It is never too early to start training, but slowly does it, make it fun, and keep it light.
It is possible that the only human interaction your dog has had previously has been negative so make sure he or she feels safe in what you are asking him or her to do. And take it at their pace.
Understanding behaviours before you start to train your dog
First things first, when working with dogs we are dealing with behaviours (reactions, emotional responses et) or training them to do a new behaviour (paws up, recall, down etc) and these often overlap. If you working with a dog with behavioural problems you need to do a lot more than just training, a very small part will be actual training as you are not teaching them a new behaviour, but most of your work will be adjusting their mindset to help them to feel more comfortable in certain situations.
Before you even start to put any effort in there are already factors in place that will impact the way your dog behaves. The genetics of the parents plays a big part in temperament, what happens to the mum during pregnancy, the place the pups are in utero, the breed, and then the personality of the dog as well. With your dogs in particular they may have experienced some considerable trauma in their previous homes, which will impact on their feelings of safety and security, and their ability to learn in the first few months.
It’s important to remember that in order for our dogs to be able to learn, they need to feel safe. Safety is everything for dogs, without it our dogs will really struggle to absorb anything other than what is happening in the moment. This is why it is so important to understand your individual dog, what signs they show when they are feeling worried, scared and anxious, and help them through that before you start on the training itself.
Absolutely no “training aids” are permitted for rescue dogs via this site. This includes but is not limited to:
- Shock collars
- Vibration collars
- Prong collars
- Citronella collars
and anything else designed to control a dog’s behaviour through pain or discomfort is banned
Invest in a good dog training book. We highly recommend 2 books from Amazon (£4 each) – Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy and Easy Peasy Doggy Squeezy as they maintain a light and simple approach that will be manageable for both dog and owner before you progress to more complicated training. Whatever the age of your dog, you need to start with the puppy training book as you are starting with a blank sheet of paper.
Do not try and train your dog for an hour at a time – do short stints of 5-10 minutes while you’ve got the kettle on, or while you’re making supper.
Treats
Keep the best treats for training and if you do it before your dog has been fed, they will be much more interested.
High value treats such as cheese, tiny bits of sausage, sprats, anything highly smelly and tasty will have them eager to do as you ask! Don’t forget to take the treats out of their daily food allowance to avoid weight gain.
Recommended kit
Long line – 10m long training line to start recall training
Treat bag – clip to pocket treat bag so you always have a tempting reward for good behaviour
Clicker – clicker training can really help alongside reward based training – several apps and books available
Rope tug toy – useful for fetch based games
Buckets and bowls – useful for scent work at home which is a great stimulator and training aid
Rewards and Reinforcement
Training and Behaviour are two different things. When you are working on behaviour you are looking to change the emotional state of the dog, with training we are looking to teach the dog a new behaviour.
If we are working with a dog that say shows aggression to another dog or person then training them may help them to feel better in themselves as you are spending time with them but it won’t change the emotional state of the dog as such. Specific behavioural work needs to happen to change the way they emotionally respond to that trigger, not just teach them to do something different when they see that trigger.
The more you can set our dogs up for success the better, for example if you don’t want them to chew our favourite shoes, then you should put them out of the puppy/dogs way, if you’d rather they didn’t bark at the window, again we should ensure they’re not able to get to the window or close the blinds.
Marking a Behaviour
When you are training your dogs, you need to let them know that they have done exactly what you have asked them to do, or that they are doing something we like them to
e.g when you are walking your dog, you can mark and reward them for checking in with you. You can use the word ‘Yes’ ‘Nice’ or ‘Good’, or any word that will come to you naturally. Once you have marked the behaviour, you always need to follow with a treat .
If you’re marking a sit, you would say “Sit” to ask them to do the behaviour, “Good” once the second their bottom hits the floor and then give them a treat.
The Command is the word that tells them what you want them to do – the Marking word is the way you let them know what they’ve done is what you wanted
You mark the behaviour with a word or click when they have done the behaviour we asked for, or when they have done something we would like to reinforce.
Rewards
A Reward can be a number of things, but the MOST important part is that it is rewarding for the dog, regardless of how rewarding we would like it to be.
Most people would love their dogs to find praise rewarding, and the dog to do anything its asked for praise but the reality is you need to make the reward something better than they are currently tempted by (a pat on the head is unlikely to be more rewarding than the squirrel they are currently stalking)
The reward you have to use will largely depend on the situation you’re in
Recalling a dog away from chasing a rabbit for a piece of kibble isn’t normally anywhere near as rewarding as a game of chase with a really exciting toy. At home, they normally will see their food allowance as rewarding and are likely to respond to you. Out in the fields where there are so many more distraction, you’re going to need something really worth coming back for, as above with the chase game, or very high value food.
