Week 3

Week 3

Jenny Proctor LukEli Dog Training

I know you've all been patiently waiting for an update on Hank. Luckily, you don't have to wait any more!

Hank has had quite an eventful week. He had a couple of visitors who spent time feeding him treats, hanging out with, and even walking him. He did great, I am happy to report! 

We pushed the envelope a bit when Cinnamon Ellison of Great Dane Friends of Ruff Love came to visit Hank this pastSunday. I introduced her to Hank without any other dogs present right off the bat and he wasn't even fazed. He was still wary of her but that didn't stop him from coming close enough to take a treat! He is definitely learning that it's ok to approach people because people bring good things like hot dogs. Hank loves hot dogs! He can be convinced to eventually overcome just about any scary situation if a tasty piece of hot dog is involved. Cinnamon did great at not pushing his threshold too far, too fast, and Hank quickly became fairly comfortable with her.

I wanted to show off Hank's growing comfort with leash walking so I clipped the 6 ft leash to his collar and started coaxing Hank to walk with me. He's not as ok with walking on the leash in the exercise yard as he is going for a walk around the property. After demonstrating Hank's ability to walk on a leash in the exercise yard, I decided that things were going so well that we'd try to take Hank for a walk to the barn. We started walking along and I quietly passed the leash and treats to Cinnamon as we walked. Hank never knew what hit him; suddenly he was walking along with a completely different person! The best part is, he actually did it. He kept right on going and needed very little in the way of reinforcement in order to continue walking with Cinnamon. He was a super star that day!

Here's the thing that most people don't understand and then subsequently get frustrated with: dogs don't automatically carry their comfort and familiarity with one activity through to every situation (i.e., Hank is more at ease walking around the property than in the yard because he is more used to walking around the property than in the yard). 

You think to yourself "My dog is perfectly fine going in to Petsmart and behaves himself. Why is it when I tried to walk him around with me at Lowe's he acted like a crazy fool? Sit means sit no matter where we are, right?". Your dog in this scenario has been to Petsmart many times with you and has learned that all the same rules apply there as they do at home (hopefully you've been consistent with the rules no matter the location). Plus, a place a dog is familiar with becomes routine, while a new place is full of new smells, sounds, and sights. It's completely full of distractions and for some dogs, new places can become over-stimulating. For fearful dogs like Hank, being in ANY new environment can quickly become overwhelming and cause them to become reactive to any new stimulus that is presented. New situations can push these types of dogs over their threshold, resulting in a variety of reactions from negatives associations to the stimulus to aggressive reactions as part of the innate fight or flight behavior dogs display.

Introducing dogs to new environments, sights, sounds, people, animals, and anything else you can think of is calledsocialization. The more they're exposed to new stuff, especially when young, the better able they are to handle new experiences. Most of you have probably heard of this. Hank is sorely lacking in this department. It's made much more difficult by his inability to cope well with new environments, though he is gaining more and more confidence all the time.

Teaching dogs that the same rules apply whether you're in the backyard, at the vet, walking down the street, or at a squirrel convention is called generalization. Generalization refers to ones ability to automatically apply knowledge to situations ‘in general’. Both people and dogs can have trouble generalizing. Have you ever been out on the town and run into a person you know very well but found yourself unable to recall their name or how you know them? This is a classical example of how people often fail to generalize. We see a person out of the usual context and our minds are unable to connect the dots. 

Our dogs’ ability to automatically apply knowledge to situations in general is far more limited than our own. They are contextual learners that rely on body language for most of their communication, and their command of the English language is very limited. We can see how the affects of  ‘generalization’ apply in dog training by observing a very simple exercise. During obedience class we begin teaching our dog to Sit while standing directly in front of them; if we then pivot to our dogs left shoulder and say Sit again, our dogs may look at us totally confused or scoot back in front of us, then Sit. Why? Because Sit has always meant Sit with my person directly in front of me. Now take your dog to a new location and ask him to Sit, once again you may get a look of total confusion or no look at all. Why? Because your dog may be unable to recall what Sit means in this new place. 

Dogs need to learn to generalize in a variety of situations with a variety of distractions. Teaching them to focus on you in all these different scenarios is a must. Generalizing walking on a leash with Hank is a large part of his training right now. He needs to learn that the same rules apply and that he's always safe when he's on the leash, no matter where he is or who's walking him. 

Another important thing dogs need to learn is to focus on their handler. I'll talk more about the importance of maintaining your dog's focus and how you can achieve amazing results with this technique in a future blog post.

Now I'll leave you with a bit of a teaser: How do you think Hank is doing with my attempts to get him in the car and go for a ride without freaking out? You'll find out next time!