PrefaceThis method was originally shared to me by my mentor, the Late Great Susan Grill of Trained and Maintained Service Dogs, who had a 90%+ success rate in training medical alerts in her dogs that she provided to people. I have her original document saved in my Google Drive, and have for years now, and I've decided to share these methods of training medical alerts to the public. Why post this?Well, for one, because I can. I felt like in order to help a wider range of people, this information shouldn't just be limited to myself and the few who also have this information, so this blog post was born. Did you get permission to share this information?Kinda hard to get permission from someone who's dead, just saying. So no, I don't have permission. However, Susan entrusted me with the information, and I feel like at this point, it's best to have it out in the open. More people can benefit from the information with it shared, and I've always believed in having access to information without a paywall. So, Susan, if you're reading this from beyond the grave, know I'm trying to follow your mantra of helping as many people as I can. I miss you. IntroductionDogs can smell the stress hormones rising in your body. Dogs use the Jacobson’s organ to process scent, an organ humans don’t possess, and are acutely aware of changing body chemistry. They can find a gram of cocaine in an airport — they know when you are going to have a panic attack. There is evidence that this is how wolves and other wild animals select prey. It simply doesn’t occur to them that YOU can’t smell illness. Why bother to warn you of something you must already be aware of? However, many dogs in fact are intelligent enough to figure out that we need help and will warn us, or will worry to such an extent that we become aware there is an impending problem. We call these dogs "natural alerters" since they perform this behavior without training. They can warn you even before that panic attack hits. This gives you time to get yourself out of the situation that might be triggering you, and if it’s a flashback or looping thoughts, to redirect and pull you out before you actually spiral down far enough to have the panic attack. A note on choosing the right dog for Psych Work...It can be difficult to owner-train a Psychiatric Service Dog. Many people inadvertently give anxiety to their dog. The dog worries, you worry about the dog, they worry about you, and you get into a feedback loop that eventually causes the dog to have to be retired, because they're so anxious all the time, and they actually make your stress worse instead of better. Selection of a Psychiatric Service Dog is absolutely the most important aspect of these dogs. You need to choose wisely. Herding breeds are NOT a good choice, no matter how good a working dog they are in other jobs, because they are bred to worry about their flock. The last thing they need is to worry about a worrier like you, right? Get a breed that's bred to hunt, like a hound or a pointer or a retriever. I know some of you won't listen, because everyone chooses German Shepherds or Belgian Malinois, especially the veterans who have worked overseas with these amazing dogs. They are warriors, they are fighters, they are astonishing, but they do not make good psych dogs. Now, people will contact me with “My dog worked out fine” stories, and I will fire back and ask how old the dog is. Dog after dog is ending up retiring with anxiety or other behavioral issues at 6 years old or earlier from constantly watching its handler melt down. Herding breeds are wired to worry and protect, and they are far too intelligent for this job, and they will overthink EVERYTHING just like you do. This is why we use Coonhounds; they're bred to be independent, but still work with their people. They'll work with you without worrying about you like that. Interruption and RedirectionI can’t go into all the training for these amazing dogs, obviously. I’m going to talk about the critical task, which surprisingly, a lot of people haven’t even heard of. It’s called Interruption and Redirection. First is the InterruptionYour dog has probably seen you have an anxiety or panic attack before, and may already be alerting. If your dog starts licking you, pacing and whining, or in any way getting upset before you have a panic attack, they are trying to warn you. They can smell your stress. They can smell it before you can feel it. So listen to them, even if you feel fine. You need to make a change, fast, because something you are doing is ramping you up into the attack. Your body is too tense, your shoulders are somewhere up by your ears, your jaw is tight, your eyes are dilating, and most critically, your breathing is getting fast and shallow. Quit it. Pull yourself together. Yep, it’s that easy. