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Learn about the day to day life of a successful private dog trainer in Chicago, IL. Gain insight into the challenges of being a trainer as well as tips to help you with your dog.
April 2008 - Posts
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 As reported in the New York Times, Knut the Polar Bear in Berlin, Germany is showing signs of anxiety when left alone. To the outcries of animal-protection groups, Knut was hand-raised by his handler, Thomas Dörflein. As the article reports, this was good for business and brought in more than $8 million in extra revenue last year by attracting the public to view the adorable little polar bear.
Now that Knut is larger and it is not the cuddly cub he once was, he is not getting the attention he once was. It is not clear in the article about the reasons for the change in human contact. I assume it is either a safety issue or the handler doesn’t have the time to devote.
The experts weigh in about the current state of mind of Knut:
“With Knut, it’s clear that he has imprinted on humans, and when neither his keeper nor visitors are there he cries out,” said Thomas Pietsch, a biologist and expert on wild animals for the animal-welfare group Four Paws in Germany. Peter H. Arras, a zoologist and animal-protection advocate put it more succinctly: “He’s a psychopath addicted to human attention.”
What can you learn from this to avoid separation issues with your dog?
I always tell my clients that I will nag them about making sure that they socialize their puppy properly. Part of the strategy for raising a dog that can handle being left alone is to teach him to learn how to adjust to the frustration he feels when he can’t gain access to you.
One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is by using a crate with your puppy. Crates are effective for housetraining, preventing destruction as well as helping increase the chances of avoiding separation anxiety. Unfortunately, even with all the proper steps dogs can develop separation anxiety when they get older.
Some of my clients say that they feel bad that their puppy is in a crate. It looks mean, they look sad, they want to play with them, they feel bad that they are in there so much, etc. I don’t blame them for feeling this way, but I gently remind them that if their puppy does not get used to being alone, they are setting their puppy up for a lifetime of discomfort and stress when alone.
Unless your dog will never be alone and you will never leave the house, go to work or go on vacation, make sure your dog can be alone. Make a list of all of the possibilities that your puppy might have to get accustomed to and introduce him to these events on a daily basis, if possible, until he is 6 months old. Then maintain his socialization by periodically continuing the exercises throughout his life. Learn from the anxiety that Knut is experiencing and don't make the same mistakes with your dog.
Read my other post about socialization for more ideas. Questions about puppy training? Ask in my Forums or explore my Training Videos.
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 If you have ever worked with a talented professional dog trainer, there is a good chance he or she probably demonstrated a technique to you and made it look easy. The trainer then explained the intricacies of what you should do to duplicate the techniques, handed the leash over to you, and your dog didn’t do anything that you wanted!
Sound familiar?
What does a skilled professional dog trainer do to make this “magic” occur? Is it magic? Is there something that the dog trainer has that you just will never have? Should you give up right now?
No, it is not magic. You should follow some basic principles of dog training and practice, practice, practice. I always tell my clients that if I were to show up at their job on Monday it would take longer than one hour until I could do their job! Dog training is a skill that requires time and attention to master. I have trained thousands of dogs and I learn something new from every single session, even if I have worked with the dog multiple times. I just finished a great first session with a wonderful client that has a dog with reactivity towards some people and dogs. We went for a walk, I used strategies that I have been practicing for years and my client said her dog was much calmer and less reactive than if she were holding the leash. She asked me what I did to achieve these results.
This case dealt with aggression and reactivity, but the training strategies are the same regardless of what behaviors you want to work on with your dog.
Timing
Proper timing will speed up learning and lessen confusion. If you are working on teaching your dog to lie down and reward him when he is standing up, you could confuse him. Reward the behavior that you want at the instant it is happening. One way to improve your timing is to use a clicker. A clicker is a positive reinforcement training tool that is incredibly effective if used properly. You can listen to my dog training radio show to learn about clicker training or ask questions on my forums.
