Excerpt from Beyond the Backyard: Train Your Dog to Listen Anytime, Anywhere!

This book assumes that your dog already knows how to perform your target behaviors (also called base behaviors). What I haven’t told you yet is that what a dog knows is actually contextual. In other words, your dog probably doesn’t know what you think she does unless you’ve done specific training. That specific training, called generalization, is the princess of applying information from one context to another. It’s very important to do this because dogs are notoriously poor at generalization.

Does your dog know how to sit on command? Let’s find out!

Go to your dog’s most familiar training area and grab a pile of delicious cookies. Make sure she knows you have them and that she is eager to earn them. Now face your dog and ask her to sit. Your dog should enthusiastically put her rear end on the ground. Excellent!

Let’s try it again, except with a small change. This time, turn your back on your dog so that you are facing the wall. Ask her to sit.

What happened? I’m willing to bet that she failed to perform. Not because she was unmotivated or fearful. Not because she was distracted or in a new place. And not because she couldn’t hear you. I know all this because the only thing you changed was the direction that you were facing; the first time you were facing your dog and the second time you turned your back from the dog. So what went wrong?

Your dog failed to perform because you changed the context. She learned to sit with you facing her, and now you’ve changed the picture. Your dog isn’t stubborn or bad. Your dog simply has not learned which variables are – or are not – relevant. To be blunt, she doesn’t know “sit”. Instead, she knows “owner standing in front of me in the kitchen holding a cookie in front of my nose and saying the word sit.”

But what if you tried this test and your dog passed? That’s great! She has started to learn to sit. Let’s see just how well she’s learned it. Take your dog to a familiar place and have an obvious motivator in your hand. We want your dog trying her hardest so we can safely conclude that any failure to perform is due to holes in your basic training opposed to lack of motivation.

• Can your dog sit when you are sitting in a chair?
• Can your dog sit when you are sitting on the floor?
• Can your dog sit when you are staring at the ceiling?
• Can your dog sit when you are behind the door?

Come up with as many variations as possible – within reason. The goal is not to cause your dog to fail; the goal is to find the weaknesses in your basic training so that you can work through them. As you do this be sure to maintain sympathy for your dog. She’s trying. So your job is to provide measured challenges so that she can succeed.

For more information on effective training methods, read Beyond the Backyard: Train Your Dog to Listen Anytime, Anywhere!, a special book by Denise Fenzi!

Excerpt from Beyond the Backyard: Train Your Dog to Listen Anytime, Anywhere!

To help dogs learn to generalize their behaviors, we have to know when to increase the challenge level. This is something dog trainers call “raising criteria”.

Before we can raise criteria, though, your dog needs to meet criteria. Basically, this means that your dog needs to successfully complete the behavior to your specifications. For example, if your goal is a 30 second sit stay under mild distraction and your dog performs a sit stay for 30 seconds with a piece of bread sitting on the counter, then your dog has met criteria. But what if your dog goes to the counter and sniffs for the scent of the bread instead of performing the stay? Then we should say that your dog has not met criteria.

When your dog meets criteria you’ll reward him with a motivator, but when he fails to succeed, you’ll withhold the motivator. (You’ll also make sure that he is unable to get the bread on the counter, since helping himself to the distraction would have been very reinforcing – but not reinforcing what you wanted!)

When your dog consistently meets criteria by ignoring the bread on the counter and performing correctly, you can raise criteria. This simply means you’ll ask your dog to do more in order to earn a cookie. But… what is “more”? And how many successes do we want to see before we raise criteria again?

When it’s time to raise criteria, the trick is to select a new challenge that your dog is likely to meet. If you work to raise criteria in a systematic and measured fashion, you will find that your dog makes progress extremely quickly while maintaining a positive attitude throughout his training sessions. It’s good to ask more of your dog, because it keeps him thinking and working for you, but if you ask for too much all at once, you’ll demoralize him with excessive failure. At the same time, if you raise criteria too slowly, your dog will become bored and his progress will slow down. In other words, raising criteria is something of a Goldilocks question: how much is just right?

For more information on effective training methods, read Beyond the Backyard: Train Your Dog to Listen Anytime, Anywhere!, a special book by Denise Fenzi!

