Some Times You May Want to Hide the Treat in Dog Training

My daughter got the frisbee out to throw for Tanner. I normally throw it at him and he catches it. He has never been much of a retriever (though there is definitely some in his blood). She threw the frisbee down the hall Tanner picked it up and brought it back. May I say this is one of the very few times he has brought it back. My daughter was just thrilled with the action so much so that she ran to get the treats for him.

Well, he didn't want to repeat the action or only very minimally. His whole focus was on the treats. He no longer wanted to run for the frisbee. He wanted us to toss the frisbee to him so he could hold it and be rewarded.

Don't under estimate the intelligence your dog has to manipulate you to get what he wants with out much work. Next time we won't drag the treats out we will just try using verbal praise. We may want to just use verbal praise when training and use the treats more as a dessert at the end of training.

Teaching Dog Tricks

Not all dog trainers teach the same way so I always try to learn something from every trainer I see even if they aren't my overall favorite. This trainer is trying to teach her dog the difference between on, under, and behind. This must be a really smart dog because the trainer speaks so much that I begin to wonder if the dog can pick out the command from all the other words. I think often times we talk to our dogs as if they understand every word we say but I don't think I would use that method in training.

She uses a reward marker of "x" which I am guessing stands for excellent. Normally when I think of using a reward marker you only use it when the dog accomplishes the action. She seems to use it to also communicate that the word she said is the action she wants which I think could be confusing to some dogs if used in training.

I thought it was clever of her to use three of the same toy so that the dog would not associate the toy with the command. Using a hand signal may have been more effective that using so many words. I think her overall approach to training would be hard to recreate or teach to others but it was clever to teach him the difference between on, under, and behind.

Waiting at The Door

Kota and Tanner are willing to wait at the door without distractions. So we will have to start adding some distractions to the mix in order to get more proofing of the behavior.

Tanner has been a door dasher since almost the day we got him. The neighbors across the street got a lab puppy around the same time we brought Tanner home and he wanted to find a buddy so bad. The boys were much smaller then and the bigger he got the more powerful he became. He would barrel through us to escape outside. Sometimes I would resort to tricking him to get in the car but then I would have to take him for a small ride or he wouldn't fall for that trick again. My daughter is still small enough that Tanner can over power her and escape through the door. We have resorted to making her go outside through the laundry room because there are two doors and they don't usually rush you to get in the laundry room. But if they did they still wouldn't be outside.

I have learned to look at the dogs and command them to wait because they will listen. If I forget to give them the command it's almost like the door is fair game and they can go rushing out. The goal is to one day not have to worry if someone left the door open but it will take a lot of erasing past behaviors to get there I'm afraid.

Dog Who Can Read

Teaching your dog to read sounds like it could be difficult. Willow is an amazing 12-year old terrier who knows three words wave, bang, and sit up. I've never tried to teach dogs to recognize words but I think it must be harder than using hand signals or commands.

Inspired To Try Free-Shaping

After watching the video I was inspired to try my hand at free-shaping. Without giving a command, though I did try throwing in luring with Kota.

With Daisy my goal was to get her to pick up her toy and bring it back. We got her to bite the toy but didn't make any further progress.

With Kota I wanted to see if I could get him to sit on a box lid. I had to throw pieces of cheese to get him to start moving in the right direction. He never really caught on. I'm starting to think that Kota learns the best when he is moving. He seems to respond better when we are walking than if I sit still.

With Tanner I tried the same thing as with Kota. I wanted to see if he would catch on quicker. I started with clicking when he turned his head towards the box. I think I was successful in shaping a head turning but we never got any farther towards the lid.

On Dr. Yin's website she has an article that responds to reader's question about free-shaping when a dog gets impatient and starts throwing previously rewarded behaviors or barking from frustration. My dogs all tried sitting and laying down for a reward. To get them to progress we had to use luring many times. Dr. Yin gives some advice at the end of her article about not teaching your dog to sit or lie down right away that you should work with shaping first to get the dog use to thinking to get you to reward. They learn to think before they learn to respond to commands. It something I had never given any thought to before.

Fun Ways To Feed Your Dog

Does your dog just eat out of a bowl? I'd never really thought about feeding them any other way. I've included a link to watch different dogs using the new creative toys you can fill with food requiring you dog to work for it's supper.

I'd say this doesn't work for all dogs or maybe it would just require a little training. I can't see Kota trying to push the toy, I've never seen him play with a toy. But I suppose with a little training and the great rewards coming out of it, he might just learn to like toys.

Dog Training Tips

6 Dog Training Tips to help make your training more productive. Training is time consuming and can be fruitless when not approached correctly.

