Never Shock A Puppy

Humane Society of Boulder Valley: No-Choke Challenge

ChampionOfMyHeart — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:10:51 +0000

Today is one of 4 Blog the Change days, sponsored by Be the Change 4 Animals. Since we’ve already posted about the Petsmart Petition, asking them to STOP selling shock collars, we’ll share the terrific news that TODAY is also the launch of the Humane Society of Boulder Valley‘s No-Choke Challenge.

The Never Shock a Puppy coalition is PROUD to have raised more than $2,600 to support this campaign, which includes CLEVER, attention-getting ads and giveaways of SENSE-ation harnesses to anyone in the Boulder, CO, community who turns in their:

Choke collar
Pinch collar
Shock Collar

Because we love the graphics so much, we’ll share them here.

(Having sat in on early planning meetings, long before we launched Never Shock a Puppy, we can tell you that they went with the less racy of the options on the table.)

There is also this terrific G-rated option.

Support the No-Choke Challenge?

Because some of you might want to help spread the word, we’re working on posting code for these graphics/widgets. We’re having some techno difficulties, so please stand by.

Code for Man in Chains Ad

Code for Dog Raising Paw Ad

Check out the other causes pet bloggers are promoting today!

Petition: Ask Petsmart to Stop Selling Shock Collars

ChampionOfMyHeart — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:06:08 +0000

Many, many thanks to Stephanie Feldstein for this nice blog post about our Never Shock a Puppy efforts. We appreciate her enthusiasm and interest.

Now, to return the favor, we’d like to encourage anyone who believes that learning shouldn’t hurt to PLEASE sign this Change.org petition, asking Petsmart to stop selling shock collars.

As Stephanie so aptly writes in the introduction to the petition, Petsmart’s promotes its training services by saying that reward-based training is “scientifically proven to be the most effective method,” … yet, just down the aisle from their in-store classes, the company sells shock collars.

We’d guess lots of them.

So, how amazing would it be if such a big retailer STOPPED selling shock collars?

That would be a big change, and one we support with all our hearts.

Join us, won’t you? Sign the petition today, and ask your friends to do the same.

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Never Shock a Puppy Final Report

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 11:15:33 +0000

We’re happy to make a final report on the successes of the 8-week Never Shock a Puppy pet blogger campaign of 2010. Our biggest thanks to everyone who helped us.

Fund-Raising: We surpassed our goal!

Perhaps the most visible result from the campaign is the $2,640 we raised through both online and offline donations to support the Humane Society of Boulder Valley’s upcoming No-Choke Challenge.

Nearly 50 individual donors contributed money. Serious points for creativity go to a friend in Colorado raised $340 for us by asking guests at her birthday party to make donations instead of giving gifts. Thank you, Angela Cicero, for including Never Shock a Puppy in your birthday celebrations.

We’d be remiss if we did NOT recognize the contributions (both campaign-long sponsorships and cash donations) of our top TWO financial supporters:

Anthony Holloway from K9Cuisine.com

Candy Blakeslee from Best Friends General Store

And, many thanks to DogTime Media for letting us donate the $500 prize from the Best Dog Blog Award to Humane Society of Boulder Valley.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for EVERYTHING!

Helping Real Dogs

Thanks to our many sponsors and prize donors, we gave away FIVE terrific prize packages to these amazing dogs:

Kaiju, from Cambridge, Massachusetts

Maggie and Tai, from Cranbrook, British Columbia

Shadow, from New Port Richey, Florida

Manchego and Brie, from Delta, British Columbia

Fly and Banner, from Dayton, Indiana

Stay Tuned

We haven’t yet decided what (if anything) we’ll continue to do on this topic. We’ll post again, as news warrants.

Dogs Deserve a Pain-Free Future

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:15:17 +0000

October 20, 2010, we celebrate the last stretch of our Never Shock a Puppy pet blogger campaign for 2010. We’ve spent the last 8 weeks trying to raise awareness and raise money. Now is as good a time as any to reflect on why a bunch of us banded together to nudge the traditional dog training mindset in a pain-free direction.

