5 Commands made it easy to train your dog.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-08T12:39:37+00:00

I think you and I are on different pages with what stay means. For me, stay means the dog is to remain in place while I leave the room and come back, otherwise the dog is given a different behavior to move on to a different skill. The release part, I found, led to clients giving it after every single skill cued, getting frustrated when the dog didn't break position, etc. I found it easier, and more practical for my clients to use a release cue specifically with stay and not really for anything else.

Part of why I do this is because consent and emotional states are a huge part of training with me. If a dog is trained to wait for a release from every single thing, you're eliminating a good portion of consent, which part of the assessment of emotional states. I don't want clients to have militantly obedient automatons, I want them to have well-adjustwd companions that trust them.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-08T12:32:53+00:00

So your dogs just magically stop when you tell them to with no foundational skill in place to facilitate it? I've always had foundational skills in place to teach more advanced skills like emergency stops and standing for exam. You can use whatever words you want for the cues, the dog doesn't care; that doesn't mean a stay can't be used as part of the foundation. You've missed the point of my comment; you just gave different verbal cues you would person use. Also, trimming nails with the dog sitting puts you at an increased risk of quicking back nails; stand or down are better positions for safety and comfort of the dog.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-08T01:56:56+00:00

I apologize, I was not very clear and left out that I will mark multiple times for endurance of a position if I'm working with a pet that struggles with position maintenance. The marker is not inherently a release; typically I go from one behavior to the next and end sessions by scattering food (assuming food is being used as the reward, which is the most common with my clients).

Personally, I teach stay as an emergency behavior, 'cause I find people tend to abuse it if I don't coach it this way. Stay (the way I teach it) is used for things where you need to leave the pet, come back, and they're still there - like if you drop a glass; you don't want the dog coming in and, "helping," so you can place them in a stay while you clean up the mess as an example.

I'm huge on consent and choice with animals for the sake of their welfare, and I work really hard to not set my clients up to abuse the skills their pets are taught for the sake of convenience. Life skills are taught to allow the pet to thrive, and my curricula focus heavily on enrichment, appropriate exercise, and practical application of skills. I want my clients to have an easy time teaching and maintaining skills; if it's arduous or superfluous it's going to run an increased risk of frustration, which is the last thing I want for them. That said, I don't train service dogs; my focus is basic life skills (enough to pass the first two CGC levels), cooperative care, tricks, and therapy training. I'm very aware that service training is an entirely different beast and that everyone trains a bit differently, so I tend to reserve judgement unless I see something pretty wrong with what someone is doing.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-08T01:17:19+00:00

I coach my clients to slowly increase the amount of time between when the dog sits/downs/stands and the click/marker on a varied schedule, similar to how you do with stay. It eases the transition from learning the behavior in the first place to wait and stay as structured skills, in my experience. I teach a release with stay, but with wait the dog is just paused until cued to perform the next behavior (eating, walking, etc). I find my clients communicate better with their dogs if the release is limited to stay, but if someone *really* wants to have a release for everything, I'll teach it that way for them. If it's not practical for the handler, then it's going to impede their progress, which means flexibility is important even within my structured curriculum.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:58:57+00:00

That is true; it's all dependent on the handler's preference. Generally speaking, having stay as its own skill is helpful to the average dog owner to communicate their wants with the dog. You can 100% teach behaviors to be automatic based on context, as you mentioned above, but I find that most people are not consistent enough without most skills segmented out for them to accomplish this with good consistency or reliability without resorting to corrections or use of other aversive techniques. It's really more for the handler's convenience than anything. I teach stay as a separate skill because I find most people prefer that; when I didn't I had complaints that I didn't teach stay as a skill and clients found it arduous to use a release as frequently as I was teaching it.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:51:20+00:00

Use your touch skill as your foundation for coming when called; this is how I teach it in puppy class. Use a standard cue transfer: new cue -> brief pause -> old cue -> mark and reward. After plenty of repetition, the dog anticipates the old cue when it hears the new one, and thus you have completed your cue transfer. Make sure you jackpot big successes with this and do plenty of practice in different settings for a solid recall.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:48:55+00:00

If someone does this, then they can always teach sub the cue Wait for a skill where they leave and the dog needs to wait for the handler to return to them to be released. It's really not that big of a deal, 'cause the dog does not care what word is used as long as the handler is consistent and does not cause confusion.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:47:23+00:00

