Nauset Kennels

THE BIG THREE

One of the most important things a new dog trainer can learn are the three main principles in dog training: timing, consistency and motivation.

Armed with these three principles, you can train a dog to do just about anything! If you are ever finding yourself having difficulty in training, or if it seems to you that your dog is confused, ask yourself if you have fully observed the BIG THREE.

1.) TIMING
A dog has a period of 1.3 to 1.5 seconds in which to associate a cause with its effect. This means that the saying “catch them in the act” is absolutely true! This applies to both corrections and rewards and praise.

With rewards, it’s necessary to provide the dog with the reward at the exact moment the dog does what you like. If you’re teaching a “sit,” for example, you would want to provide the reward at precisely the moment the dog’s rear end hits the floor.

This is usually very difficult, however — by the time you have fetched the treat out of your pocket and moved towards the dog, the dog is now standing! And since we know that the dog associates the reward with what they were doing at the exact moment they received it, the dog will associate the reward with the standing, not the sitting you were trying to teach! This is why the advent of training with markers has become so popular; by teaching a dog that a word or a click is followed by a reward, it becomes much easier for the trainer to tell the dog exactly what it has done that has earned him a valuable reward. It is a highly effective way to communicate with a dog.

While a mistimed reward slows down learning, too many mistimed corrections can have even greater consequences. To correct a dog for breaking a “sit-stay” five seconds after he got up is meaningless. Again, the dog will believe he is being corrected for whatever he was doing at the moment he got up. If he gets up from his “sit-stay” and comes to you and you correct him, he will think he is being corrected for coming to you.

Also, too many mistimed corrections and your dog may begin to think that nothing they do is ever right, and they will shut down. This is called learned helplessness. Some dogs labeled submissive are actually not submissive by nature, but have acquired learned helplessness through bad training. It makes the dog insecure and it makes you, the trainer and owner, seem unpredictable and untrustworthy…and possibly scary. You can see how this could be detrimental – Mistimed corrections can not only slow down learning, they can also harm the relationship between you and your dog.

2.) CONSISTENCY
When training a dog, you must be very clear. There is no grey area. A rule is a rule is a rule. This means that if you do not want your dog to jump up on you when it’s raining and they have muddy feet, then they cannot be rewarded for doing it when it is sunny out.
If you’re in a great mood because you just got a promotion at work, you may happily greet your dog when they jump up on you when you get home. However, don’t be surprised when your dog doesn’t understand why you yell at them for jumping on you the next day when your car has just been side-swiped in the parking lot.

A dog that is allowed to jump on adults will not understand that they cannot jump on children or the elderly. Likewise, a puppy that is rewarded constantly for jumping up will turn into an adult that doesn’t understand why the rules have suddenly changed.

Again, this does more than make your dog confused on the issue of jumping, it can also make you seem unpredictable and untrustworthy. You must strive to be 100% consistent in your training! This will result in a dog that feels safe and secure knowing that there are well-defined rules and boundaries in their life with you and your family. As a bonus, you’ll also have a dog that doesn’t jump up on people… because they never get rewarded for it!

3.) MOTIVATION
A simple way to understand the concept of motivation is that a positive consequence makes a behavior continue and a negative consequence makes a behavior stop.

You communicate with your dog with praise and rewards when they do something you like. As a result, the behaviors that you reward will begin to occur more often. You communicate with corrections (a verbal “NO!,” a leash correction or withholding of the reward, etc.) when they make mistakes, or are breaking clearly defined rules. As a result, the behaviors you correct (if they are timed correctly!) will begin to decrease in frequency.

Both rewards and corrections must be motivational to the dog. You want your communication to be meaningful. That means that your rewards must be good enough that the dog is inspired to strive for it in the future. For example, if a dog doesn’t like to be petted on the head and that is the reward you use when he does something correctly, you have actually provided a negative experience for your dog!

If you are in a high-distraction environment, the reward you use for ignoring the distraction has to higher than the promise of the rewards the dog would get from paying attention to the distractions! You should know that some dogs prefer a game of fetch or tug to food, while others live for praise. Some dogs prefer Cheerios over steak! Let your dog tell you what they like…do not put your own preferences on your dog if you want your training to work well.

Likewise, negative consequences must be unpleasant enough to make your dog motivated enough to avoid them in the future. Too many “no, no, no, no, nos” said to your dog without any follow-through will simply become background noise. A correction should be enough to stop the behavior…no more and no less.

