Phasing Out the Hand Signal

When your dog has a positive association with following your hands, learning hand signals happens so quickly.

Hand signals can communicate what you’re asking your dog to do even from far away when your voice can’t travel that far (great for recall training work).

Hand signals are also a life skill for your dog. As dogs age, they can loose their ability to hear.

Using hand signals throughout your dog’s life can preserve the communication you can have with your dog even if your dog is not able to hear your voice.

Verbal cues are also important for our dogs to learn and to learn them independently from the hand signals as another life skill.

Phasing out the hand signal also provides an opportunity for your dog to problem solve with you which also strengthens the bond between you and your dog.

My client and her dog Teddy are in the stage of learning and teaching of phasing out the hand signal as an every time occurrence.

Since my client has hard wood floors and they can be a bit slippery, she’s using a mat which is more comfortable for Teddy which will also be more encouraging for him to lie down too.

My client gives the cue for down and Teddy looks away. She waits a bit, but then uses the hand signal for down.

My timing was off in this first round of asking her to give Teddy time to think.

The second round, my client quickly integrated what I coached her to do and as you can see Teddy makes the choice in responding when he’s ready.

Thinking takes a lot of brain power, so we gave Teddy some time off the mat with some treat and retreat fun!

My client and Teddy are nearing the end of their Pet Parent and Puppy Support Program.

They will be getting ready to take their Pet Dog Ambassador Program assessment in 2022!

A shout out to Rompin Paws Rescue https://www.facebook.com/rompinpawsrescue/ for matching Teddy to their family!!

If you enjoy having a hands on approach in teaching your dog life skills, but not sure how to go about it, you can schedule a Discovery Call with me and we can chat!

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Where You Begin, Punishment Ends

There’s no room for pain in a relationship. Take a stand against shock, choke and prong collars.

Talking with a puppy parent last week, she was sharing how she was struggling with her dog’s leash pulling.

She mentioned how many friends, neighbors and passerbys mentioned to her about using an electronic collar, prong collar or choke chain.

I asked her what her understanding of how those tools work?

She didn’t know.

I shared with her that those tools cause the dog pain which shuts down the dog from doing what dog’s naturally do.

Behaviors like sniffing the ground and zigzagging on a walk (believe it or not, dogs don’t naturally walk in a straight line, they meander and are following their nose).

These tools are designed to punish those behaviors.

Dogs experiencing learned helplessness is what is described as a dog giving up because there is no other option. The bad situation is inescapable or unchangeable.

As the conversation with the puppy parent continued, she shared she didn’t agree with those tools, but she wasn’t aware of what other options were available.

This puppy parent values teaching her dog with do no harm principles.

Her value of building a relationship and cooperation with her dog was a priority and she inherently knew tools like prong, choke and shock collars went against her values, but she was at a loss of not having access to information that is aligned with her values.

With new information presented, she was excited about the possibilities.

Other options she expressed she never tried before were counting games! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fV3pExLrFjk&fbclid=IwAR1X6-GZDHh2KLQI315U2HXD9UJt4QemtjAxy–vqUX3hbVkImz1Yy4PNUI

When she learned how simple this activity is and recognized that going slow and building distance in the walk is secondary to building the engagement between her and her dog, gave her a sense of relief.

Are you looking to build connection and cooperation with your dog, but not sure how? Schedule a Discovery Call with me and we can chat!

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Why Do You Teach What You Teach?

A client asked me, “how do I get my dog to heel?”

I asked her what is important to her about why she wants to teach her dog how to do this?

She responded that she didn’t know?

Taking a look at the purpose or the method of teaching a particular skill or reinforcing a behavior is an important piece in training.

From a cultural standpoint, the dog training industry was and still is at times focused on obedience training.

Obedience training is rooted in the concept of having power over and controlling your dog.

It sets the expectation that you will teach your dog to listen to you and perform every cue requested in a timely fashion.

That mindset sets you and your dog up for failure.

Modern approaches in dog training focuses on building a relationship requiring mutual respect and benevolent leadership by the caregivers rather than domination.

It requires understanding and consistency in establishing a daily practice of engagement and fun.

When your dog is acknowledged for making the choice in staying close to you, your dog will more likely offer staying close to you more frequently and now the reinforcement history of your dog walking by your side is established.

Then you are achieving your goal of your dog walking next you while your dog is being rewarded for naturally offering a behavior your dog finds pleasurable.

When you live with awareness of the purpose of each skill you are intending to teach your dog, you will begin seeing how your dog’s behavior extends beyond the skill itself.

When looking at teaching my client how to encourage her dog to stay close, the reason underpinning her interest in teaching a “heel” was more about her dog’s fear response towards other dogs.

She believed if her dog stayed close to her, then the barking would ultimately stop.

Now, we get to the root of the concern.

When a dog feels unsafe, they go through fight, flight and freeze response which looks like a dog barking and lunging at the other dog or whatever your dog perceives as scary.

A dog walking in a heel or staying close isn’t going to help your dog feel safe when the scary thing is still too close for comfort.

Now, we focus on helping our dogs change their minds about those scary things.

Curious how? Schedule a Discovery Call with me to learn more!

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