DogTrainster.Com

Article Source: todayslocalnews.com
By Arden Moore

Training a dog can be child’s play. Many professional dog trainers report that their best students are children and teenagers.

It makes sense. Children and puppies possess wonderful young minds that soak up learning like sponges. In dog training classes, children learn to succeed. They gain confidence by being able to show off tricks they taught their dog. It’s definitely a win-win for dogs and kids.

Recently, I was invited to speak to a group of cool kids enrolled at the day camp at Escondido Humane Society. When I arrived, the children (between 6 and 11) were all sitting on the floor in anticipation — along with a lovable yellow Labrador named Sunny, a 6-year-old dog belonging to the class instructor, Ina Shookoff.

Our topic was bringing out the best in our dogs using a surefire motivator — healthy treats. Sunny happily heeded my cues to watch me, sit and stay because he quickly grasped my “treats for tricks” philosophy.

The children were eager to learn the ABCs of meeting a dog. First, “A” for ask permission. Next, “B” for be sniffed by slowly offering the back of the hand for the dog to smell, and finally, “C” for be careful to stroke the dog’s back and not tap-tap-tap on the head.

Next up: food bowl advice. The children quickly equated the importance of serving the right food in the right amounts to their dogs to keep them from turning into hairy, four-legged ottomans.

They began shouting out what the first ingredients of any quality pet food should contain: beef, chicken or fish. They quickly raised their hands to deliver the right answer when it comes to portions — use a measuring cup so you can truly know how much chow your canine is receiving.

I love working with young audiences — they keep me on my toes and amaze me with their abilities. Children between the ages of 9 and 15 make the best students in dog training classes because they are the most open to learning.

Adults often have too many bad habits to break, or they become too goal-oriented. My training friends tell me that it can be challenging to show adult students a new way to teach their puppies or dogs to sit and stay.

The competitive nature also surfaces sometimes in classes with some adults wanting their dogs not only to learn the commands but also to be the best. That puts undue pressure on a dog and can interfere with effective training.

Another plus for young students: great eye-hand coordination and timing. In clicker training, you learn to press a small metal device to make a clicking sound each time your dog does the right step. You immediately follow that sound with a small treat to reinforce his actions. The timing of the click is essential. Adults may be a little slow with the clicking sound, but children possess good eye-hand coordination, thanks in part to their video game skills. They usually manage to click on cue.

I know a 9-year-old named Kim who enrolled in a clicker-training puppy class with her dachshund, Bogart. The trainer in charge told me that Kim ranked top in her class, which included mostly adults. Kim even surprised her mom by getting Bogart to heed basic commands like sit, stay and settle during the first day of clicker-training class.

Now Kim and Bogart have advanced to work on new commands and fun tricks, and their confidence levels rise with each success.

Your children represent the next generation of the pet-loving public, so encourage them to join you in your dog’s training classes. Then sit back and witness the maturity growth in your children and your dogs. Now, that’s the best definition of child’s play.

Source from: canada.com

By Joan Klucha, Special To North Shore News

I remember a few years back I had a dog owner ask if her daughter could participate in the training of the family dog.

“Sure,” I said, as this was nothing new. I have parents and children in the classes all the time. But what was unique is that the mother dropped her child off at the dog training class, and she then proceeded to make her way down to the local pub where she spent the next hour and a half while her daughter trained the dog.

This went on for six weeks and at the end of the session I reminded her that my business was to help train her dog not mind her children. Her daughter did a fine job despite her mother’s lack of interaction, which is why I didn’t speak up sooner.

But it was after that incident that I began requesting — nope, insisting — that parents not only be present in the classes with their child but participating in the class as well.

When the dynamics of a family are working well children can do an amazing job training the family dog. This is because if they have made the decision on their own to train the dog, rather than it being a forced condition by the parents upon getting a dog, they are more often than not 100 per cent committed to the training. When they are in the classes they listen intently to instruction and follow it perfectly with little need for assistance.

I encourage parents to bring their child to training as the obedience classes are a great place for a child to establish a form of leadership over the dog. They can be taught how to get Fido to follow their direction and have their four-legged companion respect them.

But obedience classes are not the only place a child can learn how to be a good leader to their furry friend. Proper training and lessons on how to interact with a dog at home are essential as well, and with the parents’ help this training can be implemented for greater training success.

