Posted on

The Great Curtain Battle of 1999

Australian Terrier Puppy, BentleyI’ll be perfectly honest. I made all the same mistakes as anyone who every owned and raised a pup. I’ll never forget one of the many incidents when my newly adopted, turbo terrier, 10-week old pup, Bentley, was unsupervised for only a moment. In less than 10 seconds, he breeched a baby gate and enthusiastically bolted into the off-limits, living room.

He immediately attacked the most valuable ornament in the room, the curtains – the very curtains that my wife had so artfully created over a period of months, the very curtains that were so carefully displayed with cascades of expensive silk, the very delicate curtains that flowed from the ceiling and onto the floor into a calm pool of rich texture and colors.

I looked into the room. Bentley was engaged in battle, an incident that would eventually reach epic status and be referred to as The Great Curtain Battle of 1999.

Bentley had the ranks of the curtains pinned to the floor with his massive five-pound body. His head was raised and he was aggressively tugging the draperies in an all out effort to dismantle the entire arrangement! I could envision the rod swaying with each tug. Giving in to my excitement, the word NO loudly exited my lips.

Bentley stopped for about one second, looked my way, and re-engaged the enemy with increased vigor. Oh no, I thought, he accepted my input, not as a signal to disengage but as a challenge to escalate the fight! I moved closer, repeated my futile attempt with a very loud, low-toned NO. Again Bentley modified his attack. He added a curtain-intimidating, terrifying war growl to his assault!

I was standing over Bentley when I delivered my final protest, a very distinct, sub-woofer version of NO (bigger hammer?). At last, he ceased the assault. Bentley stopped tugging. Bentley lowered his previously-high-tilted tail. . . . .

Bentley lowered his previously-high-tilted head. . . . . .

Bentley lowered his previously-forward-tilted pricked ears. . . . . .

In one smooth, sad, motion, he lowered his whole body and urinated on the curtains under his feet.

Post-Battle Discussion

Ignorance is never shy. Ignorance often demands center-plate billing, garnished and displayed like filets of rainbow trout, with colorful spices on beds of multi-textured, wild rice. The Great Curtain Battle of 1999 represents one of the many instances when my delicious lack of knowledge about animal behavior and learning was presented, highlighted, glorified, and consumed by an animal that did not subscribe to popular, inaccurate, non-scientific, communication techniques.

It was that precise moment when I realized this little guy was sure to place all my ignorance about animal behavior and learning on naked display. This guy was different. Although NO seemed like an effective strategy with my previous dogs, it had failed miserably with Bentley. The urine-soaked silk and the fear that was displayed by his tiny trembling body transmitted my failures quite clearly.

It was obvious that my failure to manage the environment, my lack of preparedness, and my failure to communicate, had taken a toll on my relationship with this young, exuberant pup. . .   . To this day, I am still sorry that I momentarily transformed an exuberant, playful, young, happy, curious, adventurous, pup (a pup with too much freedom and not enough structure) into a fearful, distrusting, unhappy, and confused, urinating pup. . . . . . . (OK, ok,. . . . .  enough with the drama. . .  don’t feel badly for Bentley. . . . . . . . as always, Bentley recovered quite quickly!)

Let’s take a look at exactly what Bentley learned, didn’t learn, and what he might have learned if I handled the incident differently.

Remember, every behavior that is reinforced will be repeated. All the maneuvers of the battle (before the last few seconds when I unkindly crushed Bentley’s enthusiasm) were reinforced, because the immediate consequences of each step were appealing to Bentley. Each step he performed served to achieve his immediate goal. Yes, Bentley learned some valuable lessons, but unfortunately none of them were on my list of concepts and behaviors I wanted to teach.

Bentley learned:

  • it is a great strategy to be persistent when breaking through barriers
  • exciting new items and fun games are on the other sides of barriers
  • charging and battling the curtain were exciting and fun behaviors
  • his assumptions that I would partner with him in battle were incorrect
  • the curtain was a fierce and formidable opponent
  • my approach might be followed by a scary attack

Curtain battles raged for the next few months – apparently no form of punishment was an effective repellant for ‘must-topple-or-pee-on-curtain’ behaviors – and apparently my preventative tactics were flawed

  • the curtain became a permanent magnet for inside elimination because we couldn’t properly clean the silk fabric embedded with numerous dangling chords and beads
  • the curtain was finally retired after numerous battles and soiling had displaced its beauty

Bentley did not learn:

  • about respecting baby gates (quite the opposite!)
  • about ‘staying out’ of the living room (quite the opposite!)
  • about ‘not-battling’ the curtain (most definitely the opposite!)
  • that NO was a signal for him to stop

Was it a Timing Issue?