We cannot change the entire dog training world, but we can:

Ask questions
Offer options
Raise awareness
Help individual dogs and individual families who are struggling

Our tagline all along has been … Because learning shouldn’t hurt. And, that’s really the bottom line.

While dogs often get whatever is left of our time and energy after the modern world gobbles us up, they give us everything they have.

Everything.

We simply believe there is no reason to cause pain or fear or intimidation in the name of teaching dogs the rules of living in our lives.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Lilly, canine heroine of Champion of My Heart, an award-winning dog blog, asks you to take the Never Shock a Puppy Pledge ... because learning shouldn't hurt!

Old-school dog training that relies on punishment and outdated, debunked theories and methods will live on … no matter what any of us do. That’s the sad truth.

BUT, not at my house. And, Lilly and I hope not at your house either.

So, today, which happens to be the SIXTH anniversary of the day we adopted Lilly, we’re asking for your support, your donations, and your pledge. Consider it a Gotcha Day gift for the canine heroine in my life.

Take the Pledge!

If you believe that dogs deserve a pain-free future, we ask that you take the Never Shock a Puppy Pledge and make a donation (even a small one) to our charity partner, Humane Society of Boulder Valley. In November 2010, they’ll launch their own No-Choke Challenge. Our work supports their work.

Extra credit goes to those who post their pledge and this link to Twitter or Facebook or other social media venues:

Just donated & took #nevershockapuppy pledge because dogs deserve a pain-free future http://su.pr/2iMBJx

We even have donation incentives for those willing to chip in $50 or $75 or more.

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

Read More!
Never Shock a Puppy coalition members (and others, we hope) are blogging from their own sites today. Check out this blog hop to learn more.

Is Snake Aversion Training the Exception or Not?

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:15:36 +0000

Teaching dogs to avoid rattlesnakes (or other hazardous wildlife, including coyotes, bears, mountain lions) is often the one scenario when some people justify using shock collars. Even people who would NEVER use one in everyday dog training sometimes say, “Yes, in this instance it’s OK.” Since my border collie, Lilly, has survived not one but TWO rattlesnake bites and narrowly avoided a third, I have something to say about this. (Keep reading. Details on this week’s GRAND prize below.)

Dog Training: Life-and-Death Scenarios
The question boils down to this: Would you use a shock collar to teach a lesson/skill that would save the dog’s life?

Lilly, the canine heroine from Champion of My Heart, a dog blog, 10 hours after a rattlesnake bite to the face. Swelling here is down 75% from its worst.

Essentially, traditional rattlesnake aversion training teaches dogs to recognize and avoid the site, sound, and smell of a rattlesnake.

Some dogs — like my big boy Ginko have a natural aversion. Others, like my Lilly, do not and stick their faces right in there. In her four known encounters with rattlesnakes (off leash), two resulted in bites. The first one nearly killed her. The second one wasn’t as bad. We’ve been VERY lucky.

Dogs who approach the snake out of curiosity or whatever receive shocks delivered at an increasing level until they leave the snake alone. Some dogs require very few low-level shocks over just a few minutes. Others, I would suspect, take longer and higher jolts.

Snake Aversion Alternatives
I had the chance recently, while working on an article for a national dog magazine, to interview Jamie Bozzi of SMRTDOG in San Diego, California, a certified pet dog trainer and evaluator, with numerous additional accreditations. Because California has BIG Western diamondback rattlesnakes, Jamie wanted to show you could train snake aversion without using shock collars. She did a pilot program with about 40 pet dogs of various sizes and breeds.

Essentially, Jamie also used site, sound, smell, but instead of shocking the dogs … handlers GASPED audibly and ran away from the fake rattlesnakes and the real bull snakes (laced with rattlesnake scent).

See snake. Gasp. Run. Smell snake. Gasp. Run. Hear snake. Gasp. Run. The key remained to sort of startle or scare the dog to teach “This is a bad thing, run away,” but no shock collars were used.