Most families with children get puppies. The idea is that the puppy and child can grow up together and develop a strong bond and friendship. This is often the case, but it can be a bit tumultuous when the child begins to treat the puppy like a living teddy bear or their best friend.

Often I hear parents say that the leadership rules of no sleeping on couches or beds is being followed, except by their son or daughter, and then they are confused as to why the dog is not following direction from them during the obedience classes.

This is because the dog is confused. Everyone in the home has to be on the same page so this means that Fido can no longer be snuggling with Timmy at bedtime or sharing Happy Meals from the back seat of the car.

Smaller dogs tend to get the most confusing treatment as they are often carried around like stuffed toys by children. And the dogs love it.

Whenever there is a problem the dog will often run to the child, the child picks up the dog and presto Fido, the 15-pound pug that is normally nine inches off the ground, has now grown four feet taller and become the instant boss of the house. What a great ego boost children are to those little dogs. Even large dogs will wander over to a child and invade their space and passively demand attention.

The child does not understand that the dog is being pushy and obnoxiously, underhandedly usurping power from the adults by sneaking unsolicited attention from the child. The child just thinks the dog loves him or her and wants to be shown more love.

Having a child train the family pet is a great experience, but the parents need to gently teach the child how to interact with their dog so that training can be successful for everyone.

Source from: examiner.com

Jeff Millman - Dog Training Examiner

If you are a savvy trainer, you can teach your dog to do behaviors on cue that are initiated by a change in the environment that happens naturally or that is part of your normal daily pattern. Unless you are working on a sophisticated trick, the reason to implement this strategy is to alleviate the need to ask your dog to a cue. You will instead “ask” your dog to do the cue with your body or something else that happens naturally. This strategy can be extremely helpful to you and your family and can also make your dog’s life better by creating consistent expectations and house rules.

Often this strategy comes into play to help a dog stay safe or to teach your dog to do something automatically that you routinely ask her to do.

Examples of Environmental Cues

Sit at curbs. Why ask your dog to sit at curbs every time. Wouldn’t it be better if she sat every time you stopped walking?

Lie down when you sit down to eat. If you have a dog that bugs you when you are eating at the dinner table, wouldn’t it be great to teach her to lie down as soon as you sit down at the table?

Sit when a guest approaches. What a slick way to avoid this annoying dog behavior.

Do not run out of the gate when it is open. I have a client that has an amazing garden around the perimeter of his house. His gates open up to the street and he is often in and out of the gate working on his garden. I taught his dog to lie down before she crossed a certain point whether the gate was open or not. The only way she could cross a specific line was after she was given a cue by my client. This way, if he inadvertently left the gate open, she would not run out after him.

Lie down when you put your baby on the changing table. It is understandable that you want some space when you are changing diapers and that your dog might also be a bit interested in what is going on. What a great way to avoid problems.

See the pattern? I call these Environmental Cues because changes in the environment cue a dog to something. Your are part of the environment. So, if taught correctly, your behavior can cause yoru dog to do something that you want her to do — without even asking her! Cool!

Here is an example of how to teach a dog to lie down when she sees a baby get placed on a changing table. You can adapt this to anything that is helpful for your training needs.

Teach the Environmental Cue - Lie Down When Baby Gets Placed on Changing Table
This is a fairly complex task, but it can be fun if you break it down into small chunks. With any behavior, don’t worry about teaching the entire behavior in one session. It could take weeks or months before you can expect a reliable behavior. Speed of success depends on how much time you train, how good of a trainer you are, and how quickly your dog learns new behaviors. I recommend that you focus on being a good teacher each session. What this means is that you are completely focused on your dog. Turn off the phone, give your kids some coloring books and be a good teacher. It is not fair to your dog to expect great results if you are not putting in quality teaching time.

Besides using this for diaper changing situations, this is a great exercise to counteract begging at the table, pestering you or your guests during social gatherings and when you are trying to get some work done. To expect this to work during “real life” moments such as cooking, you must practice a lot before you add those distractions.

For baby situations, it is smart to identify a location in each room that you would like your dog to go to on occasion and work on each location separately. This a great way of pre-planning for times when you need a bit more space and need your dog to move away from the activity.