Expectations
The best laid training plans can get derailed by a trainer that has inappropriate expectations. Your dog will learn much faster if you break down the training goals into small segments and work on those segments incrementally in each training session. Keep in mind that dogs do not generalize behaviors well. This means that if you teach your dog to “Sit” in the kitchen you can’t expect him to “Sit” in the living room until you have taught him in that location. If you go outside near distractions, you need to lower your expecations even more. Motivation
A skilled trainer will be able to read what a dog wants at any given moment and use that as a reward. For instance, if a dog wants to go say “hello” to another dog, work on training at a distance that allows the dog to focus on you. Once you get a behavior that you like, allow your dog to greet the other dog. But, don’t miss an opportunity to ask for another behavior such as “Come” while your dog is playing with the other dog and gently guide him to you. Once he comes to you, allow him to go back and play. You are helping your dog realize that if he performs your requests, good things happen. I even use tree-sniffing as an opportunity for training. “Watch me – Thank you, now you can go sniff”. Motivation, in my opinion, is the most fascinating topic and is very complex. What motivates any animal to do anything? That is not always easy to answer, but is always important to consider when working with a dog. Distractions
This has already been addressed briefly, but it is an important topic. The novice trainer might get frustrated if a dog doesn’t repeat a behavior around distractions. Learning how to focus around distractions takes time and skill. If your dog is distracted, move away from the distraction until your dog can perform a behavior and then try again at a closer distance. Even if the behavior that you ask for is less difficult than your long-term goal, (maybe you ask for a “Sit” instead of a “Down”) you have to start somewhere and teach your dog to focus around distractions.
Confidence
This comes from knowing that the strategies that you are using will work. Someone can promise that they will, but until you see if for yourself you will not be entirely confident that the strategies will work. This takes time and practice. Pay attention to what works and that will improve your confidence.
Focus
To be an effective trainer, you should be 100% focused on your dog. All of the above recommendations can’t be accomplished without focus. It is so much better to practice short, focused training sessions a few times a day, than long sessions where you are not focused and miss a lot of what is happening in front of you.
The final thought I want to leave you with is that training should be fun. If you ever feel frustrated, take a break and come back in a few minutes or another day. If you constantly feel frustrated, enlist the help of a skilled professional positive reinforcement trainer to help. My clients are often amazed at what they can learn in a short time. You an also view my videos to see me in action training a variety of dogs.
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 Everyone is busy. We all have incredibly busy jam-packed lives. My goal is to post to my blog a minimum of 3 times per week and it has been 6 days since I last posted. Ugh. My challenge is that my private dog training business is extra busy during the summer and each new client that hires me requires a lot of upfront time in scheduling, training plans and the time it takes for the appointments themselves. I am grateful for all of my wonderful clients and I get extreme satisfaction in doing a job that not only pays my bills but also provides me with the joy and satisfaction of helping dogs and people enjoy each other more. I love my job.
However, my blog posts are incredibly important to me as well. My blogs have the potential to help dogs all over the world, and not just in my finite travel area in Chicago. My days often last from 7am - midnight or later and are often filled with tasks that are more pressing than writing blog posts. One item on my list that can't get pushed to another day is fulfilling the needs of my dogs. It is my responsibility to give them what they need. Every day I usually give them three long walks including at least one romp in the park. I also train them at least a few minutes each day. I also answer the posts to my Forums first because those questions are asked by community members that have a specific need, right now. I try and answer forum questions within a day or two at the most. In the last six days I have answered numerous forum questions which took time away from the blog posts that I have on my list. Right now I have a list of approximately 20 blog posts that I want to get to when I have time. I usually think of blog topics when I am driving to my clients or working with dogs throughout the day. Most of my clients talk about the challenges of their schedules and sometimes apologize to me for not training their dogs as much as they would have liked since our last appointment. I don't think my job is to make my clients feel bad for not training their dog. I am positive that if most people had the choice of going to their jobs or staying home all day and training their dog or running him in the park they would choose the dog activities every time. I never doubt the good intentions of my clients or their understanding of how important it is to spend quality training time with their dogs. Everyone understands that dogs are happier and will learn more if more time is spent teaching them. One logical, often overlooked strategy is to put a specific training appointment on your calendar for dog training. We are a society obsessed with schedules. Why not schedule training time for your dog? Most people do some form of training with their dogs, whether it is a group class, private training or my dog training videos. After the classes are done, you should keep to a schedule and stick to it. Is your dog worth 15 minutes a day? Of course she is. What if you made a training appointment at least 3 times per week on your calendar for 30 minutes? What if you fed at least one of your dog's meals each day during a training session? Instead of just going for a 15-minute walk, do a 15-minute training session while walking. There has got to be time in there for your dog. Ideally, you train your dog at least 15 minutes per day every day including a couple minutes before you go for a walk or during a walk, before meals, while you are playing fetch (ask for sits, downs, and stays before you throw the ball). But, why not schedule longer sessions at least a couple times a week? Let me know what strategies you use for training your dog and how you find the time to incorporate it into your schedule. We can all share ideas to make it easier to find time to train our wonderful dogs!
