Dog Days of Summer

Meet Summer. Yeah, that is this adorable German Shepherd adolescent-girl here. I originally met her and her peeps; Susan and Felix, through Puppy Foundation Skills class, where she started at an early age. 

Just a few days ago, I met up with Summer and Felix for a lovely outing and photo shoot. There were a few specific images I was looking for to add to my photo gallery and library, and the very cool thing looking back through the images was how well many of these images illustrate one of the things I keep preaching to students all the time: develop PLAY with your dog!!! With good skills and a keen player, there are so many training challenges that become easy and fun to work through - but more than anything, Play develops such a fantastic bond and relationship! It puts the emphasis exactly where I believe it should be: right in the middle between you and your dog - in something that you do Together. 

So, here are some of the photos from our photo shoot just the other day. Hope you enjoy! THANK YOU Felix and Summer for being awesome models! Thank you Susan and Felix for doing such an awesome job getting this girl off on such a great start! And Thank you for teaching her how to play with you! It is a gift that will stay with her (and you) for life :-)

I LOVE seeing the intensity in the play! It is just simply gorgeous and it is easy to see just how much fun she thinks this is, too! In the image below she is frozen - ready to pounce the moment she is given permission! Can't you just feel the intensity?

See the impulse control Summer is showing in the photo above, too? Love it! And she's 5-or-so months old!! 
Closing off with a beautiful portrait of a very beautiful soul. OH Those Eyes!

Come Fido! class grads

Here are photos of four of the six dogs who graduated from the most recent Come Fido! class, just before Easter.

We've chuckled at what a mouthful it was to try to keep track of the names of these dogs...try saying this in rapid succession: Kiska, Tess, Jazz, Ezzy, Sass, Jess!
And how is it possible that three dogs; Jazz, Jess and Tess end up in the same group :-) It's like a tongue twister from a children's book.

We've worked on everything Recall-related. My own favourite part has been to see the dog's play skills - namely retrieve and tug - develop and build. 
A high percentage of dog owners that I have in classes report that "my dog only retrieves so so - and likely won;t bring the toy back even if he will chase it first". There is a really simple two-toy trick that I absolutely love to get these dogs thinking otherwise and actually doing a full retrieve. For the majority of dogs, it works really, really well and is quite fast, too. 


And why is retrieve or tug important in a Recall class, you ask?
Well, there are many different ways to approach recall training. The old school methods (sadly still in use) are very heavy-handed and heavily rely on physical punishment and trying to show the dog what is "wrong" and that the dog must obey, or else. People who turn to the use of electric shock collars often feel very justified doing so (he must obey) and say things like "it's for the dog's own good. It's shock collar or the dog can't ever be let off leash. I HAVE TO KNOW that when I call, my dog comes." etc...justifications go on.

To me, the most important question in choosing what route to take with any training is to consider what kind of relationship it is you want to have with your dog. That little piece "MUST obey, or else" just really does not sit well with me. What God-given right do we have to say something like that? Amazingly enough, I find many people have never even reflected over this?! We're still, in many ways living in the dark ages, overshadowed by this mentality of "dogs must, or else"...but have not really even considered what that means or why we would have the right to say that?!


Where play fits in nicely is in a program where we do care about the relationship between human and dog and start to look for 'why should the dog care about where you are to begin with?' and this is where play can be a phenomenal tool. When YOU play with your dog, you are developing a relationship and saying to your dog that you can facilitate his pleasure and desire to play - you thus start to become a fun and reinforcing person to be around! The whole training process becomes less about "Why should the dog HAVE to come to you when you call?" and more about the realization that you've invested so much joy and fun into playing together with your dog - that, when eventually you do need to call him to you: "Why WOULDN'T the dog want to come to you when you call?" It's a completely different starting point and different mind-set.
One that I think pays off in dividends. 
Every time you play with your dog, as long as the play is honest, sincere and fun for both of you - you are investing in your relationship and putting "money in the bank".. that when you need to call him - the investment will pay off; he'll happily come bounding to you! 
Teaching an older dog to play tug or retrieve with a human can be a journey...for some it will be a fast track to success, for others it will require more time. I've written about this topic before if you're interested to search through archives for ideas on How To - but bottom line is: the time invested in teaching good and solid play skills is worth it! If your dog will play with you any time, anywhere - you have a powerful reward, but also; more than likely - you have a happy partner who has learned just how much fun it is to hang out close to you! 