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Everyone with anxiety has heard that from a family member. Put that hatchet down, I was kidding. You aren’t going to “pull yourself together,” because the monumental effort to do so actually increases your tension and anxiety. Forget it. Your dog is going to sort this out for you. Second is the RedirectionThis is an interactive therapy called Redirection and it is incredibly successful. It involves some pre-training initially. You need to teach your dog to tug (as in tug-of-war). Tug of war is easy to teach, but you have to have a solid release command (we say “thank you”). You don’t want to be wrestling the tug toy out of his mouth in public, with the service dog in a full nelson growling happily. He has to be under control when you need him to be, so train that release command! Off you go now. Train tug and release. Then get your butt back here. This is good stuff. Now, next time you get that alert, you drop everything, and I mean everything. You pull over to the shoulder, you leave your cart in the aisle, you grab your baby and stuff him into his carrier and lock him down, whatever you need to do. And then you start a timer on your phone and you play with the dog for a MINIMUM of two minutes. That’s our rule. Has to be 2 minutes or more. You can play the tug game right there in a store. If people are watching you say it’s a training exercise. People love to watch service dogs work. If staring triggers your anxiety, yeah, you have a problem anyway, because you can’t go anywhere with a service dog and not get stared at, and chances are you’re already becoming immune to it at this point. When you play with your dog, your physical chemistry actually changes. Your body changes — shoulders relax, muscle tension eases, you usually start smiling or laughing so your breathing changes, your lungs aren’t constricted, and yes, that devil of a stress hormone, cortisol, starts to subside. We have people with utterly crippling panic disorder come with us to the mall or the zoo with our dogs, and using this technique, get through a day without one panic attack. The dogs alert, the client starts playing, everyone starts laughing and messing around, and even if we draw a crowd (which is usually what triggered the poor client in the first place), the panic attack either doesn’t take full hold or it dies off before it shows up in the first place. It takes a little discipline to make yourself play with the dog rather than sink into a terrified ball and chew your fingertips off, but tough, once you have a service dog, you have to. Our protocols say it is mean to mess up your dog, and your dog will worry about you when you have a panic attack, so you have to play. Yes, we do use guilt to get you to follow this system. This system WORKS. To ConcludeInterruption and Redirection is, I can assure you, a more effective method than any imagery, medication, talk therapy, or other attempt you have made to cope with your psychiatric issues. Simply put, it gets you out of your head. How can stewing about it possibly help? All it does it make things worse, while you worry about whether that comment you made at a party ten years ago made you sound stupid. Yes, I know all about anxiety. Everyone does. They just don’t talk about it. It’s okay to talk about it. Service dogs can help get you back into your life…and out of that traitor of a head you have. Get yourself moving, train your dog, have fun with him, and take control again. We’ll help.
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PrefaceThis method was originally shared to me by my mentor, the Late Great Susan Grill of Trained and Maintained Service Dogs, who had a 90%+ success rate in training medical alerts in her dogs that she provided to people. I have her original document saved in my Google Drive, and have for years now, and I've decided to share these methods of training medical alerts to the public. Why post this?Well, for one, because I can. I felt like in order to help a wider range of people, this information shouldn't just be limited to myself and the few who also have this information, so this blog post was born. Did you get permission to share this information?Kinda hard to get permission from someone who's dead, just saying. So no, I don't have permission. However, Susan entrusted me with the information, and I feel like at this point, it's best to have it out in the open. More people can benefit from the information with it shared, and I've always believed in having access to information without a paywall. So, Susan, if you're reading this from beyond the grave, know I'm trying to follow your mantra of helping as many people as I can. I miss you. IntroductionI've researched various sources that dogs either alert to medical episodes (especially migraines and seizures) or they don’t. That you can’t train them to alert. I’ve even seen this opinion in a science journal. That article was not written by a service dog trainer or any kind of dog trainer or behaviorist, simply someone crunching numbers. Sure, approximately one in ten dogs will alert to a medical episode on its own (according to that article). But the rest… you can train. Not all dogs will catch on right away and not all dogs are suitable for service work, but you can absolutely train the skill of alerting to a migraine or a seizure. All dogs are aware of illness. Dogs use the Jacobson’s organ to process scent, an organ humans don’t possess, and are acutely aware of changing body chemistry. They can find a gram of cocaine in an airport — they know when you are going