1. Remain Positive. If it's not fun for the dog, they won't want to respond. If your stressed out, upset, or angry no one wants to work with you including your dog. You have to be calm and patient when you train or you could negatively reinforce behaviors that you don't want.

2.Carry Treats In Your Pocket. If you live with a dog the training occurs all the time. It gives you the opportunity to reward your dog at different times or when they are giving a behavior that you want. You can capture your dog's behavior by adding a command to something they already do naturally without having to lure them. Say your dog turns around or circles before he lays down. When you know he is going to circle you can add the command, eventually the dog will associate the command with the behavior.

3.Be Consistent. Everyone needs to use the same commands for the desired behaviors or you will cause confusion. If you don't want the dog to do something such as lay on the couch don't allow it at anytime. The dog will become confused if you let it up once but not another time. Don't use a command more than once. The command should be sit not sit, sit, sit.

4. Dogs Don't Speak Our Language Nor Are They Mind Readers. We have to teach them to understand what we expect when you say different commands. The more you train your dog the better you will be with communicating with them.

5. Use Different Places And Trainers. Dogs don't generalize behaviors so you need to train in various locations. Sometimes they have a hard time behaving for others because they are use to only one person giving them commands.

6. What You Put In Is What You Get Out. Training takes time and many hours of work. Some behaviors your dog will catch onto quickly, others will have to be shaped in order to get the response you want. As humans in a fast paced society we want things immediately but sometimes the best things in life take time.

Training and working with your dog will never be a waste of time.

Bell Ringer

Ever thought of teaching your dog to ring a bell to go potty. I'd like to teach Daisy to ring a bell to tell us she needs to go potty. Daisy knows the command touch which is having her touch my hand on command or sometimes called targeting. I started teaching her to ring a bell in my hand by using the command touch. We will later hang the bell from a door and she can ring it to signal us.



After looking at some videos of dog's ringing a bell, I started to think maybe I would just teach her to bring me the leash when she needs to go outside. I guess I'll have to think about it.

Does anyone have any good bell ringing training tips?

Don't Talk Back

Tanner is a smart dog and learns quickly. The part that frustrates him is when you give him a command and he is not sure what to do. He starts to speak at me as if to say "I don't understand what you want just give me the treat." He was laying down then I told him to sit. That's when he started to speak. I was trying to get him to go from down to sit without having to lure him. He has learned the chain behavior of sitting and then laying down but when you try to go back to a sit he's not sure what to do. It's interesting that he knows a command until you change the dynamics of the action.

That's why in dog training you should use different places and different distractions to really get a behavior down. Dogs don't generalize behavior sometimes it confuses them when you tell them to sit when your standing and then ask them to sit when your sitting. They may learn that my owner needs to be standing when they say the word sit and not generalize that it doesn't matter what your owner is doing just as long as you obey the command.

Working on Recall

We worked on the recall game (posted at the bottom). It's an easy thing to work on with three dogs at the same time. My daughter stood in the other room and we called the dogs back and forth. Tanner is a fast learner and he realized if one person called him then he should run to the other person. He was trying to change the rules of the game, but unfortunately he wasn't rewarded for figuring that out. Daisy is always the one who responds to her name being called right away. Kota was a little slower on the draw, we had to coax him to come at first until he caught on. I forgot to incorporate the grabbing the dog collar, I think we will work on that next time.

We are always working on being quiet. I'm still having trouble with them in the morning or when I come home. Daisy and Kota bark together, feeding off each other as they go. Sometimes they will respond right away to my quiet command and a treat. But other times I have to wait longer. It's not what I would call a normal bark, it's more frantic. I think with Kota's cattle dog breeding, he was born to bark to get at the cattle or people if nothing else is available. I'm not sure why Daisy barks that way though.



The Recall Game
This version copyright 2005, all rights reserved, Rebekah Pless
Free for use by anyone as long as author info remains intact.

Having a dog who will reliably come when called is one of the best things in life. This means FREEDOM for your dog. Here is how to teach your dog to RUN to you each time you call it.

1) NEVER call your dog unless you are CERTAIN you can enforce the command. Each time you call your dog and he does not immediately come to you to receive a food reward, you take a step backwards in his learning to come when you call. It is important not to make mistakes when teaching the recall. DO NOT CALL YOUR DOG if there is ANY chance you cannot enforce the command. EVER.
2) NEVER call your dog to you for anything unpleasant. If you need to interrupt a play session, or you are going to trim nails, or if you are about to do anything to your dog that he does not enjoy, GO GET THE DOG. Do not call him to you.
3) FOOD REWARD every single recall. EVERY SINGLE ONE. This means keeping treats in your pockets at all times.
4) Smiles are required equipment when calling your dog. NEVER EVER call your dog in anything but a praise tone of voice. Correction will NEVER help a recall. Your dog must WANT to come when you call.

