Shaping Behavior

I have been digesting Jane Killion's book "When Pigs Fly" and using it for training purposes @ Sit Stay & Play. I must say it has been a lot of fun. I had never been a big fan of clicker training until I started this approach with the 2 lab puppies. Now Jane would classify the labs as biddable animals, meaning they are eager to please their handler/owner. Yes it's true but they also lacked any sort of attention span!
Well in a few short weeks they are wrenching their necks when they hear the click. They have also caught on to the shaping behavior very quickly. It only took Bailey 2 short sessions to realize that if she picked up the box she would get a treat.
Now Kyah who may be Basenji/terrier mix is not what Jane would consider as biddable. but in her training session today she not only offered the sit but also the down to get the clicker to go off!!!! Yeah Kyah. Good Dog.

Austin

Now I'm not sure if Austin got his name from the city? But like Austin Tx he's pretty and tough. Although I'm not sure I should call him pretty his owner is in the military and probably wants to think of Austin as a tough guy. He is a Shiba Inu a Japanese dog. Austin is coming to Sit Stay and Play to be crate trained among other things. His owner Mike is about to deploy on his second tour, this time to Afghanistan and Austin will be staying with his friend Amy so we need to make sure we have him all trained up by the time Mike gets back.

Micky

Is a Cavishon a designer dog. A blend of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon. An interesting mix. He is full of enery and keeps up with the labs pretty well. Being fast he is able to out run the labs but he is definitely a sturdy little guy. He and Austin play pretty we'll together. It's always nice seeing boys getting along. Micky has his own car seat so he can see put the window while his owner Leslie drives him around town a man of style!

Zephy

Zephy Is a bulldog and new to Sit Stay and Play.she acclimated herself very well with the other dogs, however Zephy likes to guard what she thinks are her toys. What she hasn't figures out yet is that they are my toys. Today while playing with Gaston she started to guard one of the stuffed animals. Gaston backed off but it was Emma who handles the situation. She walked over to Zephy and placed herself between the toy and the bulldog puppy. No growling but body language that said I decide who guards what. Zephyr backed away and made no more attempts to guard any toys, instead she decided to indulge in a mud mask to enhance that beautiful face!

Thinking about the box

Is a learning game for your dog. You can read about it in Jane Killions book "When Pigs Fly". While this sounds like a strange title for a dog training book it holds amazing foresight into dog training.
Bailey and I walked our way through the exercise, clicker in one hand and book in the other. To my delight Bailey showed many moments of greatness as she was clicked through sniffing, touching and eventually picking up the box to earn her treat. This form of training is called free shaping and it requires the dog to offer behaviors until they get the clicker to go off. In a five minute training session Bailey learned what was going to get her a treat. The idea is training becomes a game as your dog offers behaviors to make the clicker go off. When you can be 100% sure that your dog will sit at the click you can start using the command "sit" once their butt has touched the ground and eventually discontinue the click and use the word. Voila your dog is offering a sit.

Jacoby Ellsbury aka Emma

Unless you are a baseball fan and specifically a Red Sox fan you probably won't catch the drift of this blog. Jacoby Ellsbury plays center filed and can play just about any ball off the green monster and manages to make the play. I believe he is in contention for the golden glove award this year.
Well Emma could keep right up with Jacoby. She plays the  tennis ball off any spot on the floor and any bounce off the wall and makes the play. I have never seen her miss. and she never tires of playing the game. I think I have come close to wearing out my arm tossing the ball for Emma. The Red Sox scouts should definitely consider signing her for next season, with Emma on their team they might actually win another World Series!

Understanding Dog

Over thousands of years dogs have refined their communication and survival skills without the help of humans. Without our interference they are able to survive in the wild and continue on with the species. So when exactly did we decide we knew better than a dog as to how it should behave?

Probably the biggest issue people have with their dogs is jumping on people. Humans think of jumping as a bad behavior and spend hours and hours trying to stop the "bad" behavior. But how many of these owners have given much thought a to why a dog jumps? I am just as bad as anyone else. Dog jumps on me and I tell them off or no jump as they approach a person. Like everyone else I try to "fix" what I perceive as a bad behavior, but let's look at it from the dogs point of view. Early on while still in the whelping box puppies learn to approach their mother and siblings by jumping up and licking their mouth a form of greeting and submission at the same time. Have you ever noticed when your dog meets another dog one of the first things they do is to jump on the other dog. Dog is saying well hello my name is Finn. The same goes for a person, the dog jumps up to greet and the person pushes them off. So the dog thinks wow I didn't get my point across so let me jump even bigger, higher and harder.
It is almost impossible to train a dog not to do something like jumping up to greet but it is possible to train a different response like "sit" for a greeting. Trying to think like a dog is probably the hardest part of dog training.