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 This is a partial recap of my last radio show broadcast on Thursday, April 17th. You can listen to the show here.
Since I am a professional dog trainer, it is my job to help my clients refine their training strategies to help their dog become well trained as fast as possible.
Along the way I see a lot of ways that can speed up training and also derail the best efforts. My show today is meant to help you speed up your training efforts and become a better trainer.
Dog training is like any other skill. Every single trainer on the planet, including me, can improve on what they are doing. There are a zillion strategies out there and this is one reason why I think dog training is the most fascinating topic out there.
Keep in mind that each of these topics could be practiced at great length. The goal of this post is not to answer all the questions, but to give you guidelines that I believe in and follow when I am working with dogs.
Don’t
Repeat cues. Repeating cues will result in dogs tuning you out. You want to make sure that cues are relevant to your dog. If you consistently repeat them, the cue becomes background noise and doesn’t result in a dog performing a behavior. “Sit, sit, sit, sit.”
Do
Say things once and help your dog get it right. When you see a really snappy well-trained dog, they do behaviors quickly and reliably. My goal is that all behaviors are finely tuned and become reflex responses.
Don’t
Train too long. Dog training is a skill that takes focus and attention. This rule holds true as much for you, the trainer, as it does for the dog. If you can work in short 2-5 minute sessions where you are focused and in-tune with your dog, you will be much more effective than longer sessions where you lose focus.
Do
Short sessions to keep you and your dog fresh. The exception is separation anxiety where you want to practice long sessions to desensitize your dog to departures and teach him that when he sees you leave, you will come back. Be clear, concise, consistent and focused.
Don’t
Blame the dog for your lack of ability. Dogs are often labeled “stubborn” when they don’t learn something quickly or choose to do something else. Motivating an animal do something is a skill whether you are teaching people or dogs. This is not necessarily easy, but there are proven methods that you can learn to increase your abilities.
Do
Always try and improve your understanding of motivation and teaching. Read dog training books, attend conferences or classes and always look at whether you are being clear, consistent and being a great teacher. Want to read great dog training books? Dogwise.com is a great resource. Want more tips? Listen to the complete show here.
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 Hand signals are one of the ways to communicate with a dog. If you are not using them, you are limiting your ability to communicate, limiting the behaviors that you can teach as well as missing out on one of the most enjoyable aspects of working with a dog.
I equate using only verbal communication with dogs to only speaking to people and never learning how to read or write. Think of how your life would be limited if you never learned how to read or write.
Dogs are very visual in nature. When they are hunting they might use their sense of smell or hearing to identify the location of prey, but once they have a visual, that sense takes over. Patricia McConnell did a study and found that dogs are much better visual learners. Described in her phenomenal book, “The Other End of the Leash” she performed an experiment by teaching a variety of six-and-a-half week old puppies to sit using both visual and audible cues. The puppies each got four days of training with both visual and audible cues. 23 of the 24 puppies performed better to the hand motion than the sound. Interestingly enough, the beagle puppies sat for 32 of the forty times they saw the hand signal and zero times for the audible sound.
