Important behaviors...& how you teach them.

[RealPitBull]

This thread is all about useful behaviors and building a solid skill-set in your dog!

Vote for your 'most important' behavior in the poll, talk about how you trained it reliably, ask for how-to's, or tips on improving reliability.

[RealPitBull]

I voted for sit, it is by far my most-used behavior. Followed by a good heel/good leash manners, and Leave It.

[OurPack]

One of my most important behaviors is recall from the backyard.

We have squirrels, birds whatever over here and I don't like the dogs running toward or up against the fence in a pack in an aroused state. Asking for trouble on that one.

So when they go out to the back and they have that pack facilitated "we're gonna get' em" body language together I say "come in the house guys!". They will do it every time.

At first I gave each one 100% reinforcement (cheese) just coming into the house with LOW distractions. Then I started to doing it with them together and THEN started increasing the distractions. I put the cue on right away.

Now they will all come in the house reliably when asked squirrel or no. Sometimes all I have to do is just open the sliding glass door. I want it to be more important to come in than see what's at the fence.

Dexter however gets into a barking thing at the fence just by himself.....or at least he starts to bark I should say. My dogs aren't aloud to bark at the fence or sit out there owning everything and bothering neighbors....EVER. Sometimes I just say, "Dexter, get in the house!!!" And he comes in every,time. It's harder for them to hear you when they bark. Also I just really let it out. Ha! ;D

I just love my little amigos!

[OurPack]

Oops on the reliability aspect. Intermittent reinforcement is what does if for sure. They only get the cheese once in a while now.

Tip on getting it to be reliable start at 100% reinforcement then 50% then 25% etc. Now it's once in a while. This creates the well know slot machine effect. It really does work very well.

Sorry to post twice.

[andrea]

We had rattlesnake in our backyard about a month ago. One "Spirit come!" and in she came. And she loves to hunt. She's gotten a rabbit already, and loves to watch lizards. My poor shrubs! The lizards like to hide in them! Scary snake!

[emilys]

"watch me" or any "attention" command. It's a necessary precursor to giving almost every other command and to interrupt unwanted behavior before it escalates

[OurPack]

I agree on that too emilys.

We teach look or watch me in our Leash Reactivity classes. It's very key. So I like this one too.

But at home when those lil buggers want to run toward the fence gotta have a good ole fashioned reliable recall.

Hmmmmm, I'm torn now. Sorta like when you ordered a banana split and the person next to ordered a sunday you now have to have the sunday.

[RealPitBull]

Thanks for posting the info on the fence reactivity and yard recalls, Marthina! Those are really common issues most dog owners with a yard and fence. All really good points made!

For me, sit is the most important because if the dog is sitting, he's under control. A rock-solid sit can make the most gnarly dog more mangeable under just about any circumstance. I teach sit pretty much as a first course of action for training. First I get the sit to happen by prompting or capturing the behavior - click n treat. I set up multiple training situations in lots of locations. Then, I enforce an 'ask nice' rule - the dog can get what he wants as long as he sits first. If you've been rewarding sit in lots of locations, the dog is probably already offering sits like crazy with minimal prompting. I reward both cued and uncued sits - I want sit to be default behavior that happens when the dog doesn't know what else to do. I don't want him waiting for a cue necessarily.

Next I'll work on duration...I'll ask for a sit, then count to 3....click/treat! I will work up to 10 counts. Then I'll tack on a stay cue. I will also teach self control by cuing sit, and doing something funky - jump, spin around, do a dance, etc. When the dog remains calm and unmoving, I click/treat. I increase the movement/excitement on my part as the dog is successful.

[lpyrbby]

My first instinct was to choose Recall but Mary, you are right that Sit is SUPER important. I think it's just one of those things that most all dogs can do and is easily taught that its second nature. I like what you suggested about increasing the "control" the dog maintains by getting "funky" lol!

We actually use Bridge and Target training a lot with our dogs. Have you done any reading up on it? My foster pooch Mia knows the difference between her chin and her nose lol! We haven't advanced much further yet as life gets in the way. But, with the B&T, it's like clicker training, but without the clicker and the ability to provide more encouragement and communication to the dog.