Many positive-reinforcement dog trainers think we need to stop thinking about snakes as an exception to the rule, and just think of them as any other cue. See snake. Do not approach.

It’s not all the different, they believe, than … See curb. Stop at curb. Wait for OK to cross street, for example. Dogs conditioned to behave a certain way in certain situations are MORE likely to repeat those behaviors.

Dog Training and Generalization
The real challenge with teaching snake aversion is whether or not dogs “generalize” the training experience to anything they encounter in the real world. The general consensus is that dogs don’t generalize well. They learn things in very specific contexts. So, if even one thing is different, the dog might not recognize that the situation called for Behavior A.

So, there are no guarantees that either method will work in all situations. That’s the rub. It changes the question to: Would you use a shock collar if it *might* save the dog’s life?

My Answer is No
For me, the answer is no. In part, it’s because the whole idea just goes against everything I believe about dog training. But, and I admit this freely, it’s because I have a very fearful dog who would be absolutely RUINED by a shock collar. And, I will NOT throw away all the years of hard work to protect her from snakes.

Will I regret that decision someday? Maybe so.

Would I think otherwise if I had a dog with a rock-solid temperament? Maybe so.

But, I also recently interviewed a woman whose famous bloodhound (Knotty, video clip) died of kidney failure 13 months after tangling with a big rattlesnake. We talked about snake aversion training using shock collars, and neither of us have done it. Both of us live in snake-endemic regions.

Dog Training Foundation Saves the Day
The last time Lilly squared off with a rattlesnake outside our house (just a few weeks ago), I used a combination of existing training to get her safely away from the snake without me having to go near it either:

I used a dog agility cue OUT!, which means move away.
I used a runaway recall, like we discussed earlier about teaching COME! Essentially I ran away and asked Lilly to come along.

I like to think I can keep her safe, if we’re together. Alas, both of her rattlesnake bites happened at home, while she was alone on our rural, mountain property.

What do you think?
Is teaching dogs to avoid dangerous wildlife the exception to the Never Shock a Puppy “rule”? Or, can you teach other forms of self control and responsiveness that will work just as well?

Prize Drawing #5 –> Our GRAND Prize!!!
This week, we’ll be collecting entries for the fifth of FIVE prizes we’ll be giving away during the Never Shock a Puppy campaign. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog entry before midnight (MDT), Sunday, Oct 17, 2010, to be entered into the random prize drawing.

Because we hope to reach out to first-time dog owners and new dog adopters, people who self identify as such in their comment below will get a couple of bonus entries. (We’re working on the honor system here, folks.)

You can read all the official rules to learn more, but for logistical reasons, we must limit entries to those in the U.S. and Canada. We’ll notify the winner next week via email, so be sure you enter your email address correctly. Once we know via private email conversations, where the winner lives and what size is needed, we can arrange for prize delivery and for the dog training contact.

This week’s prize package includes:

A $100 electronic gift certificate to Best Friends General Store
A new Halti head collar or harness from The Company of Animals (Thanks to our coalition connections through Best Friends General Store)
A one-hour private lesson with a dog trainer in your area (paid for by sponsor K9Cuisine.com) and contacts gained via the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly)
A $25 electronic gift certificate from K9Cuisine.com
A toy supplied by Calling All Dogs

Since in our chosen WordPress Theme, it’s hard to find the comment link … we’ve made a big one here.

COMMENT!

How Your Donations Help!
Do you want to help spread the word about pain-free dog training? Then, we need your donations today!

Plus!!! We have new donation incentives. Take a look.

As our service project, we’re raising money for the Humane Society of Boulder Valley‘s upcoming No-Choke Challenge. (More details on how our efforts dovetail on our About Page and on the No-Choke Challenge page.)

Just click the donation button on this handy-dandy donation widget to get started!