Many dog trainers start using luring, the process of teaching dogs to move into position by following a food lure. Once the dog is in position, it is marked with a reward marker (I recommend using a clicker).
Once a dog understands that the resulting position sometimes results in a treat, then that behavior is more likely to occur. Then the fun starts. The trainer can start moving away from the lure and using just a hand signal, or introduce a verbal cue and then “help” the dog move into position with the already established hand signal.
Some other benefits of hand signals:
- Once your dog understands that visual movements might be a form of communication, she will be more likely to watch you for signals. This is immensely helpful in situations such as the dog park with major distractions.
- You can teach behaviors such as “Roll Over” that are difficult or impossible using other methods.
- It increases your understanding of how to teach. You have to be acutely aware of your movements and keep them consistent and clear.
I actually use hand signals more often than verbal cues. In other posts I will describe how to fade out cues, how to change cues and other tricks of the trade.
Want to learn how to get to the next step in your dog training? Listen to my radio show tonight entitled Novice Trainer? Get Better! At 6:30 pm CST.
Have questions about hand signals or other training? Ask in the Forums.
Happy Training!
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 Timing is everything in dog training. What are the goals of all good dog trainers?
- Communicate specific behaviors that you want a dog to do - or not do in the case of inappropriate behaviors
- Motivate the dog to do the behavior on cue
If you are a novice dog trainer and ever feel like your dog is "just not getting it". Look at number one. If you think your dog "knows" the behavior and is choosing not to do it, look at number two. This post is primarily about increasing the quality of the communication through good timing and instruction. I will talk more about motivation strategies in another post.
Let me explain the title of this post. I was in the park the other day with my three dogs and a woman named Stacy came up to me and asked me a dog training question. This happens a lot and I am always happy to talk about dog training. She asked about her two miniature poodles because they sometimes play a bit rough with each other and she was concerned that the smaller one was getting tormented. The timing was good, because her pups were engaging in the behavior as she was describing it. I gave her my assessment, which was that it seemed okay based on the fact that the little one seemed fairly relaxed and was not getting more and more stressed out during each altercation. She also intiated play a few times after her brother stopped playing. That is another good sign. I did give her some tips to practice if the situation escalated and the smaller pup seemed uncomfortable. No sooner than we said that, we looked over and the bigger male was on top of his sister and she seemed very uncomfortable. Stacy walked over and removed the male gently and led him away from his sister. I was happy that she noticed that things were getting a bit rough and was punishing him by removing him from the situation. By the way, "punishment" does not have to mean physical or mental abuse. There are many strategies for effective punishment using humane methods. Removing a dog from a situation for acting inappropriately is one example. I watched the scene for a moment because I can never get tired of watching dog behavior. She walked her puppy away, gently had him managed so he couldn't gain access to his sister . . . and then the mistake. "No!, Bad Dog! Don't play rough with your sister!" I cringed. Not because she was doing anything inhumane, but she was doing something that was at a minimum a waste of her time and possibly counter-productive. What did she do that was so terrible? She communicated to her dog that it was innappropriate to stand nicely next to her. Whoops. Every single interaction with your dog can be utilized properly which will result in clear communication, lack of frustration and will facilitate a faster road to success. Every time you are inconsistent, or communicate to your dog something that is confusing, there will be a breakdown in the learning process. It is just that simple. So, what should Stacy have done to give clear communication? She had it right until the final moment. She should think about the reward and the punishment and reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. In this case the reward was access to the other dog, the punishment was getting taken away from the other dog. The desired behavior that Stacy was looking for was not acting too rough. Even this needs to be defined better to avoid confusion. My recommendation for rough behavior is excessive jumping, biting, grabbing or pulling where the other dog seems uncomfortable. To put it into action, she should have talked to her puppy when he was acting nicely, within the range of appropriate behaviors. "Good boy, thanks for not being too rough, nice job." AS SOON as he performed a behavior on the inappropriate list, she should have gently moved him away as she did (having a puppy trail a leash is good for this). Then, AS SOON as he calms down, let him go play and continue the communication while he is acting appropriately. This pattern should continue until he either "gets it" and understands what is appropriate, or Stacy runs out of time and had to go home. Eventually he will learn how to behave so he has access to his sister. Want more tips on fine-tuning your dog training prowess? Listen to my radio show on Thursday, April 17th at 6:30pm CST entitled Novice Trainer? Get Better! I love this topic and am already getting excited. You can call in with questions or listen to any of the archives if you miss it. Have other training questions? Ask in the Forums. Happy Training!