The dog is not living in fear of when and what punishment will happen next - but instead the sparkle in his eyes will tell you his mind is on the "game": Another game is just around the corner...any moment now...any moment now...


and THAT you can do a lot with as the trainer/ handler!

Puppy Foundation Skills

Can there be anything more eye-catching than a fluffy Chow? 

Well, yes - an adorable Chow Puppy!

This is Charlie-the-Chow-Puppy, who apparently gets stopped on the streets all the time to pose for total strangers who want to capture him on their cameras! And you can sort of see why, can`t you?! 

My connection to this spectacular puppy is that Charlie is a Puppy Foundation Skills class student. He (and his people) came to class last night. The room was filled with "stuff" for puppies to explore and investigate. There`s a ton you can do to build a dog`s confidence early on with "Enrichment"; by creatively introducing them to as many novel items as you can (safely) dream up: surfaces, things to go over, under, pass by, hear, see, smell, feel, various footing,...etc. In Puppy Foundations we do a lot of this and I try to inspire people to see the importance of all these simple but important games and keeping it going outside of class, too. Introducing a young pup to "novel stuff" is something fairly simple you can do with your young puppy at home, with a bit of creativity and changing things up - but of course of big importance, too is taking your puppy out to new places where he is exposed to sights and sounds of the real world; all the things and stimuli you want him to be familiar with through his life.   

For your reference, and for a bit of further reading on risks vs. benefits of socialization with a partially vaccinated puppy, I am attaching a link to the position statement On Puppy Socialization of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior:

http://www.avsabonline.org/avsabonline/images/stories/Position_Statements/puppy%20socialization.pdf

We also worked a bit with Charlie on building play...as in tug-of-war. Building solid play-skills and then using play (with you!) as a reward when working on teaching other skills is such a valuable investment of time and effort. There are many skills later on that become a breeze to teach and work on, if your dog loves to play with you. With young puppies it is usually quite easy to build their play and tugging, but if not - be patient and keep working on it! Build up and on  from CHASE, don;t try to shove a toy into a dog`s mouth..instead, think like a squirrel running away from the dog (!) and pull the toy away from the puppy along the ground. In the beginning, you just want to engage the pups instinct to chase the toy - and ultimately, grab it.

Every effort to play and develop this game with your dog will pay off and is like money in the dream-bank..the return-on-investment is really big!

Luckily for Charlie, playing Tug is likely never going to be an issue as his people were totally keen on the game and quickly "got it":-) And, so did Charlie. 

We will continue to work and build from here - check back for his grad photo later this spring...the changes and growth will be amazing!

"My dog will not play with me!"

I wish I could share all of this through video. But some moments just happen too spontaneously. So my video camera was not part of this process sadly. Instead I'll try to illustrate through words...

I am realizing Pinot has reliable play when outside, and in the context of agility...but I need to work on also getting play
more reliably as a break when we've been working with food. There are huge benefits to having a dog who will go back and forth between food and toys with cheer. 

This is a story about my own challenge over the last three days to figure out a plan how to get my lovely Pinot to play tug with me in situations when I am taking a break from reinforcing with food! It has been a long journey to get her to Tug, period....it took about 9 months to build her desire to actually tug. Now we have it...it seems - outside and in highly arousing situations, such as in the context of agility or outside on walks or in combination with retrieving. But what I just discovered is that we don;t have reliable play everywhere! ...for example, here at home, if I have been working on behaviours using food first/ and her expectation seems to be to get FOOD.


So, I set out yesterday with a plan. I had a hungry dog, clicker, her breakfast (small piece of chicken back cut into small tiny training size pieces) and a tug toy. We started shaping, super short and absolutely sweet. Big steps forward with each click. After only a few repetitions, I felt it was time for a big celebration-reward with a tugging break. Only now we encountered a new dilemma. She saw the tug toy and left the room! No amount of silly, goofy play-talk could convince her that playing with me was going to be fun! Oh bother...now what?


So, I proceeded to do some shaping with Maggio instead. Pinot of course heard us working and immediately came into the room, offering what had just been rewarded. I decided to let her go on while ignoring her and just focusing on Maggio. (Sometimes this has had fantastic results...training the OTHER dog can bring about great results sometimes). When Maggio's turn was up, I called Pinot to me and presented the toy again -- the plan was to immediately go back to food if she decided she could play first. But she clearly felt the answer was a simple: NO WAY! And again left the room...