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

Read More!
Never Shock a Puppy coalition members (and others, we hope) are blogging from their own sites on this and related topics. Each of us explain our opposition to shock collars (and other punitive methods in our own ways), so we hope you find at least one blogger who “speaks your language” so that you can follow our campaign in a way that feels most comfortable to you. Check out this blog hop to learn more.

Training Fearful, Reactive, Aggressive Dogs

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 11:15:28 +0000

Training (or more likely re-training) a dog who is fearful, reactive, or “aggressive” often begins when people try to fix leash walking problems or barking problems or recall problems. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (Keep reading. Details on this week’s prizes below.)

The truth is that these dog behavior troubles take root in deeper feelings, actions, and motivations. Look only at the behavior, and you’re looking at symptom, not cause.

If you learn just one thing from us during Never Shock a Puppy, we hope it’s this: You cannot change how a dog behaves, until you change how he feels.

Dog Training: Why Force or Pain Doesn’t Work
Intimidating a dog or causing it pain is NOT the way to make him feel better about you or whatever scares him. And, the vast majority of seemingly “aggressive” dogs are actually scared. They are NOT trying to dominate you or the world. They pretty much want everyone and everything to go away.

Think of it like this: Dogs behave this way because they have learned that a good offense is the best defense from what scares them. Next time you see a dog flipping out or “being bad,” imagine him crying, “Go away! Leave me alone!”

Whether a dog’s fears manifest as…

Barking/lunging/growling/ignoring you
Hiding/fleeing/refusing

Punishing these behaviors is a bit like punishing a crying baby.

Dog Training: Teaching Dogs New Options
Positive reinforcement dog trainers and skilled animal behaviorists use methods backed by all kinds of science to help dogs calm down. These include:

Proper training tools, like head collars, harnesses, clickers
Relaxation Protocols, which systematically teach dogs to be calm in the face of various stimuli (noise, movement, people, other dogs, etc.)
Counter conditioning, which pairs something that makes the dog nervous with food or toys (something positive) so that the dog develops different associations with it.
Anti-anxiety medications (prescribed by a veterinarian)

Often, clicker training is used. This allows us to “mark” the behaviors we want with a neutral sound. Those behaviors might include — being calm, sitting, not pulling on leash, etc. The click says, “Yes, that!” and then is followed up with a reward.

Sometimes that’s food.
Sometimes that’s a toy.
Sometimes (as in Behavior Adjustment Training … called “BAT”) the reward is more “functional,” like getting to move away from the “scary” thing after offering a better, calmer behavior.

Dog Training Resources for Fearful, Reactive, Aggressive Dogs
We won’t sugar-coat this. Training or re-training a dog with these issues isn’t a quick fix thing. And, honestly, anyone who tells you it is … well, let’s just leave it at this. We disagree.

Never Shock a Puppy can only point you in the right direction, including:

A Guide to Living With and Training a Fearful Dog by our own coalition member Debbie Jacobs, whose site FearfulDogs.com is a tremendous resource.

How to Find a Dog Trainer by one of our BlogPaws friends Eric Goebelbecker

All the great trainers from the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly

Several of us in the Never Shock a Puppy coalition blog about our ongoing work with our fearful/reactive dogs. It’s a great way to learn and see real-world applications of these techniques and tools:

If you have other resources to suggest, please post a comment.

Prize Drawing #4
This week, we’ll be collecting entries for the fourth of FIVE prizes we’ll be giving away during the Never Shock a Puppy campaign. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog entry before midnight (MDT), Sunday, Oct 10, 2010, to be entered into the random prize drawing.

This week’s prize package includes:

A new Halti head collar or harness from The Company of Animals (Thanks to our coalition connections through Best Friends General Store)
A one-hour private lesson with a dog trainer in your area (paid for by sponsor K9Cuisine.com) and contacts gained via the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly)
A $25 electronic gift certificate from K9Cuisine.com
A toy supplied by Calling All Dogs
A copy of the book Am I Boring My Dog and 99 Other Things Every Dog Wishes You Knew by Edie Jarolim
An autographed copy of Housetraining for Dummies by (Never Shock a Puppy Coalition member) Susan McCullough

Since in our chosen WordPress Theme, it’s hard to find the comment link … we’ve made a big one here.