To play the game you need at least 2 people, and several is great. Each person is given a handful of very small soft treats. I prefer tiny pieces of hotdogs or string cheese. Pieces should be VERY small, even for a larger dog or puppy. I slice a hotdog in half and cut the pieces the size of a nickle. Once people have their treats, they should take a seat around the room with as much room between them as the room will allow.

One person takes the puppy or dog and points him towards the person who is going to begin the game. This person may do anything to get the puppy to come towards him except say the word COME. Clap hands, smile, laugh, show the treat, call PUPPPY PUPPPPY PUPPPPY, or the dog’s name. When it is CLEAR that the pup is committed to going to the person, and ONLY THEN, say the pup’s name, and come. For example, Bailey, COME! It does not matter if the puppy is almost to you, as long as the pup hears his name and the word COME while he is going TOWARDS the person calling.

Hold the hand with the food right up next to your body so that the puppy has to come all the way up to you and touch you to get the treat. Do not feed the treat until you are holding the puppy’s collar. This prevents the “snatch and run” game. Praise and pet the puppy cheerfully while he is getting his treat. Once the pup has had his little tiny treat, it’s time to point him towards another person who does the same thing.

It is extremely important that the participants understand they are NOT to say the word COME unless the puppy is already doing just that.

Play as long as the pup is interested. Main rules, Do not say COME unless the puppy IS coming, hold the treat up CLOSE to your body, and you must be holding the collar to feed the treat.

This simple game does more to build a reliable recall than any other training you can do. Your pup will quickly learn that his name and the word come means TREAT. Each time you call the pup and reward him for coming quickly to you, you build a more ingrained and reliable response. If you are consistent and train this game at least 2 to 3 times per week, you will have a dog who will ALWAYS come when you call it. Most owners list this as a top priority for their dogs. Here is a fun and simple way to attain this goal.

Practice often! Your pup will love this game, and so will your friends

Dog Training Continues

I saw this cute video of training a dog to go into a bag or crate. We have a bag for Daisy that I never use basically because she doesn't seem to enjoy it at all. So I started training her to get into it.



I hid the piece of chicken in the bag in the back so she had to crawl in to find it.



I then had her sit in the bag for a moment.



From watching that video that I posted yesterday, I learned that I should wear my treat bag all the time and train sporadically. Training to come when your in another room. The thing that worked really well for me today with the barking was being able to tell them to speak and then as soon as I pulled out the treats they were quiet. If that's all it takes to get them to be quiet, I will be pulling out many more treats.

Every Dog Needs Exercise

My son walked the two big dogs for 2 miles tonight. It's nice to have help with exercising the dogs with my busy schedule. It's so important for dogs to get exercise. It's amazing how much better they behave when they haven't been cooped up all day. You can vary your modes of exercise to keep things interesting for your and your canine. Walking, running, you can take them biking, swimming, or maybe on a treadmill. Using a treadmill is a great way for them to get exercise while you are able to do other things.

Tanner has been chasing four-wheelers and dirtbikes since he was a puppy. He gets so excited when he hears the engine go. It's interesting because he has never been a car chaser, he seems to know the difference of being on the farm. That is really a hard workout, but it's hard to get him to slow down.

Take a look at Poppy using his treadmill.

Training Really Works

We all know that training works, but sometimes it hard to see any progress. Our dogs stay in the laundry room at night to sleep. It allows us all to get a good night sleep. If my husband comes to bed late, after Tanner goes to sleep, Tanner gets protective and starts to growl. Daisy wants to sleep in the bed and only with me, which doesn't thrill my husband. Kota would be content to sleep in the living room, but it ensures he doesn't try to wake us early.


Kota has been terrible about barking to get out of the laundry room in the morning. I guess I was the one who just perpetuated the behavior by trying to hurry in the morning and get to the door before he started. With their acute hearing there's no possiblity to beat them to the punch. I had a Duh! moment and thought stupid, you should wait until they are quiet to open the door. Well, as we all know it's hard to get a behavior to get extinct when it has been reinforced. So it has taken months to get them to quit barking. My husband would walk over to the door and they would get quiet, but then I realized that it was just a negative reinforcer perpetuating the behavior even farther. I spent many a morning walking into the kitchen, when the barking would start I would walk right back out. When they were quiet and I would walk back in and it would start all over again.


So now for the past two mornings they are finally quiet when I go to open the laundry room door. Dog training is usually something that takes work and doesn't happen immediately. I really need to be careful of my actions because before we know it we are reinforcing a behavior that we don't want.