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 One of my jobs as a professional dog trainer is to quickly troubleshoot a situation to solve a problem and save my clients training time. I feel incredibly lucky to train dogs for a living because I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with thousands of dogs over the years. Besides the thrill of the initial greeting, I get to spend quality time figuring out specific ways to make training more efficient.
Each dog has taught me a bit more about what works in a given situation and quite frequently something that worked well with one dog does not work with another. Often times novice trainers will call a dog “stubborn” because they don’t know other ways of teaching or motivating their dog to perform. A lack of options and knowledge can put a wrench in the best intentions.
Today is my first post in an ongoing series of dog training strategies and terms that you can use when working with your dog. Dog training is like any other profession. Individual concepts and techniques might not be too difficult to learn, but the true skill comes with gaining comfort with the big picture and understanding which technique to use in a given situation.
It is important for anyone working with a dog to understand that training dogs is a learned skill and is based on the science of animal behavior and learning. As you gain more dog training knowledge, you should try other techniques and see what works the best. If you have read any of my other posts, you probably already know that I ONLY recommend positive reinforcement techniques and completely disagree with the use of choke chains, prong collars, shock collars and other abusive techniques for training. Disagree? I would love to hear your thoughts.
I first heard of the Term “Feed for Position” while watching Bob Bailey’s Chicken Camp while I was attending the Academy for Dog Trainers in San Francisco, Ca. Bob Bailey is one of the worlds foremost experts on animal training, and has trained over 140 different species of animals and thousands of individual animals.
Bob Bailey still conducts Chicken Camps in various places to help trainers refine their timing and training skills. Chickens move so quickly that the thinking is that once you can train a chicken, dogs are easy!
"Feed for position" refers to rewarding an animal after the behavior is performed in a strategic position, which allows for the trainer to achieve a fluid motion to the next training step resulting in more efficiency in time and motion. For instance, if you want to work on teaching a dog to sit, you can mark the behavior when the dog sits and then reward a few feet in front of the dog so she has to stand up in order to get the treat. Then you can immediately work on another sit, creating a fluid training experience.
My two favorite examples of this occur when I am working on “Go to Bed” and “Take a Bow”. When I am training a dog to Go to Bed I mark the behavior with a ‘click’ when the dog is lying on the bed, but I hold the treat off the bed a few feet away so she has to get up and walk over to get the treat. This way, I can quickly get another repetition without wasting time.
The other example is when I am working on Take a Bow. The biggest challenge is making sure the dog does not lie down but moves into the bow position, holds it and then stands up. So, I will ‘click’ when the dog is almost lying down, but then quickly take the treat and move it horizontally in front of the dog so she has to stand up in order to get the treat.
Look for other dog training terms that I will be discussing in the future. I want you to learn how to train and understand the terms that are associated with training. In the future I will discuss blocking, the four quadrants of reinforcement, premack’s principle, habituation, desensitization, flooding, extinction bursts and more.
Have questions? Visit my Forums.
Happy training!
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 There are a few preventative measures you can do with your dog to lessen the likelihood of problems later on. Unfortunately, even if you have the best intentions and do all the exercises properly, there are no guarantees of eliminating the problem later on. Regular maintenance is also a good idea.