Maybe the timing of the NO was my major failure?

If I had delivered a protest during his first attempt to break through the baby gate, perhaps he would have learned that breeching barriers in my presence was an unsafe strategy? Hmmm…. not really on my list of target concepts or behaviors I’d like to teach. Can’t baby gates be used as barriers when people are absent? I wanted him to respect barriers in my absence, not only when I was present.

If I had delivered a protest the instant he was bolting into the living room, perhaps Bentley would have learned that bolting into living room was a dangerous strategy? Hmmm . . .  again, not really on my list of target concepts and behaviors I’d like to teach. I don’t want him to be afraid of traveling into the living room.

If I had delivered a protest the instant he grabbed the curtain, perhaps he would have learned that battling the curtain might cause me to attack him? That’s assuming he would have associated the NO with his behavior of grabbing the curtain, an unlikely assumption at best. He would be more likely to associate my approach and my presence with the NO. After all, my approach would be the most obvious event that immediately preceded the NO! Hmmm…. Not quite the relationship I intend to establish. I don’t want my dog to be afraid of my approach!

NO not effective?

It appears that NO was not an effective strategy, but a miserable failure for teaching Bentley anything useful during the Great Curtain Battle. So, what should I have done and how can I use NO effectively in the future?

I should have:

  • Managed the environment by preventing the battle altogether
  • Taken advantage of the initial Interrupt, the one-second pause after the first NO, to Redirect Bentley to perform another, more desirable, replacement behavior and then delivered Praise for complying with my Redirect.

NO can be an effective Interrupter or ‘First Step’ for teaching polite behaviors. Interrupt RedirectPraise is the most efficient context for NO.

The Truths of NO:

  • NO can be an effective interrupter in some situations.

  • More confident pups might translate our lower voice tones or louder volume of voice when we deliver NO as a playful challenge. It’s nothing more than a welcome invitation for confident pups to escalate their activities!

  • Less confident or shy pups become frightened when we bark out stern NOs. They might freeze, flee or urinate in fear. Personally I would never knowingly trade my enthusiastic, happy, curious, mischievous turbo terrier for a fearful, frozen, fleeing, or urinating pup!

  • Compliance with NO is dependent upon the pups’ personalities and the situations at hand. It depends on the volume and the tone of the word NO. It depends on the levels of cooperation we have previously developed with the pups.

  • Compliance with NO also depends on how motivated the pups are to complete their current undesirable activities. For example, NO might work well when your pup is snooping in your closet, a closet that he has investigated many times before. The same pup may ignore the NO if he just breeched a baby gate and is exploring a forbidden room. Those craft projects spread out on the floor are so stimulating and desirable that he doesn’t even seem to hear the word NO!

  • NO is an Interrupter. Used alone, NO is an incomplete sentence. NO is only one third of a valuable teaching sequence, InterruptRedirectPraise.

  • After delivering NO, we should immediately take advantage of the NO Interrupt and complete our sentence. The best teachers enthusiastically engage and Redirect their pups and dogs to perform an alternate, acceptable behavior.

  • The instant our animals start to comply with our Redirect request, we should deliver Praise, some sort of reward, thus increasing the replacement behavior via positive reinforcement.

  • To use this sequence, we should identify, teach and practice the Redirect behavior in many situations before we use it in real-time. We should take our dogs through each grade of performance! For instance, we should practice sit in mildly distracting situations before we practice sit when guests come into our homes or when kids are running.

Manage the Environment

On the day of the Great Curtain Battle of 1999, Bentley the 10 week-old puppy had lived with me for about six days. By day two, I realized this turbo puppy was likely to ‘explore-himself’ into trouble anytime he was unsupervised for a few seconds. Recognizing that it was only a matter of time before he conquered the gate, I should have attached a tether, a sort of umbilical cord. To use this prevention tool, get an 8-10 foot line and attach one end to your pup and the other end to your belt. A tether is a management tool, not a teaching tool.

Management Tools

Management tools are short-term, preventative measures. Think of them like diapers on a baby. We all know that babies will eliminate anytime, anywhere. We all know that it’s impossible to teach a 3-month old baby about potty training. We all know that the day will come when it is time to teach the child potty skills. So, until the time is right for teaching, we use a temporary management tool. We use diapers.

The same applies to our pups. It’s impossible to teach them everything they need to know in one or two days, or one or two months! We all know that pups and dogs will get into the trash, jump up on counters, urinate in homes, steal our clothes, tug the curtains, chew the furniture, jump up on guests, bolt out doors and gates, run into the streets, dig in the gardens, et cetera.