COMMENT!

How Your Donations Help!
Do you want to help spread the word about pain-free dog training? Then, we need your donations today!

Just click the donation button on this handy-dandy donation widget to get started!

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

We’ve added donation incentives this week for donations over $50 and over $75. Check it out!

New Donation Incentives Announced

ChampionOfMyHeart — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:43:44 +0000

Thanks to generous donations from Kevin Myers from Dog Lover’s Digest, who has written TWO terrific posts in support of our Never Shock a Puppy campaign, (starting now) the first FIVE people to donate $75 or more will receive one of these terrific prizes:

The Culture Clash (by Jean Donaldson)
How To Teach A New Dog Old Tricks (by Ian Dunbar)
Speaking For Spot (by Nancy Kay)
Reaching The Animal Mind (by Karen Pryor)
What Do I Do When My Dog Pulls? (DVD by Turid Rugaas)

And, the first THREE people who donate $50-$74 will receive a subscription to The Whole Dog Journal.

Be sure to include a correct email address when you donate so that we can get your mailing address (privately) for shipping.

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

Thank you. Thank you … for your support.

And, just in case you missed it, here are links to Kevin’s two amazing blog posts:

Cool Hand Luke and the Shock Collar

The Emergency Recall — Dancing with a Lampshade on Your Head

Dogs Coming When Called

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:15:12 +0000

Getting your dog to come when called is high atop most of our lists of must-have dog behaviors. When attempts to teach this behavior fail, some people figure that using a shock collar to punish the dog for ignoring “COME!” will fix that problem. (Keep reading. Details on this week’s prizes below.)

This makes no sense to me. Why on earth would a dog WANT to come to someone who just zapped them with electricity in the neck?

Now, I do know one person who uses a shock collar in emergency situations (dangerous wildlife), and her dogs have NO idea that she controls the shocks. So, the zap freaks them out, and they do indeed coming running to her (for comfort, I assume). Other than this one scenario, which rarely comes up, these dogs are trained using positive reinforcement methods and have had constant recall training since they were pups.

Dog Recall Expectations
In recent months, I’ve fielded three calls from friends wanting help using shock collars to fix their dogs’ recall problems. Despite my best efforts to convince these folks otherwise, I’m pretty sure two of these three dogs were indeed subjected to shock collars.

Can you guess which ones? Let’s consider the scenarios:

1. Recently adopted dog goes wandering from unfenced property numerous times last winter and won’t come back. In one case, it turned into a 5-hour odyssey through deep snow.

2. Recently adopted dog (a young one) won’t come when called after being let out on unfenced property.

3. Adult dog, in home since purchase in puppyhood, likes to chase wildlife/livestock while hiking off-leash. The family lives in an area where it’s VERY likely the dog could be shot for chasing animals.

Granted, I live in a rural, mountain community so this whole unfenced business is a little different. Still, in all three cases, I sincerely doubt that the expectation these dogs would COME! were in line with reality. None of them had much recall training at all. Honestly, my gut reactions were as follows:

Put up a fence. Work on recalls.
Put up a fence. Work on recalls.
Use a leash while hiking.

Dog Recalls Take Lifelong Work
We are not peddling quick-fix ideas here. There is no magic to teaching a dog to come when called. It takes work. And, lots of it.

Our advice includes:

Never use “COME!” (or whatever recall word you use) when you don’t mean it and when you don’t think your dog will actually come. This erodes the word’s usefulness. The trick to this is twofold:

Early on, set up situations where you know your dog will come (either short distances or while on leash).
Use another word when you only kind of want your dog to follow along. Personally, I use “Let’s go” when I simply want to get the dog moving in my general direction.