Preventing Separation Anxiety
In worst-case scenarios dogs can get so worked up when alone that they can bark for hours, injure themselves by scratching or biting at doors or crates and even jump out of windows to avoid being left alone. Dogs
are social animals that like being around other dogs or people. They
can become anxious if left alone for any length of time if they are not
used to it. You need to get your dog used to being alone. Dogs can,
unfortunately, quickly get Separation Anxiety if they associate being
left alone with a traumatic event. If they are terrified of thunder and
there is a thunderstorm while they are alone, they might associate
being alone with thunderstorms. They can also get Separation Anxiety if
they are used to being with a member of the family constantly and then
the person’s schedule changes or they go away to college.
Signs of Separation Anxiety
- Pre-departure anxiety. Your dog notices the pattern of your routine and shows anxiety at a certain point in the process.
- Barking when alone. Dogs can bark for hours on end when left alone if anxious.
- Not eating food that they normally love when left alone.
- Scratching or biting at exit point or the crate, sometimes until damage to paws or teeth occur
- Greeting anxiety. When you come home they get very worked up and have trouble calming down.
- Accidents
when gone. Usually within 30 minutes of being left alone, dogs with
separation anxiety will have an accident, even if they are usually
housetrained.
Strategies for Prevention
- Don’t
be with your dog 24 hours a day. They need to be left alone. Put them
in their crate or other dog-proof area and leave the room. Make sure to
do these exercises when you are in the house at first so the crate
doesn’t always relate to you leaving for long periods of time. DO NOT
come back if they are barking or whining or that will teach them to be
a persistent barker. If this is already a problem, ask questions.
Start slow and build up the time until they can be left alone regularly
for a few hours while you are in the home. This will make it easier to
have friends over and manage their behavior without them barking the
whole time.
- Don’t make a big deal about
departures or greetings. Ignore your dog right before you leave and
right when you get home. You don’t want the departure or greeting to be
the cue for your dog to get stressed because he is going to be left
alone for long periods of time.
- If you are ever going to kennel or have friends watch your dog, practice when they are young to get them used to it.
Think your dog might have Separation Anxiety? Listen to my radio show for ideas for identification and treatment.Preventing Resource Guarding
Dogs can exhibit object guarding, location guarding, food guarding, miscellaneous guarding or owner guarding. They usually show signs of more than one form. Dogs that show resource guarding quite often present signs of body sensitivity as well. Most dogs will show resource guarding around family members more than strangers, but that is who is most often near the dog.
Adaptive Significance
Dogs natural guard their resources in the wild. Once prey is taken down, each dog takes his or her piece of the animal. If they are weak, the stronger dogs take their food away. Dogs learn to guard their resources to stay alive. When we take them into our homes, we ask them to allow us to take away any food from them at any time, whether they know the person or not. This is an unfair expectation unless they have been taught to be comfortable when people take things from them. Warning Signs
Dogs emit warning signs to communicate to others their intent. In some situations, dogs do not follow the normal pattern and quickly move up the chain and may skip or show only slight signs of each stage. You must be extremely aware of your dog’s signals and pay attention to the stimuli causing the reaction. If you ever see new stimuli causing a reaction, your dog must be systematically desensitized to this new stimuli starting at the easiest exercise and working up the chain. The normal signals include freezing or “glassy eye”, increased speed of eating or chewing, growling, snarling, snapping and biting. Dogs do not try and bite and miss. If dogs intend to bite, they will bite. Some dogs naturally do not exhibit warning signs, others cover-up the signs if there is a history of being reprimanded for growling or barking. The fear is still there, but they will not show the signs for fear of punishment. Warning signs are a good thing for dog’s to exhibit because the signs, if heeded, stop the person from pushing the dog into biting.
Strategies for Prevention
Assuming there is no guarding at this time, play with your dog's food and then drop an extra yummy treat in his bowl, walk by his food bowl and drop something yummy into it while he is eating, touch him and pet him and give him something yummy while he is eating, give him chew toys and hold on to one end so he sees hands in the picture and gets used to them. The pattern is that someone approaches him while he is in “possession” of something and it is a good experience for him.
