Anyone who has ever learned to do something physical – hitting a baseball, sewing a garment, driving a car, you name it – understands that you gain competence only through practice and repetition. At first, your movements and timing are clumsy and imperfect. You probably overcorrect, making crooked or zig-zagging seams or driving the car over the centerline bumps. But over time – and especially if you have some expert guidance – your movements become smooth and coordinated, and it seems to any observers that you’re a natural! Ha! If only they could see you at the beginning!

Learning new skills is hard work – for people AND dogs

Now, think about learning something new with a partner who is also learning the same skill, such as a new dance or perhaps sign language. The difficulty factor goes way up! It’s going to take a bit longer for the result to look smooth.

Now imagine that your dance partner or sign language conversation partner speaks a different language! If this is the case, all of your clumsy efforts require that much MORE patience, creativity, and humor with each other as you try to figure out how to communicate while simultaneously managing intricate dance steps or movements of the hands.

This latter scenario, you may have already guessed, is exactly what’s at play with new dog owners and their new dogs or puppies!

Every new owner wants their puppies or dogs to behave well – to stop doing uncomfortable or naughty things like chewing shoes, jumping on people, or barking at the leaves falling in the back yard, and to perform good behaviors on cue, such as sit, down, wait, and leave it. It adds quite a layer of difficulty to teach them to do what we want, in a language that is not their own, while we are simultaneously learning to use our posture and movements (body language!) for cues and the timely delivery of reinforcers!

Using markers and reinforcers

In the late 1940s, pioneering animal trainers Keller and Marian Breland started teaching other animal trainers to use a marker and the immediate delivery of a reinforcer to teach animals to perform behaviors. They found that chickens were a great species to use to help trainers learn the physicality of cues and reinforcement delivery – especially,  the timing of the marker and reinforcer delivery, as well as the location and presention of the both the cue and the reinforcer.

Chickens who were raised around people aren’t afraid of humans, they notice very minute differences in the appearance of things, they are very quick to react when they notice these differences, and they are very motivated by food to try new behaviors. They also don’t carry a lot of behavioral “baggage” along with them, resulting from living with sometimes-intemperate humans! They make amazing practice partners for anyone who is learning how to observe animal behavior and learn to change it swiftly and without force, and there is a long legacy of trainers who still use chickens to teach dog trainers how to refine and improve their training technique.

Don’t blame the chicken!

Another brilliant thing about using chickens to teach people how to train: people don’t get mad at chickens when they are failing to get the chicken to perform a specific behavior! They don’t tend to start calling the chicken “stubborn” or “spiteful” – or blame the chicken’s breed, origins as a “rescue chicken” or anything else. They are able to easily see that training the chicken is just a matter of presenting the training challenge to the chicken in a precise way that makes it easy for the chicken to do the behavior (or some approximation of it), for the behavior to instantly be “marked” (with the click of a clicker or a verbal marker, such as the word “Yes!”, or the flash of a penlight, or what have you!) and be reinforced for it immediately.

They are also able to see that if they are late with the marker, or fail to deliver the reinforcer in a timely fashion and in a location that doesn’t pull the chicken out of the position the trainer wanted her in, that it’s impossible for the chicken to “get” the point of the exercise! They see that it’s their own clumsiness or bad timing, not the chicken being “bad.”

Get a second set of eyes

If you are having trouble teaching your dog some new behavior, consider taking a little video of yourself as you work with your dog, or ask someone who you consider to be a good trainer to watch you. It might develop that you simply need a little coaching on how you are presenting the cue, or marking the desired behavior, or delivering the reinforcer. Strike that: It is undoubtedly a problem with one of those things, not that your dog is being dumb, lazy, or a non-native speaker of English.

Honestly, if you are motivated to learn how to more effectively teach your dog new behaviors quickly, sign up for a class or even just a private lesson or two with someone who is experienced with positive reinforcement-based training (and who does NOT use punitive, physical “corrections” AT ALL). With a few pointers, you will be amazed at how quickly you and your dog or puppy will be happily speaking the same language as you dance through life together.

Continuing education is an awesome thing. I am so grateful that my publisher sends me to a couple of places or events each year in order to expand my knowledge of canine health, training and behavior, and nutrition.

Over the past 22 years, I have visited quite a few pet food manufacturing plants, pet food company corporate headquarters, and pet food company testing laboratories. I have attended at least a dozen conferences organized by professional dog training organizations, including Karen Pryor’s ClickerExpo, the Association of Professional Dog Trainers, the Pet Professionals Guild, and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. There are gigantic pet products trade shows, SuperZoo, Global Pet, and one that doesn’t exist any more, HH Backer. In addition, I’ve attended the conferences of veterinary professionals, including the American Veterinary Medical Association and the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.

What I’ve Learned

Each time I come home from an educational opportunity like this, my bags are bursting with product literature, conference proceedings, business cards, and tons and tons of notes about things that I found to be extraordinarily interesting. But then I get back, and, after a week out of town, find myself playing catch up – with my own dogs and family, the next issue of the magazine, and so on. Some of what fascinated me a few weeks prior gets lost – at least until I have a chance to go through my notes again, or get a call from someone I exchanged business cards with, or I read another article about a topic I had just learned about, or I receive a query from a writer who would like to write about that topic for WDJ.