to have a medical episode. There is evidence that this is how wolves and other wild animals select prey. It simply doesn’t occur to them that YOU can’t smell illness. Why bother to warn you of something you must already be aware of? However, many dogs in fact are intelligent enough to figure out that we need help and will warn us, or will worry to such an extent that we become aware there is an impending problem. We call these dogs "natural alerters" since they perform this behavior without training. It is important to be aware of your dog’s body language and be able to “read” your dog. Most people are not dog behaviorists or trainers, which makes training your dog to alert difficult. And of course many people inadvertently train their dogs not to alert: Your dog gets in your face just as you start to feel awful, so you shove them away and scold them for bothering you at the worst possible moment. Your dog learns that just before their owner is going to have a medical episode, they should just go away and stay out of the way. Later I get told that your dog just doesn’t alert at all. The most important part is being sensitive to your dog’s behavior and being careful to watch when he gets worried about you, and then reacting appropriately. This is a story from Susan herself:
I myself have had moments where an alert came at a very annoying time, but our disabilities do not give a ripe shite about timing. They're always there, and those medical episodes are going to suck, so better to have crappy timed alerts than even crappier timed episodes. Training the AlertLet’s walk through training a migraine alert. You can use the same method to train for any medical episode, but migraines are some of the most common, so that's what we're going to focus on in this post. It helps to have someone on standby to train your dog. Use your worst trigger if you have one. Peanut butter? Interrupted sleep? Talking with your mother on the phone? Hot dogs? Whatever will trigger the migraine, go ahead and lay out your medication and some comfortable clothes, have your human assistant on hand, and get your dog exercised and happy. Keep an eye on your dog and see if they change their behavior toward you as the migraine approaches. If you get aura, cool. But eventually you’ll realize you’re getting the migraine. Did the dog start getting in your space, or begin whining, or start wanting to check your breath or lick your face? If so, you are going to teach an alert behavior. In this case, we're going to use Jumping Up as the trained behavior. The first place you excrete changing chemicals is in your breath. Dogs especially react to seizure and diabetic alerts by checking the breath, so don’t be surprised if your dog wants to get in your face. We call it the Tic Tac Test, as in, ‘Awww, dang it, do I need a breath mint?” But it’s not bad breath — the dog is checking for the change that says you are getting sick. No one really likes getting licked on the mouth. Just deal with it while you are training your dog. Natural Response: If the dog picks up on it on their ownIf the dog wants to lick your face without prompting, he is giving what we call a "natural alert" behavior. This is where we encourage the dog to start jumping up and putting their paws up on you, and mark "Yes!" and reward that (as described in my Marker Training blog post). Now you have a trained alert behavior (which is called a "Trained Task" legally), so when you're out in public, they don’t have to try to get in your face. They can just jump up at you and you know you need to take your meds and try to head off the migraine early. Many people with migraine alert dogs end up dispensing with the heavy duty meds entirely because they are catching their migraines so early. Trained Response: If the dog doesn't pick up on it on their ownIf your dog doesn’t alert, as you get the migraine, ask the dog to lick your face, and jump up on you. You can breathe gently in their face and get him to jump up. Don’t blow hard in their face. We all know that makes dogs crazy. You’ll only do this during the migraine, or as the migraine is coming on. The dog needs to associate jumping up at you with the chemical smell of this particular illness. The jumping will be the signal that you need to take meds. As anyone with migraines knows, the earlier you take your meds, the better they work. Dogs anticipate behaviors, so if you teach them to jump up during the worst of a migraine, eventually they’ll start alerting to you earlier and earlier. That’s pretty typical of a dog. Especially if you mark and reward the jumping, obviously. Dogs work by scent, and they’ll be able to tell when your body chemistry is only just starting to change long before you start to feel like crap. Why choose Jumping Up? Why not something more discreet or less obnoxious?Because you'll ignore it, or try to. You can't ignore a dog that's jumping up at you as easily as you can ignore a dog that's pawing at you, or booping its nose on your leg, or other subtle behaviors. We don't want to have the dog lose its training by way of you ignoring them; it defeats the entire purpose of having the dog alert if you just ignore the dog. Jumping up, Barking, Spinning