So Maggio got another turn at working and the same thing happened again. When Pinot's turn rolled around again - she saw the toy and left.
Three failures in a row. Absolutely no sense continuing, I had to give my plan a re-think and try to come up with a way to work through this.


I know how much she loves her raw chicken and had a feeling that having the open container of chicken right in front of her while presented with a tug toy was probably a huge conflict for her; chicken really trumps any toy. Ideally, of course, I'd like to have her be able to go back and forth between any reinforcer as "I please", but reality is, I realize (now) I have not been diligent in building and maintaining this -- especially here at home - so I have to start with a step by step process. So, my thought was: what if I would make it a bit easier by putting the chicken away (in the fridge) and just bring it out after she has tugged a bit?
Other options included to change the food to a lower value food...go to boring kibble or something else less exciting than chicken. Or...another thought...I know how sensitive Pinot is to "feeling pressure"...maybe I am overwhelming her in my deep desire to get her to play? (I know this has happened before...)


Here is what I did: the chicken went into the fridge and Pinot got a short break. I summoned my 9 year old daughter and asked if she would help. She is a great little helper and definitely plays tug without any "social pressure" whatsoever. And because of Pinot's smaller (than Maggio) size - and ability to understand rules of play they are wonderfully compatible play-mates when tugging. So we gathered in the kitchen and the toy came out..in my daughter's hand this time. YEEY! SUCCESS!!! Pinot happily hopped on to the end of the sheep skin toy and started tugging...first a little softly, but then with 85% of her usual gusto! Success! We marked the tugging and grip with a "YES!" and ran over to the fridge to pull out some chicken for her. 
We then took a small break again to let Pinot "think about it" for a few minutes...and then repeated. Success again! Play first = then you get food! After my daughter had, this way, fed her about 3/4 of her breakfast, and Pinot's usual tugging had returned, I asked for a turn and tried the same. Success! We were still not doing sessions back-to-back and I didn't even want to try to go back to tugging immediately after feeding a couple of pieces of chicken, but felt that this was great success and indeed progress. For the rest of the day we did no more training.


Fast forward 24 hours. Breakfast again. Now her breakfast was going to be "boring kibble" and the tug toy was with me again. Again I wanted to start with the toy and the plan was to immediately go on to training with food if she only played some tug first. BUT it did not go that way....Pinot AGAIN left me as soon as I presented the toy to her  :-( So I gave it about 30 minutes while I re-organized my thoughts. What if I just tried to start with a session of shaping (using the kibble) and then after a few reps tried to take a break playing with the toy?


It went against all logic of "do what I want you to do first" but I also knew it would take all potential frustration out of that first session and would also reduce the unwanted social pressure. I try so hard to be relaxed and not put pressure on her, but she is a remarkably sensitive little girl and just not able or willing to work when she feels pressured. Many times it is beyond the conscious level: I want something from her and she feels Pressured.


So, we started with a shaping session using kibble. She was a willing and happy worker! When I broke out the toy to play, she clearly said NO. I remained sitting on the floor and just played goofy games involving some petting and mostly my voice....and to my surprise she engaged and loosened up and started bouncing up and down with joy. Allright, I thought - I'll take that. Maybe I can't get play with a toy right now but maybe I can get happy bouncing? So we did happy bouncing, with the toy parked beside me on the floor. And then continued shaping. Another play-break...more happy bouncing. I didn't even touch the toy, just left it beside me on the floor.
A third shaping session...then break for play...and wonder of all wonders...Pinot went over to the sheep skin toy and put her open mouth over it playfully growling. YEEY!!! I totally praised her up and grabbed the other end to give it some movement: she grabbed! AND TUGGED back! SUCCESS!!!


I only kept her engaged on the toy for maybe 10-15 seconds, asked for a "give!" and immediately went into another super-short shaping session with food. Back to the toy....back to shaping...back to the toy. What a great feeling! And how happily Pinot was participating in the games!


I don;t think the whole dilemma is resolved by any means. I am prepared for a journey yet again, but at least I think I have a sense of where to start/ or continue. And now I also know that transitioning between food and toy is not something I must ever take for granted with this girl. With Maggio I did have to go through a similar process/ in reverse (please take food also if there is an exciting toy) but once we worked through that, it has not come back to give me issues again. I THOUGHT I had established this with Pinot, but clearly I was mistaken. So - I have just added ANOTHER thing to my List of Behaviours to Train in 2012. 
I know with time, patience and practise we can do it :-)

The importance of Play, part 2.