With all this ‘knowing’ going on, it’s amazing that 90% of most complaints about unruly canine behaviors would be non-existent if the people used short-term, preventative, management tools, like leashes, tethers, secured baby gates, and crates. None of these short-term tools teach our dogs, but, like diapers, they can serve a very useful purpose during periods when teaching cannot take place.

It’s tough to teach pups how to behave nicely when they are happily engaged and practicing unruly behaviors. If you haven’t yet taught your pup how to behave around guests and your dog is soon-to-be exposed to visitors, use the diapers! Attach a leash to prevent your dog from practicing mug-the-guests behaviors!

Posted on

Interrupters: Squirt Bottles, Newspaper Swats, Shake Cans – Are They Effective for Changing Dogs’ Rude Behaviors?

java_jpg

Interrupters are corrections people use to momentarily stop their dogs’ behaviors. Examples of potential interrupters are shouting “no”, squirting with a water bottle, shaking a can with pennies, tossing keys on the floor, swatting with a newspaper, or holding a pup’s muzzle closed.

Interrupters can stop a behavior for the moment. Great, sometimes we need to stop a dog or puppy from misbehaving! Unfortunately, interrupters do not necessarily decrease the likelihood of the behavior reoccurring in the future.

Interrupters decrease behaviors for the moment and can be very useful short-term tools when we are unprepared. Interrupters do not efficiently modify behavior over the long term.

Many of my clients with serious problems unknowingly intensify the problems via the improper use of interrupters.

If you answer “YES” to any of the following questions it is very likely that you are using interrupters inefficiently and/or your methods of communicating and teaching are flawed.

  • Have you used the interrupter on many occasions to stop the same behavior(s)?
  • Is the behavior occurring as often today as it was yesterday?
  • Will the dog cower at the sight of the interrupter, even though he or she is not misbehaving?
  • Does the interrupter need to be visible, or held in your hand, before the dog will comply with your wishes?
  • Are you constantly carrying the interrupter with you, or purposely placing the interrupter within easy reach?

Using constant interrupters as teaching tools has unwanted side effects, the least of which is a confused, distrustful dog. In addition, interrupters do not teach the dog which behaviors you do want.

Interrupt – Redirect – Pay

You can use interrupters effectively if you complete the thought and tell your dog what is acceptable. Interrupt –> redirect –> pay is the most efficient use of interrupters.

Anytime you say “no”, ask yourself these two questions. What exactly would I like my dog to do at this moment and exactly where would I like him to do it?  Once you have these answers, you’ve just identified your redirect behaviors and your next training goal. Teach your dog to perform the redirect behaviors in that specific context. Do this when you have complete control of the environment.

For instance, suppose your dog jumps up on the dishwasher door and licks dishes when you are loading your dishwasher. Ok, you’ve defined the problem, now decide on a solution.

What exactly would you like your dog to do when you load the dishwasher? Where would you like him to do it?

You’ve decided that you’d like your dog to lie on the kitchen area-rug when you load the dishwasher. Here’s a summary of your training plan. Variations of this exercise can be used to address other problems such as bolting out open doors and stealing food from counters.

Remember, you can’t teach your dog when life is calling the shots! Set aside some time and teach your dog this specific skill.

First, teach your dog “Go to Place (place is the rug)”.

Gradually increase the time he must stay on the rug before you pay him.

Add the distractions of the dish loading process – one step at a time. Have him stay while you bend down and touch the handle, while you operate the door handle, while you open and close the door, while you place a dish inside, et cetera.

After a few short sessions, your dog will know exactly what to do, when you load dishes, and he will know exactly where to do it!

The next time your dog jumps up on the dishwasher door, tell him “no”, immediately cue him to Go to Rug, then release and pay him – after you are through with your task.

Better yet; before you begin to clean up, tell your dog to “Go to rug”. Don’t forget to pay him after you are finished cleaning up!

Happy Training!

Alan J Turner – Companion Animal Behavior Counselor & Trainer, Canine Specialization

Private and Group Dog Behavior and Training Services

Memphis, TN

How’s Bentley

Posted on

AA-2 What is Animal Training? Communication & Cooperation

quickstart2jpgAnimal Training

What is animal training? Animal training is the act of encouraging or discouraging an animal to perform specific behaviors more often or less often under particular circumstances.

It’s really all about increasing and decreasing behaviors.

Every time you increase one desirable behavior, you decrease multiple undesirable behaviors. For example, when you teach your dog to “sit”, you decrease jumping up, bolting out open doors, et cetera.

When you increase “come”, you decrease running into the street, chasing cars, et cetera.

One of the best animal trainers in the world, Kayce Cover, M.A., B. S. taught me the following summarizing concept.