in circles around you, etc. are behaviors that are obnoxious and really hard to ignore. We like these for alert behaviors because you can't easily ignore it, and you don't want to try. That's why we use them. What about for seizures? You don't always know when they're going to happen and you definitely aren't aware during them to train.If you are training for seizure alert, the same basic principal applies, but seizures tend to be easier to train for. The dog has a more finite incident to focus on. A migraine can last for hours or even days. A seizure can last for seconds, maybe minutes. Obviously you need a friend to help with the training for seizures, or a dog trainer. While the person is post-ictal, get the dog to perform whatever skill you chose, such as pawing, spinning, or barking. Actually, barking is a great seizure alert, because it alerts others around you. Eventually, with other seizures, the dog will put it together and understand that you want them to perform the skill beforehand. It’s a process. How to train a dog using a "veteran" dog?Once you have a trained dog, you’ll use it to keep yourself safe with an unbroken line of service dogs. This is the easiest way to train an alert dog. Once an experienced dog alerts, you have your human assistant grab the young dog and teach it the alert behavior you want, while you let it lick you and check out your scent during the medical episode. To ConcludeFeel free to share this. We believe in sharing information to help as many people as possible. Susan was frequently accused of fraudulence online because some folks think it is not possible to train dogs to alert to some medical episodes, especially migraines and seizures. Anyone who has seen dogs open cabinets and even refrigerators to steal food knows you can get a dog to do anything with the right motivation. Again, any questions, get in touch through our contact form. Stay safe, trust your dog!
A More In-Depth Look into Marker Training!This post will go more in-depth into how I train and use Marker Training, and especially how I integrate it into E-Collar training, or the use of a Remote Collar/E-Collar/Electronic Collar (not a shock collar, as those are inhumane) to allow my personal Hound and other Hounds the freedom of off-leash training, Service Dog work, and general fun times! Hopefully this post helps those looking into an easy, humane way to train their dog several different behaviors starting with the most simple ones: Yes and No, Positive and Negative markers. How to "Load the Marker" for the "Yes!"You want to start with your "Yes!" or Positive Marker, because that's the one you'll be using probably around 80-90 percent of the time. You want to encourage your dog to do what you want them to do, and teaching them how to get their reward is how you get them to do what you want. It's really simple, and doesn't take long. First: Get yourself some dog treats. Something that your dog cannot help herself to love, such as diced hotdogs, liver treats from the pet store, or whatever works for your dog. Heck, sometimes even her breakfast will work for your dog. Second: Get your dog and have her on-leash in front of you. You can sit on the floor, on the sofa with her on the floor in front of you, both of you on your bed, wherever is least distracting for your dog. Third: Begin "loading the marker" by telling your dog "Yes!" in a happy, excited voice, and then giving them a treat, about 15 or so times in a row. Do this "Yes!", Reward training several times a day, every day, for about a week. During this week, also tell your dog "Yes!" and give her a treat every time you see her doing something you want her to do, such as laying down on her own, going into her crate when asked, going potty outside, and whatever else you'd like them to keep doing in the future. Don't worry about putting a name to whatever you're encouraging yet, as that will come later, as described in our last post. After that first week, you will probably notice your dog offering behaviors you encouraged before. Keep marking and rewarding those behaviors. But now, practice by going out on walks, in different areas of the house, in the yard, etc. until your dog definitely understands what "Yes!" means. Then, we'll move on. How to "Load the Marker" for the "No!"Now that your dog understands what "Yes!" is, we're going to introduce the concept of "No!" or a Negative Marker. this is, obviously, the opposite of the previous, and you want to be very careful that you don't discourage your dog from doing things you want during this stage. What we're after is to simply discourage the dog from doing what you don't want them to do, while continuing to encourage them to do what you do want them to do. It can be a bit of a challenge, but that's why I'm explaining it here for you to learn in simple steps. First: Put your dog in front of you on-leash like you did during the "Yes!" training written above. I recommend using a Prong Collar during this phase, but you can use a flat buckle collar or martingale collar if you don't have a prong collar. I do not recommend using a slip/choke collar/lead, as they are not safe for training as they do not stop tightening like a