Please note: C/T means to either say, “Yes” and give a treat or ‘click’ and give a treat. Want to learn more about clicker training? Read my posts about What is Clicker Training? or How to Use the Clicker.

This is called a “chained behavior” and is a way to teach really complex tasks. This behavior has 4 links in the chain. When you say, “Go to bed” the links that your dog needs to understand are:

1. Find the bed
2. Walk over to the bed
3. Lie down
4. Stay

I use Backwards Chaining to teach this, so I actually teach steps 3 and 4 first. The rationale is that if you teach the final two links (Lie down and Stay) then when you add distance, point to the bed and say, “Go to bed” the dog has had a lot of repetition with lie down and stay, so once she starts walking towards the bed the links start falling into place. Once she is near the bed, she naturally lies down and stays because she has done those behaviors numerous times and the muscle memory kicks in to complete the behavior.

Even though there are 4 links in the chain, each link can have multiple steps. For instance, one of the links is Lie Down, but I first teach paw on the bed, sit on the bed, and then lie down on the bed. The main aspect to keep in mind is that you are teaching your dog to interact with the bed and helping her with each of the steps if she needs your help. Don’t worry if you have to help her do the behaviors such as “Sit” or “Down” by luring with a treat or saying the cue. Just make sure if you say a cue, you only say it once.

Step One
This is taught first using the leash. Stand right next to the dog bed, walk your dog over to the bed and every time she touches a paw on it, C/T. Say “off” every time you leave the mat and lead her off the mat.

Step Two
Then, increase the criteria and treat her for sitting on the bed. Walking on the bed becomes, “Good girl” and the C/T happens when she sits. Do five repetitions.

Step Three
Walk over to the bed and ask your dog to “Down” and C/T. So, putting her paw on the bed and sitting results in “Good Girl” and she gets a C/T for lying down.

Quick note: This is a tremendous mental exercise activity because your dog will have to figure out what you want her to do. Provide help in the form of asking her to “Sit” or “Down” only if she needs it. Many beginning trainers don’t realize that you can actually wait a dog out and see if she will figure out what is expected of her before you ask her. My rule of thumb is I will help a dog out if she doesn’t do the behavior in 3-5 seconds, or faster if she seems frustrated.

Step Four
After she is reliably lying down on the mat, stand next to it, point to it and say, “Go to your bed” (or whatever you would prefer) and point to the bed. Make sure that once you say the cue ONE TIME you get the behavior. If she doesn’t move there on her own, gently help her by luring her with a treat, guiding her with the leash, etc. Do multiple pairings of this and then increase the distance between you and the mat. Reward every time that your dog successfully goes to the mat and lies down. Eventually, you can move farther away, point to it and your dog will happily go to it and lie down.

Step Five
Stay is a separate component of this exercise and you can start working on it anytime after your dog lies down on her bed. After she lies down, , ask for “Stay” give verbal encouragement “Good girl, you are doing great, and periodically give her a treat. If she gets up, tell her that she shouldn’t get up yet, “Eh! Eh!” and ask her to lie down again and continue reinforcing her behavior with verbal praise and treats. At some point when she is firmly lying down, say, “OK” and lead her off the mat.

Note: For a solid “Stay” it is important that you release her when she is in the middle of the stay as opposed to just about to jump up. Get in the habit of releasing her before she wants to get up.

Step Six - Add the Environmental Cue
This is when it gets really interesting. I recommend expectant parents practice with a doll months before the baby arrives to have a really solid behavior when they really need it. To create a cue, you just need to teach your dog a pattern. In this case, you want your dog to go to her bed when she sees the baby placed on the changing table. So, put the doll on the changing table, wait a moment, turn to your dog and say, “Go to bed” and point to the bed. Wait a moment, and if she needs help, gently grab the leash and lead her over to the bed and C/T when she lies down. Repeat the act of placing the doll on the table until she does the behavior on her own.

