DOGGIE DOG BLOG

Text by: David Harris
Video and Training by: Cindy Jacobs
Featured puppy: Gus von Prufenpuden
www.vonjacobs.com

To view day four click here:

In day four of the puppy training vlog, Cindy continues to reinforce the behaviors she has taught. Targeting the hand, sitting when close, responding to ATT ATT as a negative cue, and shake hands. Also she is building on Gus’s natural tendency to rear up and put his paws in her hands to start the beginning of the sit up behavior. Much more work will be needed to take these first steps and make them into a trained behavior, but we are off to a blazingly fast start with Gus. Later we will be incorporating the principals of Signal Fading to make our hand signals smaller, developing a Variable Schedule of Reinforcement so the puppy

does expect a treat for each behavior he does, using Limited Holds to increase his speed and motivation to do behaviors, and introducing the concept of a Time Outs as a mild form of correction to stop anticipation and to improve work ethic.

Today I want to touch briefly on Teaching Verses Training. When you are teaching a behavior, you must understand that the puppy does not know the behavior. So, while teaching a new behavior the puppy cannot be wrong. It doesn’t even know what right is, so how can it be wrong? Much patience and persistence goes into teaching a new behavior. The puppy is rewarded quickly for right responses and wrong responses are simply ignored. Some puppies may benefit from a mild negative such a WRONG said gently or a mild ATT ATT, but for the most part your goal in teaching a new behavior is to encourage effort, encourage trying, encourage creativity and willingness. You want your puppy to be enthusiastic and believe he is a genius. You do not want to do anything at this point to make the process of learning new behaviors anything but fun. Much later in the process, once and only once the behavior is firmly taught, then we will switch to training. In training we are now expecting consistent performance of the behaviors that the puppy knows and has demonstrated proficiency with. In the training stages we will be adding distractions and expecting performance regardless of the puppy’s attitude, hunger or level of distraction. When you are teaching you are ASKING the puppy to do a behavior. When you are training you COMMANDING your puppy to obey.

So, watch the video and start thinking of natural behaviors your puppy offers you. Build on those. Keep working on targeting and building better and better verbal communication with your puppy. These skills will be necessary as we proceed and develop more and more complex behaviors.

Please feel to ask questions on Day Four Puppy Training Vlog.

David Harris

http://www.animalresortstc.com