Keep in mind that dogs can be fine with their immediate family and then guard unexpectedly when guests come over. When your dog is young, have a variety of people -- including kids, (safety is always a top priority when dealing with kids, so be careful) do the prevention exercises when he is a puppy and periodically throughout his life to maintain it. Preventing Destruction
To prevent dogs from learning bad habits, hurting himself or herself or the house it is important to manage their behavior. Even a dog that hasn’t destroyed anything yet, has the potential to learn that the couch tastes yummy. With that said, with a puppy, it is recommended to either watch them or manage their behavior 24 hours a day. Ways of management include:
- Crates
- Baby gates
- Exercise pens
- Attaching leash to your belt
- Tethering puppy to a hook in the wall with a comfortable length of leash (assuming puppy does not chew on leash or anything in area)
It is important to not get lax in management. Take every opportunity to teach LEAVE IT, DROP IT, COME, etc. when there are possibilities of destruction, but also do not feel bad about putting your puppy in the crate when you don’t have time to monitor behavior. It is important that puppies learn to be alone. Questions? Ask in my Forums section. Need help with training? Explore my high-quality videos. See a Puppy Biting sample chapter. Need more training books on behavior problems and other issues? Visit Dogwise.com.
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 Listen to my radio show to hear tips for the most challenging of housetraining situations. I have trained thousands of dogs and have seen it all.
Call in with questions about your situation and get the help you need. Date of Show: Thursday, April 3, 2008
Time: 6:30 - 7:00pm CST Call In Number: (646) 378-1859 Location: Click here to listen live Possible topics covered - Pottying in crate
- Bladder infections
- Coprophagia or feces eating
- Urinating on couches or beds
- Going multiple times inside and outside
- Not giving signals
- Housetraining regressions
- How to tell if it is a housetraining problem or separation anxiety
Call in with your questions or join the chat room and participate live. Listen to archived shows here.
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 Retrieve and Frisbee are two great training exercises to work on with your dog. As always, focus on keeping your dog engaged and interested in each session instead of getting stressed out about finishing the final behavior in one session. Have fun with it and ask questions in my Forums if you need more help.
My favorite way of teaching retrieve is to shape the behavior. Shaping is achieved when a behavior is broken down into many steps and each step is rewarded until reliable. Once a behavior is reliable, it is rewarded periodically until the dog tries a new behavior to increase the amount of rewards. At that time, the new behavior is rewarded until reliable. This process is repeated until the entire behavior is reliable. Breaking Down the Steps of Retrieve - Grab object (either after chasing or finding the object)
- Hold object
- Return with object
- Drop object
Key Strategies to Make Retrieving Easier
- Train in really short sessions of 1-3 minutes to start
- Hide the object when not practicing this exercise
- Only use the object for this exercise
- Use amazing treats to motivate your dog to advance to the next level
The most important part of retrieve is to motivate the dog to interact with the object. To do this, make the object really interesting. You might reward only 5-10 times and then put the object away to keep it really interesting. “Hey, where is the toy, I want to play with it more!!” Then, next time when you take it out again, your dog will be so excited to play with it they might run over and grab it. Good! That is one element of a retrieve described above.
To get a dog interested in an object I use targeting. Put the object one inch from your dog’s nose. When he sniffs it or touches it, say, “Yes!” and give an outstanding treat. Put it close to his nose again, and repeat the “Yes!” and reward each time he touches it. After it becomes reliable, only reward after 2, 3 or more touches. At that point, with the first few touches say, “Good” but don’t give a treat. Your dog has to then touch more times or go to the next level such as biting it to get a “Yes!” and a reward. Important Tip Keep in mind that frustration is actually part of the strategy for behaviors like this. You want your dog to say, "Hey! Why aren't I getting a treat? I touched it 4 times already! Ok, now I am really getting frustrated, I am going to bite this stupid Frisbee!" Then, get really excited and say, "YES!" and give a treat. Your dog will learn that biting is the new level and expectation in order to get a treat. HOWEVER, there is a fine line between frustration and motivation. Your dog might just say, "Forget this! I have no idea what you want of me. I thought touching was the right answer. I am going to go lie in the corner and lick my paw." You want to make sure that your dog is engaged and is periodically getting rewards. If you try for too much at once, he can get frustrated.