Troubleshooting and Strategies

* Make sure you only say the cue ONCE, pause for a moment and then provide help, whether you ask your dog to Sit, Down, or Go to Bed. If you repeat cues, your dog will learn to ignore you.
* If there is a long delay after you say, “Go to Bed” before your dog starts moving towards the bed, do a few repetitions where you gently guide her over to the bed right after you say the cue. You will help initiate movement and muscle memory this way, so she reacts more quickly to the cue. Always use gentle guidance.
* Stop training before your dog wants to stop. One of the important strategies is to teach your dog to WANT to do behaviors. The best way to do this is to not overtrain. Stop training when she still wants to “play”. “What do you mean we are stopping? I was having fun getting attention and treats! Ask me to do something else!”
* Often dogs will lie down right next to the trainer instead of walking over to the bed. This occurs because the dog is used to getting a reward by lying at the person’s feet and has not made the connection with the need to go to a specific location. If your dog lies down next to you after you have said the cue, gently get her up, walk her over and reward her when she lies down. Next time if you see her start to lie down too soon, say, “Eh! Eh!” before she lies down and walk her over to the correct location.
* Give a lot of verbal encouragement for the beginning steps such as paw on the bed, and sitting, but stop treating once they do it reliably. You want your dog to “go to the next level” and be motivated to do more behaviors such as lying down or walking to the bed. “Good girl” is used to tell a dog that she is on the right track, but needs to do more for the treat.
* Combine this activity with finding Kongs or playing fetch. She will learn that good things happen when she lies down. You will increase the motivation of this behavior.
* Ask for this cue periodically throughout the day such as before walks, mealtimes or games. “Go to bed”. “Good girl, let’s go for a walk!” In this case, the walk is the reward and you have increased the motivation for her to perform this behavior.
* Work on adding multiple locations and naming each one. Examples include rug, bed, back door, fireplace, bedroom, etc.

Source from: sacbee.com

By Susan Tripp and Rolan Tripp

Dogs are wonderful family pets and great companions for children, always ready to play or just to listen. And for the overwhelming majority of children, the experience of having a family dog is a good one. But not all interactions are of the storybook variety.

Every day, about a thousand people turn up in emergency rooms with dog bites from pets of all sizes, shapes, breeds and mixes. Most of these victims are school-age children, with bites to the face being the most common, and boys being seen more often than girls.

Many of these bites could have been prevented with some parental guidance and care beforehand.

How can parents help dogs and children get along? Make sure your children know the basics for enjoying time with dogs safely:

• Play by the rules.

Children and dogs benefit from the exercise and enjoyment of playtime. Rough play and dog wrestling are against the rules. So is running around shrieking and waving arms wildly. Your children must learn to be calm and relaxed around dogs, and play must stop if a dog gets wound up or is uncomfortable with the level of activity.

Teach your children that they are the ones who start and end all games with the family dog, so the dog comes to see the children as being in control of the situation.

Fetch is one of the best games for children to play with dogs. Have your child start the game by asking the dog to sit or lie down, and to end the game by making sure the dog drops or otherwise gives up the toy.

Tug-of-war games are not allowed unless the dog will sit and release a toy immediately at any time when asked.

• Let sleeping dogs lie.

When a dog is asleep, a dog is off-limits. Never let your child be unsupervised around your dog until you are certain he or she has learned not to lunge at or surprise the dog with hugs and kisses. Children should also learn to leave a dog alone while the animal is eating.

Instead of allowing your children to wake up a dog, teach them to call the dog to them. Show your children how to offer the back of a hand to sniff before petting a dog.

• Help with the training.

Let your children feed your dog his meals instead of leaving food out for “whenever” feeding. This lets you and the children use feeding time as a training time.

Have children hand-feed the first five to 10 bits of food in exchange for having the dog follow an instruction such as “sit,” “lie down” or “shake.”

Having children participate in dog training gives them and dogs a solid foundation for interacting with each other. Stand behind your child as a backup, to make sure the dog responds correctly.

Training with food and praise helps dogs to associate children with goodies. Set the example for children by giving the dog lots of praise for good behavior. Encourage children to do the same. (And praise your kids, too!)

• Walk the dog, but don’t let the dog walk you.

Dogs need daily physical and mental exercise, and walking the dog provides both. Adult supervision is a must away from home, always, because you cannot control who or what your child and dog may run into out there.

Use head collars or front-clip harnesses to keep dogs from pulling on the leash. You want the dog to associate your child with these fun excursions. Bring treats along and have part of the walks become training activities.

That’s it. Just a few simple guidelines and you’ll be doing your part as a parent to help your child get the most out of having a family dog.

Leaving things to chance may lead to the emergency room. Don’t take chances: Do your part to keep children and dogs safe and happy.