When you select a new training space, remember that the change should be gradual. If your regular training has always taken place in your kitchen, try moving to the living room. Work through the entire lesson plan in that room, then change locations again. How about the bedroom? The bathroom?

Once you’ve exhausted the options in your house, take a look at the next most gradual change that you can make. How about your porch? Backyard? Front yard? In front of your neighbor’s house?

In each new training space, first test that your dog can perform with a cookie in your hand. This is important because the total number of additional distractions (beyond what you are deliberately introducing) is going to increase simply by changing locations. You will continue to create controlled distractions for your dog, and you want them to hold his attention more than the stuff in the environment. This might sound counter intuitive, but the truth is, if the dog is paying more attention to the smells in the neighborhood than to the training exercises, you have a problem! You need to start with a distraction (and a reward) that is MORE interesting than the rest of the world.

If you introduce new places thoughtfully, they should be dull enough that your dog can work off leash or with a loose leash with his total attention on either you or on the distraction that you have provided. Realistically, though, sometimes you’ll overestimate the draw of a new place. Therefore, your location needs to be safe as well. Your dog needs to be contained in some way, which means that for some locations, you may need to use a leash during all ten steps. You don’t want to put your dog in danger in the name of training! It is much better to work on leash with a focused dog than to work off leash with a dog who is not the least bit interested in doing anything for you.

You should also think about the type of places you eventually want to take your dog. If your goal is to bring your dog to the pet store, to pick your children up from school, to attend local soccer games with your kids, and to walk through your neighborhood on a loose leash, then those are the places you should be using for the training! Consider each of these possible locations and rank them from least distracting to most. Start with the easiest ones and work your way up.

There’s a huge advantage to using places for training that you already go to: it’s efficient! You’re already going there, so you won’t need to spend a lot of time making special trips for the dog’s training. When you head to the local school to pick up your kids, arrive ten minutes early so you can practice your skills while it’s still relatively quiet. Work your way up to practicing when the kids are being released from their classrooms! Or, if you need to purchase groceries, bring your dog along for a few minutes training outside the doors. It is much easier to stick to a training plan if it doesn’t take a lot of extra time.

At first it will feel strange to be carrying a baggie with distraction treats while you work with your dog in public, but you’ll soon find that people will enjoy watching you, and might even want to know more about what you are doing!

Make a point of using friends and strangers for your distraction babysitters – we want your dog to believe that all people are willing to help you! Handle failure quietly and cheerfully; simply show your dog the delicious morsels that he won’t be getting, put them back, and try again.

Most dogs will make tremendous progress working this way. After ten minutes a day for a few weeks, you will likely find that your dog is ignoring a variety of distractions that you provide in all sorts of locations. If you add this to the three or so hours you’ve already spent, you’ll have invested around six hours, and with excellent results!

Don’t despair if your dog needs a slower route. Remember that training is a process where you are developing a deeper bond with your dog. Stay focused on the journey!

For more advice on training your dog listen anytime, anywhere, purchase Beyond the Back Yard from Whole Dog Journal.

Lesson #8: Uncontrolled Distraction, Controlled Dog

Your dog will need to be on leash for this lesson. Because your distraction won’t be contained, make sure that when you set up for each step, the distraction is at least one foot farther away than the length of your leash.

For this lesson, ANY tightening of the leash should be considered a failure. Handle failure in the usual way: go to the distraction with your dog, admire it (but do so in a way that your dog CANNOT get it), move away, and go back to work.

Procedure:

• Place your dog on leash and take the distraction out of the container.
• Set the distraction out of reach, request a behavior. Reward your dog using the two-treat method if she’s successful.
• Increase the value of distraction, keeping it out of reach, and request a behavior.
• Move around the training area requesting a behavior in a new location each time.
• Stay in the same place in the training area, but move the distraction around the area.
• Move the distraction closer to your dog.

Lesson #9: Uncontrolled Distraction, Uncontrolled Dog

This lesson will have both your dog and the distraction off leash, so you’ll need a helper! If your dog goes for the distraction, your helper’s job is to get to it first and pick it up. Your helper will then hand it to you, you will admire it, and you’ll start again.