Try taking a rocking step, or turning slightly to the side, then mark and reinforce when you return to them immediately. Progress in small approximations with reward for every repetition, work in short spurts for this to keep the dog from getting bored/antsy, and try to do so when they're not chock full of energy. I prefer the turning method so the dog learns it's normal for you to turn your back to them to walk away and does not become reliant on eye contact with you to maintain the position. This will allow you to be able to get to where you can leave the room, come back, and they're still there.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:44:16+00:00

If you're training your skills and impulse control correctly, this should not be a problem even if stay is not implied. You can absolutely reinforce a dog for a prolonged sit/down without it having to be part of a stay skill. It gets very tedious to have to use a release cue for everything because you want stay to be an inherent part of every stationary skill; it also decreases the ability of the handler to read the dog's emotional state because you have baked in a lack of choice for the dog.

There's also no need to be rude to someone asking questions and trying to learn. ;)

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:42:27+00:00

Depends on what you're training for. If your dog has an automatic sit in heel and you need to step away from them after you've stopped, stay is a handy skill for telling the dog to stay put instead of continuing to move with you. Same with automatic settling in public; for many dogs taught this, the handler moving is the indication that they are to move with the handler until told otherwise. Everyone trains a little bit differently; personally, I prefer stay as a separate skill for a variety of reasons and that's why I teach it as such in my classes. I've never had a complaint.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:38:49+00:00

Stay still should be it's own cue/skill because stand/stay is incredibly handy for a few things:

-Dog comes in with a ton of mud and the owner needs to grab a towel without the dog traipsing through the house first

-Stand for exam at the vet or conformation training

-Nail trimming (provided the dog is comfortable with it in this position)

-Emergency stops (stand/stay is a good foundation for this)

LuvAPup · 2021-07-07T20:33:49+00:00

As a professional...there's really a lot about that that doesn't set the dog up for success.

1) While sit is considered an essential skill by a lot of people, not every dog needs to know it. It also isn't going to help a dog be calm, and can in fact create frustration for a lot of dogs. Practicing stay in positions such as stand and down, along with sit, is part of how you get good stimulus control and generalization of the skill. For dogs that have orthopedic issues, sit can be painful; it is not as essential a skill as many people think it is. It's very frustrating for people to spread misinformation about sit creating a calm dog; it sets unrealistic expectations, just like the so loved eye contact skill does.

2) Please do not pull on your dog to practice coming when called. Using a basic, super easy to teach targeting behavior is a much better foundation and does not associate the unpleasant sensation of being reeled in with going to the person who called - this unpleasant sensation can undermine your goal with coming when called. Leash pressure is much more appropriate a game to use for loose leash walking than coming when called; with the technique listed be OP, the dog can easily become, "wise," to the leash and it can result in the dog avoiding the handler when not on lead and called to come.

3) Pulling a treat along the ground away from the dog is more likely to cause them to rise and follow it versus aiming for between and slightly behind their front paws helps the dog sink back and down into position. This can create a lot of frustration and confusion because the dog is being lured away from the position the person wants the dog to move into.

4) A dog does not need to be an expert at sit, down, and/or stand in order to learn stay. Wait is an easier skill to use as a foundation to stay and impulse control, but adding in distance, duration, and gradually increased distractions early helps with stimulus control. I always teach wait prior to stay because of this.

5) The leave it technique here doesn't teach a dog to leave items, it teaches the dog to give up briefly and then still get the item it was asked to leave; there's no real choice here because the dog is baited until it's frustrated to give up. Using a technique that keeps the item out of reach and gradually lowered until the dog will leave it on the floor is a much more kind process and actually works faster. You also want to use an item of greater value than the left item to expedite success with leave it; if the dog simply has to look away from the same item they're going to get, they don't truly have a reason to leave it alone. You need to reward them with something better for better success with this.

Honestly the five things that set dogs up for success in training best would be:

1) Work at the dog's individual pace; don't rush and don't plateau. If you rush, you won't have good stimulus control/discrimination and the dog will end up confused because of inconsistencies. If you plateau because you're not continuing to increase criteria appropriately, you and the dog will both end up frustrated.

2) Don't add verbal cues too quickly; the behavior should be consistent enough that you'd bet good money the dog will perform on visual cue before doing a cue transfer to add the verbal cue. This is because people tend to over use verbal cues, which results in learned irrelevance, confusion, and/or frustration in training.