For some dogs, they don’t enjoy eating in a unfamiliar environment, so you’d get more benefit from a toy game.
For some dogs, the reward can be getting out of a situation they are unhappy in. For example a big scary dog is coming towards them, they look at owner, owner responds with “Let’s go” . The looking at the owner will have been reinforced as the reward was being able to get away from what scared them
Consider what is rewarding to your dog. Make sure your rewards correspond with that.
If your reward is food based, ensure that your training time is not straight after meal times as you need your dog to be hungry to get the best out of the training session.
The more fun you have with your dogs, the more enthusiastic and optimistic you can be, the more they will enjoy being with you, and the more they will enjoy their training. Ideally we’d like our dogs to want to be with us because we are fun, rather then because they’re worried when they are not there.
Punishment
As with children, punishment does work. If every time you went to do something you get slapped on the bottom, you would stop doing it. It is a quick fix and might seem like it’s working – but there is always a consequence. You could become scared of the person slapping you and would then not respond positively when they wanted you to do something
If your dog is doing something you would rather they didn’t, then teach them a “positive interrupter” as a training exercise and use this or ask for something else.
If your dog is doing something you would rather they didn’t, you ask for another behaviour and reinforce that behaviour with a reward. For example if your dog is jumping up, ask them to sit. If they sit, reward.
Use a particular word or sound if you don’t want them to do something, making sure it’s a word or sound you don’t ever use for positive reinforcement (example use a clap when they’re doing something you want them to stop), give a command, mark the response and reward the alternative behaviour.
The Perfect Dog
Being rewarded for choices is empowering to our dogs. Imagine your ‘Perfect Dog’ in different scenarios for example:
– In a pub – Perfect Dog would be stood, sat or laying nicely.
– In the street – Walking by your side ignoring everyone and everything but you
You need to start by reinforcing these behaviours at home. If your dog chooses to come and lie nicely next to you, if you have treats available mark and reward them, if not some praise to reward. You do have to be careful when it comes to reinforcing calmness, as you don’t want to excite the dog through the giving of a reward. Over time the more you can calmly mark and reward them for calmness, the more they will offer calm behaviour in the future.
The more you can get your dogs to think about the behaviour they’re offering the quicker they learn what you’d like from them
Repeat behaviours
Repeating behaviours works both ways both negatively and positively, the more your dog repeats behaviour and it’s reinforcing (barking at people, postman etc) the more this behaviour will increase.
In the same way that repeating can be negative, it is also very important, in the sense of training, the more you can repeat training and reinforcing behaviours that you want, the more likely they are to repeat these in the future.
WATCHOUT: A lot of the time recall is often repeated once a distraction appears. This soon indicates to the dog that when they’re recalled you have spotted something exciting. So when the dog hears the recall word, they will start to look for the distraction, and are less likely to recall. Instead – you recall your dog continually as part of your play and reward them for returning to you – when there are no other distractions. They will then not associate your recall with the possibility of something exciting to go and investigate
Mental Enrichment
Dogs have the tools to be able to search, hunt and scavenge for food, but the majority of the time we give them their food in a bowl. If we allow dogs to use some of the tools they are given then it helps them to feel enriched, and taps into their seeking part of the brain. Whilst in seeking mode lots of endorphins are released into the brain and the body.
Whilst dogs need both physical and mental exercise daily, there will be times when you’re unable to physically exercise your dog – for example during illness, injury, very hot weather. It’s important to be able to mentally stimulate them on those days when they cannot be walked
Ways to allow them to use their noses …
Scatter Feeding: One of the favourites to do, and doesn’t take any extra time. For Dry fed dogs you weigh it out as you normally do, and scatter it around an area. If it’s a nice day or I have a dog that eats very quickly I like to scatter their food in the garden on the lawn as it takes them longer to find it. For experienced dogs that are used to scatter feeding you can spread it out across a wide area of lawn. You can also scatter it in the home, in a few rooms etc. For raw fed dogs, purchase some Chinese take away type tubs and hide the food in 4/5 of these in the garden so they search for their food. The first few times you do this you will need to be with them and show them where the tubs are but after they will soon understand what you’re playing.
Find it – Initially show your dog a piece of food, Place it on the floor
Ask your dog to ‘Find it’ Show them where the food is
Mark it with ‘Yes’ or ‘Good’ when they eat the food. Repeat this until they understand what ‘Find it’ means Try this in a number of different areas and environments.
Interactive feeding – putting meals in Kongs and freezing them is great for tiring them out and lower stress, as it can take up to an hour to eat a frozen Kong for some dogs.
Scent Detection – a brilliant way to tire dogs, stimulate them mentally and lower stress levels by encouraging their seeking system and increasing their dopamine levels. It is really easy to teach a simple search for cheese in your home and garden.