But in every instance, there are at least a few products or topics or presenters that were so riveting, that their memory stands out above all else that I witnessed at that educational opportunity.

Most recently, from SuperZoo, there were two products that leap into mind: a toy (which I will review in the next issue) and a particular type of dog poop picker-upper (which I am waiting to hear has gone into mass production before I promote it).

From the past few training conferences, it was speakers Chirag Patel (a London-based trainer) and Dr. Chris Pachel, a veterinary behaviorist in Portland, Oregon.

Getting Dogs Adopted Faster

And from the most recent small conference I attended, the Canine Science Symposium, held in San Francisco in April, it was a lecture by Dr. Sasha Protopopova, of Texas Tech University about how shelters can improve their marketing efforts to both get more animals adopted and to decrease the length of stay for adoptable animals (i.e., get them adopted faster!).

There were more scientific talks – and there were some really fascinating talks on topics I knew little or nothing about. But this is the one that pops into my head when I think about attending that particular event! Dr. Protopopova started out by showing how many shelters market their wards almost in the same way that unsuccessful job applicants do – by stressing that they need a job by a certain date or they are going to lose their home, and that they are unemployed through no fault of their own. These things might elicit sympathy in employers or potential dog adopters, but they are unlikely to make someone say, “Well, gosh, tell me more!”

She cited a number of formal studies that looked at how pets were marketed by shelters and how various things affected (or did not affect) the length of their stay. A really good photo of the animal, for example, was found to correlate with a 67% decrease in the length of stay. The most effective photos of dogs were taken outdoors (correlated with a 27% decrease in length of stay), standing, and making eye contact with the camera.

Put It All Out There?

She also studied research on human dating services, and what made ads for some people more “clickable” than others. Though it’s not a direct corollary, she suggested that some of the same characteristics of successful dating profiles could be applied to adoptable dog profiles, including, of course, several good photos: a short, humorous, memorable description, with only the dogs’ positive attributes described (detailing the dog’s limitations in his ad is similar to someone listing off-putting restrictions in their personal ad, turning off potential partners before a meeting could be arranged to see whether there is enough attraction to warrant working with those limitations).

Anyway, I see descriptions of dogs who are being promoted by various shelters, rescue groups, and fellow foster-providers every day, and I keep thinking about Dr. Protopopova’s talk. Which reminds me, I need to pass along my notes and the Powerpoint presentation of the talk to my local shelter.

What was THE most resonant thing you learned from the last seminar or conference you went to?

My trainer friend Sarah Richardson, owner of The Canine Connection in Chico, California, recently attended a conference in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with a world-renowned pioneer in animal training. She came back home full of inspiration and excitement, with ideas about how she wants to add things and change things in her group training classes.

Sarah hosts a discussion group on Facebook for her training clients, and she posted this shortly after she got back:

“Bob Bailey is now in his 80s but was literally one of the first in the world to be training as we now do with operant conditioning, use of a marker, etc. Bob invited some of the key people he has influenced to serve as his fellow presenters and they came from Canada, Holland, Germany, Mexico, and the US to be with him.

“One of the presenters gave a talk about how ballet improved her dog training. As an adult in her 40s, she took up ballet and learned how hard it is to do the basic movements really well. In contrast, world-class ballerinas practice the basic movements – just the basics – up to 8 hours a day! It got me thinking: How much do we practice the basics – just the basics! – with our dogs so that they are competent with these core skills, and so we are competent with teaching and communicating with our dogs?

“So, I am returning home from my trip with a challenge for myself and my dogs. We are going to return to practicing our canine calisthenics – sit, down, stand – like crazy, in short, frequent training sessions this month. My goal is for my dogs to do these behaviors on a verbal cue as well as on a hand signal and in many different contexts (how they are positioned in relation to me, the setting we are in, etc.).”

Further, Sarah encouraged those in the group to practice and post video of their practice sessions with their dogs.

Time to Start Practicing

I thought I would take the challenge. Back to basics – easy peasy, yes? Both of my dogs know hand and verbal cues for sit, down, and stand, and can readily move from one position to the other. My senior dog Otto is super sharp at these, and eagerly demonstrates his acuity. I looked forward to taking some video of Otto confidently moving through these exercises to share with the discussion group.

I thought (correctly) that I would have to practice more with my younger dog, Woody, before I could commit to putting our efforts on video. Woody takes a more speculative approach to my cues. “Why are you asking?” he seems to say when I give him a cue. He “knows” the cues for sit, down, and stand. After taking a moment to determine whether I’m serious about wanting a response from him, he will methodically change from any one of those positions to any other position. But he tends to get stuck a few position changes into any session of more than three requests. He needs some convincing that the work is worth his while. He may go into a down, and then just stay there after I ask for “sit” or “stand.” His expression seems to say, “I’m just not sure there is a point to all this!”

Food treat rewards increase the motivation – and I don’t blame him one bit. I don’t like working for zero pay, either. And his speed definitely increases when the compensation value increases; he will work longer and faster for chicken or cheese than kibble. But he only gets enthusiastic and sharp-looking if the “pay” is his highest-value reward: a chance to go fetch his Planet Dog Squeak ball.