What makes a good tug toy?
Let's start with the very obvious thing to look for: the toy needs to allow both you and the dog to hold on to it at the same time. Thus, a regular ball is not a good choice - but a ball-on-a-rope would meet that criteria. Further, a good tug toy is made of a material that the dog is really keen to grab! For a puppy, new tugger or an older dog who is just learning - the type of material the toy is made of can really make a difference. Faux-fur or sheepskin will often do the trick and trigger instant interest.


The third thing to consider when looking for a great toy is that some elastic give between you and the dog will remove sudden jolts and hard whiplash. Look for bungee cord, something a bit elastic, flexible, stretchy... Some dogs (and people!) are put off by the game if they get a rough jolt from tugging because there is no "give" anywhere. A good tug toy has some kind of elastic cord built into the toy. Or, sometimes you can modify a favorite toy by attaching a "bungee" to it.


If your dog is not a super keen tugger (yet!), a soft material is likely more attractive. Again: think sheepskin type or soft fleecy braid rather than a really solid and hard material (like a hard braided rope or a toy with a plastic feel). If your dog is a natural tugger and wild about most toys - it probably won't matter what you choose. DO consider yourself very lucky, though! The reality is that many dogs, especially if you didn't start this when your dog was a puppy, need to be taught - and really encouraged to play. It is for those dogs, that the material and choice of toy will likely really matter. Experiment - and if your dog does not show interest with one particular kind of toy - don't give up! Try some other materials - and also: pay attention to what your dog is likely to pick up when on "his own time". Those materials will give you a good clue as to what your dog likes to have in his mouth. And just as a side note: if that includes shoes or other out-of-bounds items...you may want to consider ways of managing your dog so that you limit his access to those! This is NOT about making your wardrobe into your dog's toy library: but finding  one or more suitable, appropriate toys that you can develop this fantastic game with.


The very first thing after you have identified this special tug toy is to treat it in a special way. This toy is never left out for the dog to play with or chew on his own. It gets taken out for your short play sessions, and then gets put away - out of the dog's reach. The fun of playing with it should be linked to you right from the start. Play for a short time - and then put the toy away!
Next time, I will talk about things you can do to really encourage your dog to WANT to play, and then we will get into the rules for appropriate play. 

The importance of Play, part 1.

It’s been decided, that the launch of this blog will start with a series of articles relating to a topic near and dear to my own heart: PLAY, as in human-to-dog play and why playing with your dog is important. For the sake of these articles, when I refer to PLAY, I am going to talk mainly about Tug-of-War as well as building Tug into a Retrieve.

The majority of students that come into my classes seem to put a heavy emphasis on dog to dog play, but have not built play as a game including themselves engaging with their dog. It seems that there may be many reasons for this - some of the reasons being a fear that playing tug-of-war with their dogs will cause the dog to become “dominant” and that if tug is ever played with a dog; the dog must never win.

Without getting into a drawn-out conversation about winning or dominance; let me approach the subject from another point of view: what playing with your dog can do FOR you and how it can actually enhance the dog-human bond.

Every dog has an innate predatory instinct in them. It’s there to some degree in all dogs. Teaching your dog to tug (with rules!) is a great outlet for the innate desire to “chase, grab and

bitel”! It puts structure on something the dog instinctively has a desire to do.

In a class full of students I usually get to about this part, when someone inevitable interrupts with a question: “So, are you not making your dog more predatory by playing tug with him then?”

And the answer is no: playing tug is not going to make your dog a predator. He already is one. Teaching him tug (with appropriate rules) will simply channel this energy and give the predatory game structure and allow him an outlet for what he already is.

The fact is, that by playing tug with your dog, you are linking a lot of reinforcement and rewards to You. You are the one playing with your dog, deciding upon and enforcing the rules, and You are the one in charge of the toy. Think of how powerful (not to mention FUN!) that can be – when your dog will choose to stay with you for the opportunity to play with you – rather than take the first opportunity to run away looking for fun elsewhere…

So, before starting, it must again be stressed that Tug-of-War can be and is a wonderful way to play with your dog - BUT, it *must* have rules and structure. Without rules and structure - yes, you might very well be looking at chaos and an unpleasant outcome. There are a few simple rules for you to follow, which I will get into later – but before getting to rules – we need to have a good TOY that we can use for play. Next time I will be back with some thoughts on what to consider when looking for a good tug toy.