Hi, I am looking to start training my 4 months old pup. I have read lots of tips/ tricks etc and methods, but was wondering is there a good recommended book which takes you through a training guide and the various ages at which training should be carried out. I don't use a clicker, but say good instead and reward on that cue. We have a busy house with 2 children and i am worried that things may get confusing for the dog. In our house/ yard environment and some others where distractions are minimum, she will sit, lie down, heel, stay and come. However, as she is so young and excitable when there are people or dogs she does her own thing regardless of how many treats she is offered. Also, what is meant by high and low value treats. Currently I use her food the majority of the time. Thanks
I would strongly recommend group classes. As you say yourself she knows many things already (good for you) but is excited around other dogs and people. That's what group classes will give you, othe dogs and people in a controlled setting so you can bridge the training from your own house to the big wide world. Plus they tend to be bonding, a good instructor will see things you can't, you will meet new friends and have fun. I lover the clicker but was taught "good" is not a good word as it's likely to be used too much in conversation. We used YES but of course that's a popular word too. Yes, we used a word and the click. HIgh and low value are what your dog LOVES and what she will eat but not go crazy for. My training treats were real roast beef and cheerios cereal. I like to vary treats when training as anything new tends to be high value at first. I do know of an on-line training in Alberta, Canada that I have suggested people take a look at if they are just too far to drive to classes. It's http://www.sue-eh.ca/
It's really difficult to say what training should be done at what age, because it varies so much on so many factors. What breed you have, how much time you have to commit to training, how the puppy learns, your training skills, what you want her to learn to fit in with your household.... there are too many variables for there to be a "one size fits all" approach. As you already know, there's a difference between asking your puppy to do something in your kitchen and asking them to do the same thing when there are other dogs playing nearby. This needs what's called "proofing", and is an ongoing thing that takes many weeks, months and sometimes years. This means you can't just tick off behaviours as "done", because there are so many scenarios that you have to cover. Take, for example, my two year old girl, Willow. She has a pretty rock-solid sit/stay. I can put her in a sit, run around in front of her, do jumping jacks, go out of sight, throw a ball... pretty much anything, and she'll stay sat until she's released. However, if I put her in front of an agility obstacle, she is unable to sit for more that a couple of seconds. She's just too excited to be able to control herself. I'll work on this once it's appropriate to (I don't want to stifle her enthusiasm at the moment), and it won't be a hard fix, but it just shows that even something as simple as a sit can't be crossed off the list. Do you have any desire to do any type of activity with her going forwards - gundog training, agility, obedience, flyball etc? Because, again, depending on what you want to do, you need to work on different behaviours. I do gundog training with my two, which is fabulous and we all absolutely love it, but when it came to doing basic agility, we struggled with some bits where they had to be on my right because in my gundog training, they've always been on my left. If she's just going to be a standard pet dog with no focussed activities, then I'd suggest that you should be looking at two aspects: safety and impulse control. Safety would encompass a strong recall (follow the programme in Total Recall) and a good stop (so you can stop her as she's running full pelt towards something). Impulse control means learning that she gets what she wants by doing something other than going directly for it - at a basic level this means not mugging your hand for treats, a good "leave" cue, not barging through doors, waiting to be told before getting in and out of the car (although she shouldn't be jumping in and out by herself yet anyway), not running over to other dogs without being given the OK. All of those things (and more in a similar vein) make her a polite member of the family, and can also keep her safe. What is rewarding is dictated by the dog, so it can be hard to say, although some of it you can have a pretty good guess at. All dogs have personal taste, though, as do we - I'd me more inclined to work for a handful of peanuts than a bar of chocolate. My current day-to-day training treats are kibble (reserved for well-established behaviours that don't need massively reinforcing), cubes of ham, and crab sticks. Any cooked meat we leave from dinner gets diced and will be a higher value. When we're in Andorra, I bake cookies and liver for them, and often roast them a chicken whenever I do one for us, then freeze it in batches to use later. Chicken is high on their list of top rewards, alongside prawns and salmon. I think the key is to keep it varied. I used to use turkey frankfurters a lot and they went mad for them at first, but ended up a bit ambivalent. So I switched them out, and now when I use them, they're high value again. Their number one reward is chasing a ball, though. This isn't practical when you're first teaching behaviours, because you can't get the high rate of reinforcement that you can with treats, but it can be very handy later on. They don't get to just play with balls; every chase they have is as a consequence of doing something I've asked them to, and that keeps the reward value really high. Sorry, this probably hasn't been the most useful, but it was a very difficult question to answer!
Hello there,good on you for making a start ....it's a great way to build a relationship with your dog and reap the rewards of teaching some great behaviours.Puppies don't have long attention spans so very short sessions regularly are the way to go. Increasing the distractions,you can expect to see a downside in your training ....that is why it's so important to 'proof ' carefully . This article explains it much better than I can http://www.thelabradorsite.com/proofing-an-essential-part-of-labrador-training/ In the matter of high and low value treats ....I guess because of my dog ( total glutton!!!!) I automatically think FOOD.So in our case a low value treat is his kibble and I use this for behaviours that are very strong or if I'm teaching him something in a very uninteresting place ...kibble is sufficient ,but when we are in more distracting environments I use something like steamed chicken , sardines ,dehydrated tuna chunks ( they stink!) prawns ,hot roast beef and meatballs in some cases.....something really juicy,tasty and smelly that they just can't resist.However some dogs aren't bothered by food and they can be motivated by toys ....so a low value toy might be say for eg a tennis ball ( I say that cautiously as I know that for some of the Forum dogs a tennis ball is the BEST THING EVER,whereas it's a bit meh for my boy) and then you can have a really special toy ( squeaky duck in our case) that can be the super duper reward. This is a bit of an aside but with you mentioning having children ,I've just been writing on another post about dogs and children ....I have a nephew and niece that are now 6 and 7 -and they love to do 'dog training' ,heavens above,even now if they ask Dexter to 'sit' they say it about 15 times !!!!My training of them to only say things once has been less successful than the training of my dog !!So I use a lot of hand signals...when Dexter is looking completely bewildered by the stream of words being said to him ,he looks to me and I signal a 'sit' or a 'down' standing behind them where they can't see me ,it cuts through a lot of the 'noise' that could be very confusing for him. Enjoy training ,are you going to try and get to any classes ? X
The kikopup videos on YouTube are very good, and are all reward-based training. The book Total Recall is a complete training program for recall and covers how to proof it.