“What’s In It For Me?”

Woody’s deliberations make me miss my Border Collie, Rupert – the dog I owned when we launched Whole Dog Journal 22 years ago. Well-trained Border Collies make any trainer look good; they love to work and find it incredibly self-rewarding to respond to rapid-fire cues. Many will work without treats or any other tangible reward; the opportunity to work with their person is often enough of a high-value reinforcement in itself! In contrast, Woody, a pit-Lab-mix, has a healthy self-preservation instinct. He wants to know, “What’s in it for me?” before committing himself to a lot of training nonsense.

Otto is somewhere in between. He’s keen to earn my praise and attention, and he likes food treats. But he’s not going to do this all day. I have to keep our practice sessions short and fun, or he starts dramatically sighing and moaning on his “downs” – or looking off to the side when I first give him a cue, like, “Wait, one sec… Did you just hear the mail truck? I think maybe I should go check to see if your mail is here…”

Anyway, I’ve been practicing. I took video on Otto’s first session, and it wasn’t bad. As I predicted, he is really pretty sharp and willing – though the fact that I was holding a camera/phone between us was definitely off-putting to him. And after a dozen or so position changes he was like, “Um, Nance… What’s going on here?”

It took a couple days of practice before I even bothered to try to take some footage of Woody’s efforts. The fact that I recently brought home a nice new Squeak ball helped a lot.

I do tend to take these basic behaviors for granted from my own dogs, but practicing with the goal of taking video that I could share has been fun. It also gives me and my dogs something to “talk about” – an extra few interactions each day that are (I hope) mutually enjoyable. Try it yourself! We’ll put a post on the WDJ Facebook page where you can upload video of your own dogs doing these basic exercises.

The company that I work for is based in Norwalk, Connecticut. I have worked for Belvoir Media Group for the past 22 years on Whole Dog Journal, and before that, on The Whole Horse Journal! But given that I work from my home in northern California, and do little more than just produce the editorial content of the publication, it’s easy for me to be ignorant of the dozens of people on the other side of the country who are working to support WDJ’s circulation, marketing, website, promotions, etc.

I mean, I speak regularly to my boss, and I have weekly interaction with the person who needs my weekly blog post by a certain day at a certain time . . . and, in the day of modern publishing, I now also have regular meetings with the “kids” who do “search engine optimization” and let me know what sorts of articles you guys are looking for. They track the online access to our back issues and offer suggestions on what content needs to be updated and freshened up – which is helpful, because I tend to think “We just DID an in-depth article on pancreatitis!” when in fact that article is six or seven years old now.

But every once in a while the company asks me to come out to Connecticut and work with members of the team whose names I only really know from email – and am not even really sure what they do. And what a delight it is when it turns out that some of these people are ardent readers of WDJ, and are, in fact, super dedicated dog people who are doing absolutely everything right for their dogs! What fun!

My kind of dog person

For a couple of days, I am out here working with a number of people on producing a course for new dog owners – an online guide with video and slides and all sorts of valuable content plucked from the pages of WDJ. I’m spending a few hours in a role I do not enjoy, in front of a camera instead of behind one, taking pictures of dogs. But yesterday, we filmed at the home of one of the company’s circulation directors (Belvoir Media Group publishes a lot of magazines and newsletters, not just WDJ). And what a joy it was to pull up and see, on the back of Theresa’s car, a spare-tire cover featuring a lovely photo of her Bulldog, several Bulldog-themed bumper stickers, and inside her home, a plethora of not just Bulldog-themed art, but smart dog-owner stuff everywhere! Baby gates in both the kitchen doorways. Baskets of dog toys. A variety of collars and leashes hanging by the door. And two gorgeous but dog-friendly fenced yards, where we filmed.

I brought a present for Theresa’s six-year-old Bulldog, Macy: Woody’s favorite toy in the world, a brand-new Planet Dog Squeak ball. I was happy initially because not only was Macy a particularly fit Bulldog, she immediately loved and coveted the toy (and Theresa assured me that it wasn’t indiscriminate love; “She’s very picky about her toys,” she said seriously). But then I told Theresa that I had brought some of my favorite dog treats from home, some Stella & Chewy’s Freeze-Dried Meal Mixers. And right away she asked, “What’s in them? Because Macy can’t have chicken or she breaks out in hives.” Of course, the ones I brought were chicken, but I was thrilled to meet a dog owner who was aware of the cause of a problem and proactive about protecting her dog from the problem – and who was ready with some chicken-free treats of her own to give me, so I could help guide Macy through our shots in front of the camera together. And she showed me the cues that she uses to ask Macy for the good-manners behaviors and tricks she knows. What fun!

In my part of the world, I meet a lot of dog owners who don’t microchip, who have choke chains on their dogs as a matter of course, who don’t train their dogs – or even let them in the house! So it’s a pure delight to go and meet a total stranger who works on behalf of WDJ behind the scenes who is a total WDJ-type of person.

I’ll keep you apprised about the course; it’s going to be great!