Practice recalls every day. Yep. Every day. In all sorts of situations. And, always, always, always use praise and food/toy rewards. We do little recall practice in the house at meal times so that the dogs associate COME! with their fav things (food!). So, ask your dog to SIT-STAY away from the feeding area, then say COME!. As soon as he arrives, put down the bowl. Voila! Happy, happy recall experience.

We also practice long-distance recalls on our property and little ones when Lilly is excited to go for a walk and likes to run out ahead of me.

This long-distance recall is shot in real time. I have not sped up her race toward me. At first, you can hardly see Lilly up by the fence, to the right of the driveway, but she must cross our upper pasture, swing around the pond, jump the creek, race up a hill, cross the middle pasture (what we call “the ball field” because that’s where we play fetch), and up one more hill.

In this second video, we’re working on recalls as we walk toward the gate on our way out for a real, leashed walk. This kind of recall training focuses on an IMMEDIATE turn toward me. They call them “whiplash recalls.”

Even though, Lilly is now 6. We continue to take “advanced pet dog training” classes that take place at various spots around town so that dogs learn that we expect them to behave, no matter where we are.

Every single class … includes recall work. Every. Single. Class. Sometimes, we:

Run away and call our dogs so that COME! becomes a game. (This training seriously saved Lilly from a rattlesnake bite recently.)
Hide behind trees, over hills, or anywhere out of sight when we call our dogs.

This post is getting long, so if you want to learn more about how a game of FETCH can actually be used in recall training, check out my post over on my main blog, Champion of My Heart.

Dog Recalls: Three Things Actually
We tend to think of dogs coming when called as just one behavior, but the truth is that we’re actually asking for THREE things:

Stop what you’re doing.
Turn around.
Come to me.

Usually, recalls go wrong in the first step because often dogs are super excited by whatever they are doing, smelling, etc.

We’ll talk about fears more next week, but getting some dogs to COME! is hampered by their fears.

Prize Drawing #3
This week, we’ll be collecting entries for the third of FIVE prizes we’ll be giving away during the Never Shock a Puppy campaign. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog entry before midnight (MDT), Sunday, Oct 3, 2010, to be entered into the random prize drawing.

This week’s prize package includes:

A new Halti head collar or harness from The Company of Animals (Thanks to our coalition connections through Best Friends General Store)
A one-hour private lesson with a dog trainer in your area (paid for by sponsor K9Cuisine.com) and contacts gained via the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly)
A $25 electronic gift certificate from K9Cuisine.com
A toy supplied by Calling All Dogs
A gemstone collar charm (which also makes a great zipper pull) from Debbie Jacobs at FearfulDogs.com

Since in our chosen WordPress Theme, it’s hard to find the comment link … we’ve made a big one here.

COMMENT!

How Your Donations Help!
Do you want to help spread the word about pain-free dog training? Then, we need your donations today! Even $5, $10, $25 will make a HUGE difference in helping us reach our fund-raising goal.

Just click the donation button on this handy-dandy donation widget to get started!

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

Barking Dogs

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:15:58 +0000

The sound of silence can be a much-coveted thing in a household with barking dogs. Trust me, I live with a border collie. I know barking. Getting it to stop … that’s where so many of us go astray. (Keep reading. Details on this week’s prizes below.)

And, that’s where so many dogs end up getting choked, pinched, or zapped in the neck by a shock collar (either sound-triggered or by remote) simply for trying to communicate.

Why Dogs Bark
If you’d like to read much more about barking — why it happens, what it means — check out this book: Barking: The Sound of a Language, by Turid Rugaas

In it, Rugaas outlines the 7 kinds of barking:

Excitement barking
Warning barking
Fear barking
Guard barking
Frustration barking
Learned barking
Breed-related barking

In addition to offering insights on how best to retrain dogs who bark, Rugaas suggests keeping a bark log that includes (among other things):

When it starts
How long it lasts
What it sounds like
What the dog is doing while barking

Because barking drives us barking mad, we tend to exaggerate the frequency and length of barking. Keeping a log for a week is a good way to really assess how much and why your dog barks.