Still Working On "Take"

Tanner has got the command down pat. He really is a quick learner. Kota had an impressive hold this training session. He really gripped it in his mouth. That is quite a feat for him, after having to hold the rope bone in his mouth yesterday. Kota never picks up a toy. The only thing he uses his mouth for is eating. Kota is a stray we acquired at the drive-in one night. He had an infected sore on his head and his coat was in bad shape. We estimated him to be around 4 or 5 years old, well pass puppyhood and all the chewing that goes with it.

I think for Tanner tomorrow we will progress to "hold" requiring him to retain the bone in his mouth for a length of time. Kota hopefully will respond with taking the bone in his mouth without have to hide a treat. We'll check back tomorrow with a progress report.

Our Trick We Are Working On This Week

I've decided to set goals or otherwise it's hard to see any progress. Tanner and Kota are learning to take something. My ultimate goal will get them to hold something to work towards retrieving objects later. Kota I would love to be a frisbee dog. He has a strong chase instinct for trucks and cows. I'd like to channel that energy to chase something that he won't get him hurt.

Tanner took about 3 tries and he knew that "take" meant he had to put it in his mouth. I waved the rope toy around and placed it in his mouth with praise, then a chunk of hot dog. I added the command, he is a quick learner, and he opened his mouth to take the bone. After that all I had to do was say take and he placed the bone in his mouth but quickly dropped it for the treat.

Kota I tried getting him excited until he opened his mouth and I stuck it in his mouth with praise. When I tried it again, it didn't work. Next step was to hid some hotdog behind the rope bone, so the smell told him he wanted to open his mouth. He got a rope bone and a piece of hotdog. He doesn't associate the command with the action, with Kota is great progress that he stuck anything in his mouth. He doesn't play with any toys or pick up balls, so hopefully we are working towards that.

It just shows how different each dog can be when trying to train. They learn at different speeds and require different techniques to get the same result.

Teaching Down

Down is the natural second command you teach your dog. I picked out a good video that demonstrates teaching down to a yorkshire terrier. She uses the lure of cheese to coax the dog to follow her to the floor. I like the way she goes from sitting to crouching down because sometimes a dog will listen to you when your standing but will not respond to the command if your sitting. She also has the dog do what I've heard called puppy push ups or going from sit to down to sit etc.







I've found it more difficult to teach our chihuahua to lay down because she is already so low to the ground. I had to use the technique where you sit on the floor with your legs out and lure the dog to crawl under your legs making their belly touch the floor. I've included a video showing the technique I used.

Teaching the Command Sit

It's usually the first command that everyone teaches to their dog. I have included a video to show how to teach the behaviour without having to touch the dog.

You start out by luring the dog with a piece of food. The food is raised over the head of the dog. Trying to look at the delectable tidbit will cause them to place their bottom on the floor. The have just learned the behavior without very little coaxing.

After they learn to sit with the lure you add the command sit just before you lure them to a sit. Then the next step would be to phase out the lure and leave just the command. You can also use a hand signal with or without a verbal command.

Patience is a virtue

Dog training involves remaining calm and patient. It takes practice to remain calm. Most individuals lose control when the dog isn't doing what they want him to do, at that moment all hope of training is lost. It would definitely be time to stop and work on things later. With positive reinforcement training you use calm and creative ways to teach your dogs tricks. Clicker training uses a sound to mark the desired behavior, instead of the traditional training which used jerking and pulling on your dog to try to direct him. Luring is just using a food to get the dog to move in the desired direction. No yelling or pushing is involved. Dog training requires a lot of creative thinking to come up with ways to get your dog to perform the desired behavior. So maybe we should start calling it people training instead of dog training.

Potty Training

Anyone who has every said potty training is easy was WRONG!. It's easier if you have an older dog. Many times you take them out a few times; they will learn quickly. A puppy will need to be taken out almost hourly at first to avoid any accidents in the house. An accident can cause a set back. Confinement to a certain room or crate, with an easy to clean floor, is necessary when you don't have time to watch every move they make. Smaller dogs can be more difficult to train because there signs that they need to go out are harder to pick up. My chihuahua still is not dependable about pooping outside. Most of the time she has to go out right after she has eaten. But if she doesn't go then I have a hard time later telling if she needs to go. If you work hard at it you will be successful, but it will be hard work.

Wearing Out Quiet

As in the other post, I mentioned how you can make a command completely useless. The "quiet" command can be overused and become meaningless, which is the case with my own dogs. I changed the command to "enough". That means that they get to bark once and then they are expected to stop. You will have to reinforce your command with action. It's not enough to just yell at them from across the room, you will have to get up and physical block them from the stimulant. As the case with my dogs, they love to look out the window and bark at other dogs or people walking down the road. I tell them enough and physically block them from access to the window. I remain there until they get the point and turn away in disinterest. At different times just a verbal command will work, as they learn the meaning of the word, or you will have to physically reinforce the command.