people don't know the damage they are doing to their dogs because, bless their hearts, some dogs can be VERY resilient. Additionally, the owners aren't always doing it to terrorize their dogs. Owners are training this way, well, because that's the way people have done it for years! It's just how it's done. For example, the age old remedy for a dog that pees in the house is to take him to the spot (often WAY to long after the fact) put his nose in it and say "NO!", followed sometimes by a swat on the nose. What owners don't understand is that this actually teaches the dog that pee is bad, not the ACT of peeing in the house. It tells them you, as their owner, do not like pee. So what do they do? They hide it! They go in corners, they go behind the couch...just to spare you the icky pee that you clearly do not like. Aren't they so thoughtful??

Teaching your dog that you are the master isn't necessary, either. If you do it right, they'll figure it out (if you feel that that's even necessary - personally, I do not...) If you provide the shelter, food, water, guidance and exercise you will be seen as very valuable to your dog. That's when you have the decision: either command that your dog listen via force, etc. or teach your dog to trust you via proper positive-reinforcement training. That final piece is what contributes to the relationship you will have with your dog. And it's the relationship that determines whether the dog looks to you for true guidance.

So, instead of me getting on a soapbox every time someone refers to me as the Dog Whisperer, how would you suggest I tactfully and politely decline this title?

Clicker Con 2009!!

ClickerExpo was this past weekend. Imagine a Star Trek convention sans costumes and theme music. Instead of light sabers, we were armed with clickers. It's so embarrasingly wonderful to be a geek!

But seriously.

While going to a conference full of people who share your same beliefs, ideals and interests is amazing enough, ClickerExpo 2009 blew my mind and positive training continues to wow me daily. So, I will continue to discuss positive vs. negative because it's a worthy battle. I was once blind but now I see and it's only appropriate for me to help others see as well.

Positive vs. negative
The scariest thing about punishment-based training is that it works. However, its successes are its very downfall. To be good at punishing (just typing that makes my skin crawl) you have to have impeccable timing and enough force to correct the behavior the first time but not so much that you traumatize the animal. Go ahead – read that line again, you know you have to. It’s like a complicated math equation – it makes you think too much (that’s assuming you’re like me and horrible at math)! So here, I’ll say it again:

"To be good at punishing … you have to have impeccable timing and enough force to correct the behavior the first time but not so much that you traumatize the animal."

Well, great, now that we’ve been warned and we understand the rules, let the punishing commence...right!? Uh, no, it’s not that simple. I’m going to explain this using my own spin on an example from L (smartdoguniversity.com):

Imagine you want a diet Pepsi from the vending machine. This is the same machine you get a diet Pepsi from every single day and you’ve been doing this for the last year. Every single day, you insert a dollar and out comes your diet Pepsi. One day, for no known reason, one of those boxing gloves pops out of the front and punches you right in the face when you reach to grab your soda. What the @*#@!!??

“wow. That was weird…” you say, and you duck this time before reaching for the soda again.

BAM! Another glove pops out and punches you in the face. This is when good ol' animal instinct steps in. You will perform several actions in the next few minutes. You will:

a) Try to get faster and predict when the glove comes out – but you’re still willing to try again because diet Pepsi is soooooo good!

b) Give up entirely – that Pepsi isn’t worth another punch to the face. In fact, NO Pepsi is worth getting punched in the face. Is this going to happen every time!?!? Should I choose another soda!? Did I not put in enough money?? Should I try another machine?? Is it the Pepsi or the machine that caused that??

c) Punch the machine right back - that stupid thing can't and won't stop you!

Let's use the same scenario: you are getting a soda from the vending machine just as you do every day. Except today, unlike every other day, no soda comes out. Perplexed and mildly irritated, you press the button a million times (just to make sure the machine understood) and *sigh* insert another dollar. This time, you’re hoping you get that soda you want so much. Alas, no soda comes out again. The third time around, you will:

a) Put in yet another dollar, hoping 3rd time’s a charm. You might even make that corny joke aloud, “welp, let’s hope third time’s a charm, right Bill? *chuckle, chuckle*”

OR

b) Give up entirely.

What you won’t do is stand there all day, putting your hard-earned dollar bills into the machine and still expect a soda. At some point, you are done with this game. You learned (hopefully quickly) that this behavior isn’t paying off. In fact, it’s costing you big time! That doesn’t mean you will forever give up on vending machines. You might even try again tomorrow. If tomorrow, you get the same results (the machine is providing consistency, in other words) you will begin to give up on that particular machine. You’re a little perturbed you lost so much cash, but no one had to shock you, yell at you or hit you to convince you that this isn’t going to work.

That, my friends, is one of the differences between training with positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement. Both may eventually yield the same results but one comes with much more baggage than the other, not to mention how deadly accurate (tee hee...a pun) you have to be with negative reinforcement.

Most people I talk to say that they don’t really like using harsh punishment/corrections anyway. If you’re one of those people, liberate yourself and your dog. With negative training, the worst that can happen is actually pretty bad! You can end up with an aggressive, emotionally-damaged dog! I'd say that's pretty serious! With positive training, however, the worst that can happen is your dog is happy from receiving positive reinforcement and interacting with you. It may require that you get a little creative with training, but your dog still respects you at the end of the day. That's not so horrible, now is it?

-E