Throughout the book, Rugaas advises … “You will see that it is completely ineffective to punish a dog for barking, no matter what kind of barking you are dealing with.”

The Never Shock a Puppy Coalition could NOT agree more!

Training / ReTraining a Barking Dog
The goal cannot be to have a dog that never barks because that simply is NOT realistic. Dogs bark. It’s what they do (in certain circumstances). The key is to have a way (or several options) of getting the dog to stop barking, once he starts.

The truth is, in cases like this, that you cannot change the behavior (barking) until you change the way the dog feels (anxious, worried, frustrated). Punishing the behavior might change the barking, but it will NOT change how the dog feels that causes him to bark.

Two Barking-Dog Strategies
I’m sure across our blop hop this week that others will offer good insights into retraining barking dogs, but here are the two methods I use (or try to, at least):

1. Train an “off button.” For us, it’s the cue SIT. Lilly was taught that no noise is allowed when she is asked to SIT. So, in the morning when she gets really excited about breakfast, I ask her to SIT while I put food in her bowl.

One of our early dog trainers joked that a client once asked, “You’re the dog trainer?” when the client arrived to find all of the trainer’s dogs barking like crazy at the doorbell.

The trainer smiled and said, “SIT.” All the dogs sat. All the dogs were quiet. Then, he replied, “Yes, I am.”

We taught a quiet SIT by only rewarding silent sitting, not noisy sitting. I’m NOT going to say it always works, but it’s one option in our toolbox of managing behaviors I find less than ideal.

2. Play on/off switch games. One of the best ways I know to better steer less-than-desirable dog behaviors is to put them on cue. In other words, you actually TEACH the dog to do the crazy thing, but only when you ask. Then, it becomes a game … of sorts.

For example, my border collie barks during play when she gets over-excited. So, I really rev her up in play and let her bark. THEN, I ask her to SIT-STAY (and by default be quiet, see #1 above). We play again and get really noisy, then I ask her to settle down again.

By working through several on/off cycles, your dog learns the pattern that says, “I can be noisy now.” and “I need to be quiet now.”

This requires some baseline self-control training, but I’ve found it really helpful with my dog — who is just naturally noisy.

Prize Drawing #2
This week, we’ll be collecting entries for the second of FIVE prizes we’ll be giving away during the Never Shock a Puppy campaign. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog entry before midnight (MDT), Sunday, Sept 26, 2010, to be entered into the random prize drawing. (Since our chosen WordPress template puts the link to comment in tiny, tiny print WAY at the bottom of the post, we’re putting a jump link here that will take you right to the post page with the comment screen showing.)

This week’s prize package includes:

A new Halti head collar or harness from The Company of Animals (Thanks to our coalition connections through Best Friends General Store)
A one-hour private lesson with a dog trainer in your area (paid for by sponsor K9Cuisine.com) and contacts gained via the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly)
A $25 electronic gift certificate from K9Cuisine.com
A toy supplied by Calling All Dogs
A gemstone collar charm (which also makes a great zipper pull) from Debbie Jacobs at FearfulDogs.com

You can click through here to comment.

How Your Donations Help!
Do you want to help spread the word about pain-free dog training? Then, we need your donations today!

Just click the donation button on this handy-dandy donation widget to get started!

If for some reason you cannot see or use the donation widget below, please visit the Never Shock a Puppy Donation Site instead.

Teaching Loose Leash Walking

ChampionOfMyHeart — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:15:36 +0000

Walking nicely on a leash is among the most basic requests we make of our dogs. And, yet, it’s also one of the most common scenarios that lead to dogs wearing collars that choke them, collars that pinch them with prongs, or collars that shock them with actual electricity. (Keep reading. Details on this week’s prizes below.)

Defining Loose Leash Walking
Unless your dog competes in conformation, obedience, or rally obedience venues, he probably doesn’t need a perfect “heel,” where the dog stays at your side with his shoulder right at your shin.