APPLYING THE BIG THREE
As you train, think of these factors: If your dog is not responding or is acting stressed or confused, ask yourself whether you are really being clear with your dog. Does your training fall into harmony with the BIG THREE? Is your timing correct? Is your training motivational? Are you being 100% consistent? If you are not answering “yes” to all of these questions, you cannot expect miracles from poor Fido. Practice every day!

Good luck, have fun, and happy training!

Crate training is an all-out wonderful concept. Every puppy should be crate trained. There, I’ve just put it out there without any diplomacy. On this issue, I don’t think I need to play that diplomatic card and worry about offending anyone because crate training is a simple, benign concept.

Crate training provides your dog with his own home, his own room. It provides you with a safe place to put your pet should the need arise. Here on the Cape we are planning and discussing emergency shelters. If we ever did have an emergency, wouldn’t it be a small comfort to know that your pet is used to a crate and won’t be freaking out at being put in one? And whether or not you can admit it, not every person visiting your house likes dogs, even the friendliest of dogs. A crate is the perfect solution to having those friends over that don’t love your dog.

Crate training should start when you first get your puppy. Ideally, the crate should be just big enough for the puppy to sleep in, so if you have a growing pup, you will need to switch crates as he grows. Avoid the “getting the next size up in case he grows” thought. If a crate is too big for the dog it will defeat the purpose, which is to convince the puppy that this is his home. Instinctively, dogs do not like going to the bathroom in their sleeping area. If the crate is just big enough to sleep in, then he won’t want to go potty in it. This also highlights the concept that crates serve as excellent house-training tools. Just remember that once that crate door is opened in the morning, immediately put your puppy out to potty. To this day my dogs still go from the crate to the back door.

Entice the dog to enter the crate with treats and a command, such as “Kennel up,” or “Crate.” We actually tell our dogs to go to their house. Don’t use the crate as punishment, sending the dog to the crate when you are mad. After awhile, they will actually head to the crate on their own when in trouble. Remember, it is their safe haven. Your puppy will probably make some noise or scratch at the door of the crate for a few nights. Don’t let him out! Do leave the door open to the crate during the day and encourage the dog to spend some time in it with toys or treats.

My dogs love their crates. I know some customers who say that their dogs really ignore their crates after awhile, and that is fine. At least the dog has the concept of the crate. Because we use ours every day though, the dogs really do see them as their safe spot. If the kids are being too rambunctious and Pecan gets a little scared, he will seek out the safety of his crate. As Scout gets older and has more trouble jumping up onto our bed, she ambles into her crate for a snooze instead of trying to get on the bed. We leave their crate door open during the day and at night we close them in (remember, I’m the one who can’t stand sleeping with my dogs!).

Another bonus to the crate? We don’t have the dogs deciding when we get up in the morning. Our dogs actually continue sleeping or hanging out in their crate until we open the door, even if the time varies from day to day. My father-in-law’s dog gets him up every morning at 5 whether or not my relative is ready. Would that happen with crate training? I can only speak from my own experience: the five different dogs that we have crate trained stay quiet until we let them out.

Yet another positive to the crate? Last night, Pecan started his whole throw up routine. Very commonplace in our house, so we didn’t fret over the vomiting, but we did worry about our babysitter scheduled to arrive that evening. She shouldn’t have to clean up dog vomit on top of watching our cherubs, so we put Pecan in the crate. Was there a chance that he would throw up and we would have to clean him and the crate? Sure, but we like our sitter and decided that was preferable to losing her because of our throw-up king. (Parents out there can understand the fear of losing a valued sitter!).

On that kid note, crates have given our kids some really cute moments with their puppies. The mantra in the house is that the crate is Scout and Pecan’s home, so we’ve tried to teach the kids to respect that. However, when they were smaller, they would sometimes wander into our room in search of the dogs. We’ve found Colby asleep with his head on Scout’s belly, half in the crate, half out. Before Pecan arrived, Delaney would bring her books and her blankets into Scout’s crate and read to her. And our dogs have the best decorated crate in town. The kids draw pictures and tape them to the crate, or, if Scout is in an “eating paper” mood, we will tape them to the walls around their crate. As the kids have gotten older, they are starting to respect that when the dogs are in their crate and the door is open, then perhaps they need a little time out from us.

To me, there is no downside to crate training, except the fact that crates really do make horrible additions to your decor, particularly if your dog is the size of a small apartment! Then I might reconsider crate training! However, I know that when I leave my house, my dogs have the opportunity to be safe in their crate. They don’t mind ever mind being put in the crate, so when the rugs are being cleaned or we are having people over, we are comfortable and more importantly, our dogs are comfortable.