One of the first steps of the B&T training is to load the "Yes you got it!" word. It's not even a word but a letter. I chose the letter "G" because it's just easier for me to be repetitive with. Anywho, load the "G", proof, then teach the dog the two finger target (I promise I do have a point to all this lol). The purpose of the two finger target is a start to teaching the dogs objects and locations and similar things. When we teach the two finger target, we start close to the dog, offer the two fingers and exclaim "Here!" When the dog turns their head towards the fingers and makes contact (you are that close to help insure success ), you exclaim "G" and treat them. The procedure is repeated and proofed and then distance is introduced.

The reason I'm bringing this up is that we've come to recognize this as a FANTASTIC way of teaching the dog to recall. Kat can tell you her experience with Jezzy about it but, let's just say that Jezzy was a drivey dog and squirrels and other small animals were SO interesting that simply saying "Come here" was NOTHING close to being enough. Jezzabelle, smart dog she is responded 100% to the "Here!" command from out of sight. As Kat recounted to me, she came bounding from around the house immediately to touch her nose to Kat's two fingers

Its SO easy to teach the dogs too! I did a ton of reading on B&T before I dared try to brave teaching it to the dogs. I used my first foster dog, Tino, as the "test dummy" and he was such a patient willing pupil lol. Once I got confident with what I needed to do, I went to Kat's house where she was fostering Jezzy. We spent half an hour teaching the "G" and "Here" and the "gggg" (to signify "Yes you're on the right track keep doing that!). Kat was struggling with teaching Jezzy down at a distance. Jez was too busy thinking ahead of herself that she couldn't seem to focus. And Kat is by no means uneducated when training dogs lol! After spending the half hour to teach Jezzy the run down, we had her doing a down at a distance in no time! Amazing stuff it really is

Anyway, yeah totally got way off topic but I love the B&T training because its SO useful! *off to sponge in more information in the other forums now*

[RealPitBull]

Wow, this is so weird, Alicia. I swear, just a couple days ago I was thinking that I needed to pull out my Synalia B&T manual and actually read it, and that I wanted to post a thread on the forum about B&T because I think it is SO interesting.

I'm going to have to try some stuff with my dog, since I am not taking professional clients anymore, and actually have some time to train my OWN dog. THANK YOU for bringing this topic up!

[DiamondTiger]

I did choose the recall in my vote because a dog that doesn't have a solid recall is such a danger in so many ways... Leave it comes in as a very close second with me because a dog that can't walk past a high value item without "going for it" is also a risk in many ways.

Now to touch on Alicia's post here... and Jezzy! Sweet sweet Jezzy! So smart but SO SO drivey!

Oct 16, 2008 18:46:20 GMT -5 lpyrbby said:

The reason I'm bringing this up is that we've come to recognize this as a FANTASTIC way of teaching the dog to recall. Kat can tell you her experience with Jezzy about it but, let's just say that Jezzy was a drivey dog and squirrels and other small animals were SO interesting that simply saying "Come here" was NOTHING close to being enough. Jezzabelle, smart dog she is responded 100% to the "Here!" command from out of sight. As Kat recounted to me, she came bounding from around the house immediately to touch her nose to Kat's two fingers

Jezzy was intense when it came to cats and squirrels. OMG... dog would bound up a tree like it wasn't even there to get a squirrel. She had been allowed and encouraged to give chase as a form of exercise in her previous foster home (prior to coming to me). We started with basic obedience then moved onto distraction training. She did really well with most commands and was beautiful on the leash after a few weeks of "drill training". Her recall on a long leash tho absolutely sucked and was completely non-existent off leash. I started working with her on the B&T training and literally within days her recall was solid. (I'll tell you what too... the B&T was a great aid in conditioning Jezzy to "maintain" with cats. She went from a dog that wanted to eat our kitten to a dog that would nudge him with her nose and let him swat and nibble at her - off leash.)

This is going to sound terrible... but I don't allow my husband to do much with the dogs. He loves them, but he doesn't quite "get it" and me being the "paranoid" person that I am... won't take a chance on something going wrong due to lax handling. I was sick tho and I asked him to take Jezzy out for a potty break and a game with the flirt pole. He decided to let her off the line. (I keep a light tether line so they still have plenty of room to run but no escape while they're learning.) Well, Jezzy takes off after a squirrel and I hear Brad shouting for Jezzy to come. I went outside and I told him "come" means nothing to her... he needs to say "HERE!" And here comes Jezzy running full on from the back of the house straight to my two fingered target! Yay Jezzy! Way to prove yourself and a method! ;D

Brad uses my method now when ever he handles the dogs.