Most of us simply need a decent loose leash walk from our dogs. This includes:

Walking nicely in our general vicinity
Not getting themselves, us, or passersby tangled up
Not pulling wildly toward anything or willy-nilly
Not lunging/barking/growling at people, dogs, or other things like (kids on skateboards)*

*We’ll talk more about these behaviors Oct 6, so for now, let’s assume you have a “normal” dog who pulls like crazy on leash.

Point of Power: The Neck
Dogs naturally do this thing, where they pull in response to pressure. You pull. They pull. Hence the drama that unfolds in so many families, where yanking, tugging … and even choking, pinching, and shocking … come into play. (Some call traditional dog training “crank & yank.”)

That’s why head collars or harnesses change the focus from the neck to the head or body. They use what we know about dog physiology and dog behavior in our favor, rather than working against us.

Loose Leash Training
One of the main reasons dogs pull on leash is because it gets them something they want — closer to that other dog, closer to the park, the chance to steal that snack from a toddler’s hand. It’s a very rewarding process. They pull. We get frustrated and give in. They get what they want. Pattern established.

It’s really a matter of the dog having not as much self-control as is required in modern life. A good dog trainer can teach you to teach your dog patience and self-control. Exercises like wait, doggie zen, leave it, and stay go a long away. Even a good sit can save you a lot of grief.

For now, however, let’s just say, in very basic terms, the key to loose leash walking is to teach dogs that Those Who Pull, Go Nowhere.

See in positive reinforcement dog training, we reward what we like and we (mostly) ignore what we don’t. When dogs learn that they get our attention by doing things “right,” ignoring them becomes a powerful way to say, “Nope, not that.” in an unemotional and non-confrontational way.

Trust me. This takes patience, but if you stop moving every time your dog pulls, he will soon learn that pulling = no fun.

Once he stops pulling, you can continue walking, but as soon as he pulls again (which might be right away, at first), then you stop again.

The other trick in teaching a dog not only NOT to pull, but to pay attention to you is to change directions when he pulls. So, if he starts to move ahead to the right and isn’t paying attention to you, you turn around immediately and go left until he catches up. Praise/reward him when he does. Then, you can try to resume your desired course.

Do not wait until the dog is at a full sprint the other way, then jerk or step on the leash to stop him. This delivers quite a “correction” and can do real bodily harm.

Praise & Reward
And, for goodness sake, when your dog gets it right, praise the holy heck out of him and hand over some tasty treat (small piece of chicken or cheese works well).

Soon dogs learn that walking nicely = food/praise/attention. Pulling = no fun.

The Silent Treatment
When your dog needs a little lesson in focus or not pulling, try NOT to say anything because your voice will surely convey your frustration and displeasure. Things like “No!” “Don’t pull!” don’t work.

Don’t say a word. Don’t “pop” the leash. Just stop and wait him out, or change direction.

Dog Training Takes Time
Do not expect that your dog will learn to walk nicely in one day or one week or even one month. It takes a lot of practice in many different locations for dogs to understand that walking nicely means walking nicely no matter where you are or what’s going on.

Prize Drawing #1
This week, we’ll be collecting entries for the first of FIVE prizes we’ll be giving away during the Never Shock a Puppy campaign. All you have to do is post a comment to this blog entry before midnight (MDT), Sunday, Sept 19, 2010, to be entered into the random prize drawing.

This week’s prize package includes:

A new Halti head collar or harness from The Company of Animals (Thanks to our coalition connections through Best Friends General Store)
A one-hour private lesson with a dog trainer in your area (paid for by sponsor K9Cuisine.com) and contacts gained via the No Shock Collar Coalition and Truly Dog Friendly)
A $25 electronic gift certificate from K9Cuisine.com
A toy supplied by Calling All Dogs
An original monotype of a dog in Mexico City from artist Amber Jean

How Your Donations Help!
Do you want to help spread the word about pain-free dog training? Then, we need your donations today!

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