martingale or prong collar does. I advise against using a halter/headcollar, as this stage could cause damage if you misuse it in this way. They're not made for this kind of training. Second: Tell your dog "No!" in a stern, but not loud voice, such that you would use when reprimanding a child, and give a sudden jerk on the lead, such as one you would use on someone's shirtsleeve to get their attention. Not hard enough to hurt the dog, but enough to get them to pay attention to you. This is commonly referred to as a "leash pop" and is a common "correction" behavior to use for dogs. You may also choose to turn away from your dog, and ignore her for a 5-second period of time, which is commonly referred to as a "turn away" which is also a common "correction" behavior. Third: after you have given the "No!", if your dog seems fearful (cowering, ears back, lip licking), take note and use a less harsh tone of voice, or try the "turn away" instead of the "leash pop" and see if they are less upset by that. We are not trying to scare the dog, so make sure your dog isn't getting too upset by this training. Do this "No!", Correction training 2-3 times a day, every day, for about a week, while also continuing to use "Yes!" in between. If you see your dog doing something you don't want, such as chewing on a shoe or barking at the door when the doorbell rings, you may use your "No!" and you may want to substitute the "leash pop" or "turn away" with taking the item being chewed away, or putting the dog in her crate. After the first week, you will probably notice a decrease in behaviors that you used your negative marker with. This is expected, and shows they are learning. You then want to continue by using your "No!" on undesirable behaviors, using your "Yes!" on desirable behaviors, and utilizing them on walks, in the yard, etc. This is especially useful when out on a walk, as if your dog begins to pull or try to chase something on leash, you can use "No!" and turn around and walk the other direction to discourage your dog from pulling or chasing, or you can use a "leash pop" to discourage her. Depending on how confident and strong-willed your dog already is, you might need to use a prong collar while on walks to make your "leash pop" or "turn away" more effective, and this is, in fact, how a lot of dogs learn to walk nicely on a leash. The Beginning of E-Collar TrainingNow that your dog understands the concepts of "Yes!" and "No!" you may begin to start using your E-Collar to gain some freedom. I always recommend E-Collar Technologies for remote collars, as they are high quality and will not harm your dog if used properly. Other brands you could use are Dogtra, Garmin, and PetSafe, though I usually prefer to avoid PetSafe since they do not have a large range of levels and do not have great remote design, however they are still good quality. The first thing you will want to do is find your dog's "Working Level" for the Stim function of the e-collar. You do this by putting the collar on your dog (ensuring it fits snugly, but not so tight that it chokes her) and letting her outside in the yard or putting her on a long line. You then go up one level at a time, and use the Stim button on the collar, watching your dog for a small reaction (scratching, ear twitching, turning around looking for where the stim came from, etc.) If your dog yelps or jumps or otherwise acts panicked on the first number, you have too strong of a collar and you should probably return it and get a gentler collar, then try again. Once you know this number, lock it if your collar comes with this feature. (ECollarTech definitely does, but others might not) Reward your dog after this test with a treat or toy.
The second thing you will want to do is turn on your Tone feature if your collar has both vibration and tone for the same button (ECollarTech does, but others might not) and test it by putting the collar on your dog and pressing the Tone button. Your dog might have a strong reaction to the tone at first, as most Tone functions are fairly loud and it's not far from your dog's ears. Reward your dog with a treat or a toy after this test. PLEASE NOTE: Most of these E-Collars also come with some form of Vibration, or Vibe function. I typically don't use this function because a lot of Vibe functions on E-Collars are very intense, and tend to scare dogs. I have found that most dogs are much more comfortable with Stim, and a lot of ECollarTech's collars especially have the Vibe and Tone functions running off the same button, just set up differently. This interferes with the training method I use as well, which is another reason I don't typically use it. However, your dog might benefit from an adjustable Vibe/Tone Only collar, such as the ECollarTech Pager collar. It would depend on your dog. How to use "Yes!" for E-Collar TrainingNow that you've got your collar set up, it's time to begin the work. Go into a large enough area, and have your dog leashed either on a standard 6-foot leash or a long line. It's up to you what you start with, but a standard 6-foot leash might make this easier at first. First: Tell your dog "Yes!", then press the Tone button on the remote, then give her a