Be A No-Brainer Trainer

Feef Speaks: When I found my mom, I was so scared! She was very patient with me even when I peed in her lap. But she's a smart mom, and she used really positive methods to help me understand her. It worked so well for me, she wrote it down so all you guys can have your moms and dads do the same. I highly recommend listening to her. She's a smart mom, and so now I'm a smart Feef. I call my mom the No-Brainer Trainer because she really worked hard to make it easy for me to learn!



Tori Talks: So often when we try to train our dogs we just try to bring too much to the table. Remember the old rule of KISS - Keep It Simple Sweetie. Stick with the basics. This Far Side cartoon by David Larson says it all:

Cue - Mark - Reward - Release

• CUE the dog with hand signal and voice. "Spot, WATCH ME". Use food as a lure if you need to. Hold a treat by your eye. Eventually, pointing the index finger at the eye will be the hand cue.


• When Spot's gaze scans across your eye for a nanosecond, MARK* the action quickly with a crisp "Yes!". Note: "Good Dog" is NOT a marker. It is a reward phrase to use AFTER the marker word. We commonly confuse these things, thereby confusing the dog, thereby making training more confusing for everyone. Lets not do that. Use "eh-eh" as a marker if he gets it wrong.


• REWARD - At first, reward immediately after marking the action. Say "Yes!" then add a praise phrase such as "Good dog!", and offer the treat. As your dog starts to understand that cue = action = reward, you want to require longer DURATION of the action before offering the reward.


• RELEASE the dog from the action. Do NOT reward if he jumps the gun. Use your eh-eh, and have him repeat the action. If Spot is jumping at the treat, RELEASE him before rewarding him.
  
  Dogs repeat behavior they are rewarded for! Dogs live in the NOW. Be sure when you reward the dog it is not jumping up on you, snapping at the treat, or engaged in other unwanted actions.
  * MARKERS can be either positive (YES!!) or negative (NO!!). Most of us have overused "NO", and it can cause your pup to "shut down" and be unreceptive to learning. This is why I like to use a more benign "EH" for training. Save "NO" for when the pup is doing some heinous act such as piddling on grannies antique quilt.
  FEEDBACK: Consider this - if your boss never said you were doing good or bad and then just went off on you and fired you, you would think it was pretty unjust that he didn’t give you a chance to do it right by telling you that what you were doing was wrong. SO... please give your dog feedback in the form of "yes" and "eh-eh". You have about 3 seconds leeway after an action to provide this feedback or it has no meaning to your dog.
  BE PATIENT: When you get frustrated, Spot will too. Just like you crunched gears the first week you drove a stickshift, or hit the wrong letters in typing 101, your dog will have to think about what you are asking. If you’re both getting frustrated, try something Spot already knows, reward, and take a break from training to play a while.
  BE CONSISTENT: Use the same word for a cue. Use the same word for a marker. Use the same word for release. These consistencies will help your dog "get it".
  DOGS DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. When training, do NOT use more words than your cues, markers, release and reward phrases. Why? All the other words we throw in are just junk words at this point, and confuse the dog.
  Keep it short & sweet. Have fun. Be patient. Be consistent.Work on training for about 15 minutes tops, then play some.

Turbo adds his 2 biscuits worth: I'm pretty busy, and sometimes it's hard to listen. Mom makes it easy for me using only the words that have meaning for me when she's training me. When she's not training me, all kinds of stuff I don't get comes out of her mouth. I try keep up by just watching her face and listening for words I know for cue's to what she's blathering on about. During training sessions, she keeps it fun, uses only training words, and that keeps me interested. I've seen some other dogs people getting mad and those dogs just hate it when their mom and dad do that. So ask yourself this when you start up your next training session with your pup: Would you rather have Hitler or Jay Leno teaching you to sit?