Procedure:

1. Bring your dog into the area off leash. Put the uncontrolled distraction at a distance from your dog. Request a behavior and reward success with the two-treat method.
2. Increase the value of the distraction and request a behavior.
3. Move around the training area, requesting a behavior in a new location each time.
4. Stay in the same place in the training area, but move the distraction around the area.
5. Move the distraction closer to your dog and request a behavior.
6. Repeat all steps with a variety of helpers.

For more advice on training your dog to listen anytime, anywhere, purchase Beyond the Back Yard from Whole Dog Journal.

Lesson #1: Easy Distraction, Easy Behavior

Use a low-value distraction for this lesson!

Procedure:

1. Bring your dog into the training area.
2. While your dog is watching, place the distraction out of your dog’s reach, but where she can see it. Your dog should be well aware of the distraction, so do not try and hide it!
3. Hold two cookies in your hand; you’ll need them in a moment.
4. Standing close to your dog, cur a behavior she knows like a sit.
5. If your dog responds correctly, reward your dog with the two-treat method.
6. If your dog fails, admire the distraction together, then try again.
7. Repeat no more than 10 times or 5 minutes, whichever is greater.

Lesson #2: Easy Distraction, Different Behavior

This lesson is a repeat of lesson 1. The only difference is that you’ll be working on a different behavior.

Procedure:

1. Bring your dog into the training area.
2. Place the distraction out of your dog’s reach.
3. Have two cookies in your hand.
4. Request a different behavior. If you have been working on a sit, then maybe you’d like to do a down, or a few seconds of loose leash walking, or maybe a recall. As a side note, if you choose a recall, make a point of standing so that your dog is traveling away from the distraction rather than heading towards it. This is the only way that we can be sure that your dog is actually coming to you as opposed to heading to the counter.
5. Reward success with two cookies as described above.
6. Admire the distraction if your dog fails, then try again.

Lesson #3: New Distractions

This lesson introduces new distractions! Use low-level distractions at first, then slowly raise the value. Don’t forget to raise the value of your motivator, too!

Procedure:

1. Bring your dog into the training area.
2. Place the distraction out of your dog’s reach.
3. Have two cookies in your hand.
4. Request an easy behavior.
5. Reward success with two cookies.
6. Admire the distraction if your dog fails, then try again.
7. Repeat this lesson, varying the distraction.

For more advice on training your dog listen anytime, anywhere, purchase Beyond the Back Yard from Whole Dog Journal.

When your dog is successful, reward your dog with the “two-treat method”:

• Have two cookies in your hand
• Give your dog one cookie from your hand while your praise enthusiastically.
• Back up so that you end up farther away from the distraction, so that your dog is likely to run back to you instead of heading to the distraction.
• Give her a second cookie when she is back with you again. What a deal!
• Your reward should always be higher value than your distraction.

Don’t worry if your dog fails. Failure is a natural part of learning. Remain calm and resist the urge to yell “no” or physically move your dog around. Instead, follow this procedure:

• Go to the distraction. Pick it up. Talk to your dog about it. Admire it together.
• And then put it back.
• Go to the same place you were before and ask the dog for the behavior again.
• If your dog fails again, make the task just a bit easier.
• For example, you might stand closer to your dog, or move the distraction a bit farther away. Or if you asked for a stay, you might change your duration from five seconds to three seconds.

If your dog fails three times in a row, stop. The task is too hard for your dog. Go back to the previous step or find a way to make it easier for your dog. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Did you use a low enough value of distraction?
• Are you using a higher value reward?
• Does your dog KNOW that you have a higher value reward?
• And this is the big one: are you SURE that your dog knows the base behavior in that environment when no distraction is present? If your dog does not know the command, you can repeat if till the cows come home, but you will not achieve success.

Each training session should be 5 minutes long OR LESS. Training should be fun, so don’t keep going unless both you and your dog are enjoying it. You can repeat a lesson up to (but no more than) three times in a day. Ten minutes a day is an excellent target.

Each training session should focus on one behavior only. If you’d like to work on another behavior, do so in separate training sessions. Each lesson should be repeated until your dog is successful at least 80% of the time. In addition, your dog should be bright and eager to train. If she’s not having fun, that training session has not been successful, no matter how well she performed!

For more advice on training your dog listen anytime, anywhere, purchase Beyond the Back Yard from Whole Dog Journal.