treat. Repeat this about 15 times in a row. Second: Back up about 6 feet, ( the length of your leash, or estimate by taking two long strides backwards if using a long line) tell your dog "Yes!", and press the Tone button. If your dog comes to you, give her a treat. If she doesn't come to you, move forward to about 3 feet away (half the leash, or a large stride forward from before) and try again. Repeat this about 15 times in a row. Third: Repeat this process several times a day, every day, for about a week. Then take an additional week practicing by moving farther away using a long line. This allows your dog to learn to listen to the collar even if she can't hear you that well, and also is a wonderful way to teach a Recall, or to come when called using the e-collar. Fourth: Take your dog to a large fenced in area, such as a baseball field, high school football field, or outdoor tennis court. Remove the leash from your dog, and practice by having your dog wait in one place, then taking large strides away, one at a time, to practice without a leash or long line. This is a safe way to reinforce your dog listening to the Tone without worrying if the dog will run away from you. Repeat at this fenced area (or many different fenced areas) for another week, once a day. Make sure during this "Yes!", Tone, Reward training period that you are keeping the e-collar on the dog from the time you get your dog up in the morning til the time you put your dog to bed at night. You may also use the Tone during normal times you would use "Yes!" at home, or out on a walk, or whenever, as we want the Tone and "Yes!" to mean the same thing. This training is both teaching your dog that the Tone is the same as "Yes!" and teaching your dog to Recall, or to come when you call her. These skills are incredibly important, whether your dog is for sports, showing, hunting, companionship, or Service Dog work. Having a solid and well-trained Recall is sometimes the difference between life and death, and we definitely want to be on the Life side. How to use "No!" for E-Collar TrainingNow that your dog understands that the Tone means "Yes!", we will teach your dog that the Stim means "No!" in a similar fashion. Go into a large enough area, and have your dog leashed either on a standard 6-foot leash or a long line. It's up to you what you start with, but a standard 6-foot leash might make this easier at first. First: Tell your dog "No!" and use the Stim (be careful not to use the Boost!) then give your dog a "leash pop" or "turn away" and walk your dog a short distance. Repeat this about 15 times in a row. Second: Back up about 6 feet, and wait for a brief time. If your dog attempts to sniff the ground or wander away, tell your dog "No!", use the Stim (not the Boost!) then give your dog a "leash pop" or "turn away" and walk your dog a short distance. Repeat this about 15 times in a row. If your dog chooses to come to you when you do this exercise, tell her "Yes!", use the Tone, and reward her. Third: Repeat this process several times a day, every day, for about a week. Then take an additional week practicing by moving farther away using a long line. This allows your dog to learn to listen to the collar even if she can't hear you that well. Again, if your dog chooses to come to you when practicing, "Yes!", Tone, and Reward for that. Fourth: Take your dog to a large fenced in area, such as a baseball field, high school football field, or outdoor tennis court. Remove the leash from your dog, and practice without a leash or long line. This is a safe way to reinforce your dog listening to the Stim without worrying if the dog will run away from you. Repeat at this fenced area (or many different fenced areas) for another week, once a day. Make sure during this "No!", Stim, Correction training period that you are keeping the e-collar on the dog from the time you get your dog up in the morning til the time you put your dog to bed at night. You may also use the Stim during normal times you would use "No!" at home, or out on a walk, or whenever, as we want the Stim and "No!" to mean the same thing. Also make sure you are continuing your "Yes!", Tone, Reward training as well as the "No!", Stim, Correction training, as we do not want to ruin the positive with the negative, or the negative with the positive. PLEASE NOTE: Some E-Collars have a Pavlovian Tone Function (ECollarTech does, unsure of other brands) that will Stim a dog (with their Working Level) if you hold down the Tone for over 10 seconds. You may want to be aware of that during Recall practice especially, though later on in training it does help if your dog attempts to "blow off" the recall you asked for. Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice!Continue working on both markers with and without the e-collar once your dog understands it. Eventually, you will get to the point where you will hardly ever actually have to use the e-collar except at distances that your dog can't hear you well enough. It opens up a lot of possibilities for refining other training, but also helps your dog to be able to be off-leash when you would like to give her freedom without worrying about whether or not she will come back to you.