Successful animal trainers all have these traits in common. Successful trainers know:

  • which components of a behavior he or she wishes to increase or decrease
  • how to communicate this to the animal
  • how to motivate the animal to want to perform those behaviors

Components of Behaviors

All behaviors consist of many individual behaviors. Dog trainers analyze behaviors and decide which of the individual components should be increased and decreased.

Before a trainer can form a lesson plan, he or she must identify the components that make up the target behavior and identify which skills or components should be taught first.

This sounds easy, but many people never think about it.

In fact, until they meet me, most of my clients never formally teach their dogs the most basic skill that is necessary before the dog can learn “sit” and “come”.

What is the basic skill, the first component or prerequisite behavior your dog must know to comply with “sit” or “come”? It is “Attention”.

Although you can teach your puppy “sit” and “come”, without ever teaching your dog to look towards you on command, these behaviors are likely to break down when there are distractions.

For instance, your puppy may come when he or she is in the back yard and totally ignore your requests when running free in the front yard.

The point is – before you can teach your pup to perform a behavior in distracting environments, you should teach, practice and refine each component of the behavior in less distracting environments.

And yes, before you can do any of these, just like a trainer, you’ll need to identify all the components of the behaviors.

Communicate and Motivate

In order to communicate with anyone or any animal, we must have a language in common. Since dogs don’t speak our language it’s our job to introduce words, signals or phrases and explain their meanings.

Without knowledge of how animals learn, we often send conflicting signals.

“No” and “Come”

Most people naturally use the word “no” and expect their puppy to understand the meaning. People add harsh voice tones in attempts to explain the meaning.

In some instances with some dogs, it works. The dogs stop the behaviors and never perform those behaviors again. In other instances, it fails miserably. More often people unknowingly give the puppy conflicting information.

For example, a puppy jumps up and the person says “no” as he or she pushes the puppy off. This is a very common mistake.

The act of touching the puppy with their hands, and talking to the puppy (even in harsh tones) tells the puppy that jumping up is a good strategy to receive attention and touch.

When your pup jumps up, he or she is soliciting touch and attention. To communicate to your very young puppy that jumping up is not the best strategy to receive touch and attention, just turn and walk away.

Take a few steps, turn to face your puppy.  Ask him or her to sit. Once your puppy sits, deliver attention and touch!

Since puppies rarely learn from one instance, your puppy will immediately jump up when you offer attention for sitting. That’s okay, just disconnect again and repeat the sequence. After a few days with many repetitions, your puppy will catch on!

This sequence communicates two concepts. One, “jumping up makes me go away” and two, “sitting politely makes me deliver attention and touch”!

Another example is the word “come”. People say “come” and expect the puppy to run towards them.

This may be effective for a 10 week-old puppy, but as the dog ages, he or she gains confidence and is less likely to come just because the people say the word “come”.

Off leash obedience is an advanced skill. You’ll need to practice on leash in many situations before you can expect your dog to come anytime you call.

Some people actually teach their puppies to ignore the come command. They “end” their puppy’s fun or even punish their puppy after they come.

Examples are scolding and taking away an item after the puppy comes, crating the puppy and leaving the house after the puppy comes, pointing to a mess on the floor and scolding the puppy.

Hugs and Head Pats

Other primitive forms of communication include hugs and head pats. Sometimes we are so sure our dogs enjoy particular interactions, that we fail to recognize their likes and dislikes.

A natural assumption is that puppies like to be picked up and “loved”. Another assumption is that pups really enjoy a pat on the head.

All dogs do not necessarily like hugs or head pats.

Many dogs consider top-of-the-head pats and hugs as unpleasant. These dogs lower their heads and/or move away from their people.

Watch your puppy’s body language. If your pup starts moving away when you reach for him or her, whatever it is that you usually do, is not considered pleasant by your puppy!

Body Blocks

If you watch dogs at work or play, you’ll notice they use their bodies to block or herd other animals. When dogs use body blocks, they rarely make contact. They control the other animals’ access to areas by occupying territory with their bodies. In addition to body blocks, they use head position, tail position, body stance, et cetera to communicate.

We can’t imitate canine body language but in some situations, body blocks are an excellent method to teach dogs about areas that are off limits.

Anytime you gently restrain or touch your dog, you are rewarding your dog with attention and touch.

Instead of reaching for your dog’s collar, herd that rascal away from the door, the kitchen counter, the living room, et cetera with a body block!

To use a body block, just step in front of your dog and block his or her access to the area.

Because dogs naturally control space with their bodies, they understand the meaning of body blocks. Using body blocks is a clear method to communicate “Stay away, this area is off limits”.

Happy Training!

Alan J Turner, Companion Animal Behavior Counselor & Trainer – Canine Specialization

Private and Group Dog Training in Memphis, TN

Owner: How’s Bentley