Oh! Another thing that I teach my dogs is the release... SOOOOO important in my book. I don't teach them "Okay" because this is such a common word and how can we expect a dog to know the difference when we're talking to someone else of them? So I use the sound of "Bzzzzzz...." I'll have to get a video of my Karma, because that girl... man she just LOVES the flirt so I proof her with it every day. I rarely give her food rewards unless we're working on something brand spanking new. But even in our play time I'm training and working on proofing her. She has to sit/down and leave it until *I* release her to get the flirt with the "Bzzzzz". And she does get antsy and excited, but she will not move as I pull the toy over her head, flick it around her muzzle or drag it past her countless times.... until she hears that "Bzzzzz". Then it's ON! (We use this for EVERYTHING... going through doors, entering or leaving the crate, feeding, everything! You wait until you're buzzed, then you may have/do it.)

Oh and "Out!" I use out as a release because well... I'm lazy and saying "drop it" is just too much work for me. LOL! Seriously, I don't like "drop it" because too often it sounds like a person is asking a dog to let it go and I don't ask for squat... I command it. Out is so crisp and so easy to "get the point across" (and I can growl at them if they don't give it up)... "OUT!" / "OOOOUT!" vs "Drawp it?" I don't know why more people don't use this word.

[mageedog]

Come (Recall) is what I always refer to as the "Life saving" command. Stopping your dog from running and getting him to you is in my opinion the single most important thing there is. Once he is with you you can do whatever needs to be done. If he doesn't come you gotta hope beyond hope that things don't get real nasty.

My next two are stay and look at me. Stay is huge. A dog that can stay under durress, (someone pulling his lead, others calling him, massive distraction) is a controlled dog. And let's face it, people are always amazed when they call your dog and ge doesn't flinch. It's some of the greatest free PR the breed can get.

And I agree 1000% with emilys on watch me. Nothing will bring down a "keyed up" dog, like a good watch me. It instantly breaks their focus and brings them to you mentally. Then you can take appropriate actions on whatever keyed the dog up.

Release is another one I love. My dogs will drop cookies from their mouths with a release command. (That is as long as Diesel isn't in his cage with the door closed) A real problem developing, and I posted a query about it.

Great poll!

[bamapitbullmom]

I voted for a recall, also. Though my dogs have been trained a normal recall (here) I also have conditioned an emergency recall which is "ready to eat" as they are chow hounds. I cannot say that Cajun has a reliable recall in all situations (motivations) though he has turned on a dime in very motivating circumstances after I give the emergency recall.

I also have a "stop" cue which has proven even more effective than a recall. And paired with a secondary cue "down" or "wait" I am able to use this to close distance and redirect his attention to me under heavy distraction.

These emergency cues were established by strong, repetitive conditioning (always positive and strongly reinforced with rewards bigger than others) and although I try to not use even mild aversives, tone of voice is valuable.

I have not trained either of my dogs a stay, but I use "wait" which means that the dog may change position or move but not move forward and I use this when I want them to wait to proceed or to wait at doors, a modified boundary training. Exceptionally useful during stays at hotel rooms!

Leave it is my next vote...so many times I have prevented a toxic ingestion or dangerous situation with this cue.

My newest "leave it" modified cue is specifically related to snakes. Snakes are common here in my area and I have conditioned my dogs to avoid snakes by using dead snakes (yep...those I have found and killed) and conditioning the dogs to running away at their sight and hearing me do a hugely embarrassing HSSSSSSSSSSS! Finally this training proved effective when I recently moved a bucket on our deck exposing a baby rattlesnake. The dogs were intrigued at the sight but as soon as I made the hissing sound, they hauled ass. I'm working on enforcing this remotely so their reaction isn't entirely in regards to me being present.

Sit is also at the top of my list, it's difficult to imagine not owning a dog without an auto sit. Sit is their default choice of behaviors.

I suppose another on my list of necessary cues would be their "out" cue. Similar to "leave it" but used when they are out of sight.

Great poll, great questions and fabulous answers from all! I love learning from you guys!