How do I train the Hounds, and why?On this post, I'll be explaining the basics of the methods that I use to train the Hounds. These methods are ethical, safe, and repeatable. However, I will not be going into intricate detail, as it's very involved and I also don't want to share everything because some of the methods were taught to me by others and I was asked not to share those methods with others. Yes and No: Marker TrainingThe first thing I teach the Hounds is the basis of Yes and No. Marker training, usually also referred to as clicker training, is the method of teaching an association with a marker, or sound/cue, and either a positive or negative connotation. Let me explain: > You have your dog on a walk. The dog potties on the grass. You tell the dog "Yes!" and give the dog a treat once they're done pottying. > You have your dog on a walk. The dog tries to chase a squirrel, and pulls on the leash. You tell your dog "No!" and walk the opposite direction so the dog will follow you. These two actions are opposite, and have opposite reactions. It teaches the dog something you want, or something you don't want, depending on what action is taken. Not complicated. Guide the Dog: LuringLuring involves taking a valuable item, such as a treat or toy, and guiding the dog into the position you want. This is fairly easy, but can be difficult depending on what you're working with: > You have a treat. You guide the standing dog's head back with the treat, eventually getting the dog to sit. You tell the dog "Yes!" and give the dog the treat. See it, Mark it: CapturingCapturing involves watching the dog, and when the dog does something desirable (or undesirable), you use your Marker training to encourage or discourage the dog from repeating it. Let me give you an example: > You see your dog lay down on their own. You tell the dog "Yes!" and give them a chew to enjoy. > You see your dog begin to chew on a broom. You tell the dog "No!" and take the broom away. This is honestly one of the simplest ways to teach a puppy manners in the home. You utilize what they have already learned to guide them in their own time. Change the Behavior: ShapingShaping involves teaching another behavior to replace an offered behavior. Let me explain: > You see your dog chewing on a broom. You tell the dog "No!", take away the broom, then give the dog a chew to enjoy. When the dog begins to chew on it, you tell the dog "Yes!" to encourage them. > You see your dog begin to squat to potty on the floor. You tell the dog "No!" then quickly take the dog outside. When the dog potties outside, you tell them "Yes!" and give them a treat when they're done. This method also works well when teaching Service Dogs in Training. When a SDiT begins to alert or respond to your medical conditions in their way, it might not be the way you'd like them to. You encourage them to perform another behavior instead, without giving a negative marker so you don't discourage the alert; just teach them a more fitting behavior. Let me explain: > You're watching your heart rate on a Pulse Oximeter. Your heart rate begins to rise due to your medical issue. Your dog begins to whine and nose nudge your arm. You ask your dog to "Paw". The dog paws at your leg instead of nose nudging, and you tell the dog "Yes!" and give a high-value treat. After several repetitions, the dog learns to "Paw" instead of their original behavior of whining and nose nudging. This can also help dogs learn to bark in response to you falling, or any other possibility you can think of! 1 + 1 = 2: ChainingChaining involves, well, chaining several behaviors together to get a desired result. It's complex, but useful! Let me explain:
> You ask your dog to "pick up" an item. You back up a few steps, then ask them to "come" to you with the item. You do this a few times and add in a new cue, "Bring". The dog learns that "Bring" means to pick up an item near them and bring it to you. > You ask your dog to "Come" to you. You then ask them to "Heel" and they move to stand at your side. After a few tries, you add in a new cue, "Return". The dog learns that "Return" means to come to you and go into "Heel" position. > You ask your dog to "Tug" on a rope tied to a door handle. The dog tugs, and when the door opens, you Mark and Reward them. After a few repetitions, you also ask the dog to "Tug" on another rope tied to the opposite door handle. After a few tries, you add a new cue, "Door". The dog learns that "Door" means to open the door, come through, then close it behind them. A lot of Chaining is used during Service Dog training, for good reason. Being able to combine several cues into one is a very useful thing. But, you can use Chaining for a lot of things, including teaching your dog to bring you a drink from the fridge, or being involved in dog sports! What are the Training Tools I use? |
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November 2023
CategoriesAuthorMyranda Miller |