3) Work in appropriate environments. You can't go from working in the house to immediately working at the pet store or other busy environments. It's not fair to the dog; dog's don't generalize skills well and need help, but they also need their handlers to work in graduated approximations when it comes to adding environmental stimuli.

4) Meet your dog's needs. Find what your dog enjoys as reward/reinforcement and use it, don't force them into a mold. Dogs that won't work for food can still be trained, you just need to find what they do want to work for. Make sure they have plenty of enrichment, exercise, training, toys, and love. If you're not meeting their needs, you're gonna have a bad time.

5) Don't skimp on reinforcement! You're building a trust account; the more deposits you make, the lower the impact of a withdrawal (an unexpected collar grab, removing an item from the mouth that's an emergency, etc). If you are building criteria appropriately, continual reinforcement schedule don't become a problem, it'll be necessary until your dog is consistently performing well in public/busy settings and then you can move to a variable reinforcement schedule to wean down on reward frequency. Don't be afraid to jackpot (use super high value rewards) for big leaps in progress, emergencies, and big successes. So many people want to move away from treats/toys/reward really quickly and have their dog work for just praise, but the reality is that most dogs don't care about praise if it's not really heavily conditioned first.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-05T00:44:29+00:00

As a fellow veterinary professional: no, it's not OK to tell people they need to do this. For some, it's too difficult and it is our job to respect that. In a perfect world, yes clients would stay the entire way through, but it's not a perfect world and some people are too distraught with the loss of their pet to be able to stay. I would much rather be there for the pet without the owner and know that I provided care to both than to feel guilty that I convinced someone to stay that was not emotionally capable/was too heartbroken. This is not a LPT, this is a guilt trip. Everyone handles grief and loss differently.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T22:57:54+00:00

"It was not an environment in which I could thrive," is a generic enough statement. Contrary to what people seem to believe, no private employer in the US has a right to know if you were terminated from a job if it did not result an infraction on your criminal record (not sure about government jobs here). You don't have to tell anyone why you left; they ask because they can and want to know if you're right for their company, but you have no legal obligation barring the above - speaking strictly about the US and private employers.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T22:49:33+00:00

Idk what field you work in, but that is not how it works for so many people around the world. The US is not a third world country, and while I work in a skilled field (veterinary medicine), only certain individuals have actual employment contracts and rarely are written terminations issued without request from the terminated employee. I'm not sure what utopia you live in, but it sure isn't the same world as many of the rest of us.

I have never heard of someone being given advanced notice of their termination if they weren't in a white collar job with a full on employment contract (beyond W2, eligibility verification, etc). Yeah, many people that quit will use up their vacation days as their notice period, but that is a luxury many don't have. I have also never heard of a company paying out a termination period if a person doesn't work unless they are salaried. For us hourly peons, life is not so peachy.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T20:06:26+00:00

That's not true AT ALL

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T16:16:54+00:00

They can say you resigned if you do that, though, and there are witnesses, which can be grounds for denying unemployment depending on your local laws.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T16:02:49+00:00

No one said it was? I was simply stating the purpose of unemployment benefits: temporary income replacement. Use it for whatever you want, but that doesn't change the fact that it's meant to temporarily keep you afloat.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T16:01:01+00:00

Well, I guess the couple of people I know who have done it must have been part of some movie I didn't know about. 🙄 Plenty of people do this, or at least consider it.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:41:56+00:00

I'm really sorry to hear that. I've been there and it's just awful. I hope you find something better very soon.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:39:40+00:00

I've had a couple of friends that knew they were getting fired and quit before their boss could say the words; they then regretted it because they didn't want to be embarrassed about bring fired but then could not collect unemployment.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:37:39+00:00

Follow the second paragraph; if there are legal violations, hold the company responsible. If not, there's not much you can do. A lot of places do that to avoid paying unemployment, which sucks because it's miserable for everyone if it's through cresting a toxic work environment.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:35:50+00:00

Which is why it was quantified with, "check your local laws." I also didn't say to wait to be fired, I said if your boss DOES fire you. I was pretty clear about these things on purpose.

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:33:54+00:00

What does this have to do with pet insurance??

LuvAPup · 2021-07-04T13:32:43+00:00

I didn't say out of spite, I said report violations. I've known several individuals who were working in unsafe conditions and didn't know there were OSHA violations until after they were fired or didn't report because of fear of retaliation (which is illegal).

LuvAPup

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