More Motion and Angles
Try holding the object above your dog’s head so he has to jump for it. This will get him used to catching the object. Try rolling the object or moving it slowly towards your dog or side-to-side in the air to get him used to movement. Say, “Yes!” and reward each time he mouths it. Then, when that is reliable, put the object down and see if he will pick it up. If he does, say, “Yes!” and give a treat. If not, try moving it around a bit to get him more interested in it.
Recap of Above Steps - Make the object really interesting by only having it visible for really short training sessions and then put it away
- Use targeting to motivate your dog to interact with the object, and say, “yes” and treat each time he interacts with it
- Increase your expectations for interactions as you do more training. The “yes” and treat will only occur after reaching the new level such as touching, mouthing, holding, carrying, etc.
- Use enthusiasm while your dog is doing the behavior and stop the encouragement if he stops doing the behavior
- Hold the toy above your dog’s head, move it around, roll it on the ground to get him used to seeing it from different angles and speeds
You are well on your way to teaching a retrieve. Keep in mind that for each step, you want to reward every time your dog does a behavior until it reliable and then switch to intermittent rewards to motivate him to try something new. Once you understand what steps you should look for, it becomes easy to reward each new more difficult level. Try using your voice as motivation to help your dog continue working.
Next Steps
- Holding the object. Reward instantaneous holds at the beginning and then switch to rewarding longer holds. This is often the most challenging step for even the most seasoned trainer. Don’t get frustrated!
- Walking towards you while holding the object. Hold your hand out and say, “Good boy, you are doing great. . .” If he drops it, stop giving feedback and wait until he picks it up again and continue the feedback.
- Dropping the object in your hand. If you need to, say, “Drop” or “Give” wait a moment and then put a treat under your dog’s nose. When he drops it, say, “Yes!” and give him the treat. With enough practice, you won’t need to use the treat to help him.
Keep in Mind
- Depending on the individual dog, and how much time you train, training a dependable retrieve can take weeks or months
- Keep the sessions interesting. If your dog is bored, your sessions are too long.
- If your dog seems to give up, go back a few steps and start with touching the object or mouthing it and then continue the session. Your expectations might be too high.
- You can use a leash to gently “reel your dog in” while he is holding the object. Always go slow and use only gentle pressure.
- Dogs often do well inside and then fall apart outside because of distractions. If this occurs, back up in your training, lower your expectations and continue working.
Playing Frisbee Please note: playing Frisbee can be quite dangerous for dogs and can result in hip injuries, torn ACLs, ruined knees, etc. I always recommend that you throw the Frisbee so your dog can "run under it" like a nice football pass vs. having to jump and twist to catch it. Ideally, in my opinion, dogs never leave the ground to catch a Frisbee. Keep that in mind and talk with your veterinarian about getting a full checkup if you are planning on doing a lot of Frisbee.
Start with the strategies for teaching retrieve as outlined above. Then, move the Frisbee around and say, “Yes” or click and treat when your dog mouths the Frisbee. Then, the next steps are as follows:
- Shake the Frisbee around
- Hold the Frisbee above your dog’s head
- Then, gently toss the frisbee up and spin it so the Frisbee so it falls straight down
- Then, gently toss the Frisbee towards your dog
- Reward with treats at the beginning, and then replace with your voice
- Do short sessions and put the Frisbee away after the session
- Have fun!
Product Recommendation The only disc product I recommend is the Soft Bite shown in the picture above. It is soft so it is easier for dogs to catch, it floats and is very durable. Try this before you waste your time on something else.
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