Wichita Retriever Training Examiner Ken McNutt

In the last article, we looked at the first five commandments. Here are the rest:

VI. Carry Correction to the Pupil – Let’s say you are walking down the street and you see your friend Joe waving you over to the other side. Since he’s your friend, you have no reason to distrust his motives, so you gladly join him. When you get close, Joe pulls out a club that had been hidden under his jacket, and proceeds to give you a sound beating.   Now, how are you going to react the next time you’re walking down the street and Joe beckons you over? Do not call your dog to you, then punish him. You have probably, at one time or another, witnessed a dog cowering whenever it gets near it’s handler.   That’s what happens when a dog associates punishment with being close to it’s trainer.  First of all, making your pupil come to you for punishment, creates fearfulness and breeds distrust. Not only is trust the foundation for a productive training partnership between you and your dog, it is the foundation for a close, personal relationship with your dog, whether you are hunting, participating in hunt tests or field trials, or just enjoying each other’s company at home.   Secondly, if your dog is fearful of being at your side, what happens when the dog runs out your front door into a busy street and you try to call him back?  Finally, if punishment or correction is not given within about a second after the error or offense, the dog will not make a solid association between his action and your reaction.  This applies to positive reinforcement, as well.  The closer the reaction is to the action,the more effective it will be.  This all goes back to commandment IV: Don’t give a command you can’t reinforce.  That’s why it is important to have some kind of “remote” control, whether it be the e-collar, lead, or a training partner who can be close to the dog, to make corrections at the proper time and the proper location.

VII. Never Teach or Train in Anger - dogs have a highly developed sense of perception, especially about vocal cues (tone, amplitude, and inflection) and body language.  Early man once had a similar level of those abilities, but lost them as language developed.  Dogs can’t speak, as humans do, so they must rely on perceptual skills for communication and survival.  We may not be dogs, but dogs can still read our emotions and intent. Dogs interpret anger in humans as either a threat, or an indication that they have done something to displease us.  Our anger makes them fearful and uncertain about whether or not they are going to be punished, not for something they did, but for something they are going to do.  This is obviously counterproductive to training.  If you went to work and were fearful the boss was going to fire you, could you perform your job with enthusiasm and confidence?  

If you are working with your dog and you become angry because  his performance is not what you expected, either stop and reassess the situation calmly, or throw the dog a fun bumper and quit the training session.  If you are having a bad day and are carrying those negative feelings, don’t even bother to start the training session, it will only get worse for you, and the dog.

Dogs can read all of our emotions.  There are studies which suggest that, in addition to our voice and body language, we may give off subtle chemical scents corresponding to everything from our mood to our physical health, which dogs and horses, and perhaps other animals, can read.  They can read, when we are getting frustrated, even if we don’t show outward anger, and it causes them to be confused, fearful, and stressed, when we are trying to train.  

Yes, at times dogs will try to test us, to see if they can get away with things, but it is not personal.  They are not trying to stick it to us.  It is the dog’s nature to make sure their leader is competent, so, when there is doubt, they test the leader.   Don’t get angry with the dog, because most of their failures in performance (beyond genetics and physical limitations) are a result of flawed or inadequate training on the handler’s part.  Remember, dogs respond to confident leadership, whether it is the leader of the pack, or their handler.   It goes back to that issue of trust, that we will keep them safe and not place them in situations where they are likely to fail.  If you, as their teacher/handler are confident and calm, the dog is more likely to respond in kind.

VIII. Don’t Strike the Dog’s Face - There are two basic reasons, you should not strike a dogs face, whether you are teaching or correcting behavior.  First, this action is too intimidating and “personal” to have a positive effect on the dog.  In essence, it is traumatic,  Second, you run the risk of damaging two of the dog’s most valuable sense organs, the eyes and the nose.  Damage one eye, and the dog loses depth perception and, thus, the ability to mark.  If the nose is damaged, the dogs ability to scent fallen birds is diminished. In addition, If you strike a dog’s head or face frequently, the dog will become hand shy; they will duck and flinch, and they will try to avoid heeling close to your leg,  Some dogs will even develop a habit of looking up at the handler, instead of out toward the field, anticipating that they are going to be struck.  

Now, having said all this, there is an exception to the rule.  Do not allow a dog to put his mouth on you.  Some dogs, that seem to be playing, will take their handler’s hand or arm in their mouth.  While, this may not be actual aggression, it is often the dog’s way of asserting dominance over you, the handler, and should be nipped in the bud immediately.  You do not have to use a lot of force, but to make it clear to the dog what the offense is, you should respond by striking the dog’s muzzle with your hand, while sternly saying, “NO” or OFF.”  If you are consistent, it usually doesn’t take long to get the message across.

Also, you should react directly, if the dog tries to bite you.  Because of improvements in training theory and methods, less direct pressure is necessary when training today’s retrievers.  In times past, so much pressure was put on the dogs, especially those trained for field competition, that the dog would react by attacking it’s handler.  Having said this,  even with kindlier, gentler methods of training, some dogs are more easily stressed than most and will respond to even the lightest pressure by “coming up” on their handler, trying to bite them.  If you have this kind of dog, you must either deal with it directly; send your dog to a professional trainer or behaviorist, or get rid of the dog.  Do not tolerate, in any way, shape, or form, a dog that bites.  

As a brief addendum to the subject of biting, it is important to be cautious whenever you train with an      e-collar, especially, if the dog is in close proximity, such as at the heel position.  If you have adjusted the collar to it’s proper level of stimulation, you should see little more than a twitch or a slight jerk of the dog’s head, as a reaction to muscle contraction.  However, sometimes, if the dog is sensitive to electric stimulation, or if the intensity is set to high, it will appear that the dog is intentionally trying to attack it’s handler.  In actuality, the dog is just reacting by associating and attacking whatever or whomever is closest to the discomfort.

IX. A Puppy is a Puppy; Don’t Treat it as an Adult, nor as a Human - Puppies have a tremendous capacity for learning, but, just like small children, they are limited by their physical and emotional stage of development.  All animals develop from the inside outward.  First, to develop are the organs which sustain life.  Body movements are awkward and disorganized.  At this point, the brain is concerned with one thing… pure survival.  That means seeking the mother’s breast; seeking warmth and dryness; seeking nurturance via physical contact with the mother.  As the puppy’s body and brain develop, its ability to leave the mother’s side and explore the environment improves.  This allows for limited exploration.   At about 5 to 6 weeks, the puppy has extended it’s distance enough to interact with a variety of new things in the environment, it’s then that learning by association starts to really kick into gear, and the puppy starts learning what is friendly and what is not.  Scientific studies of the dog’s brain show that it is fully developed at about 49 days (7 weeks).  Anything learned between 49 and 84 days will be retained for the lifetime of the dog.  That’s another reason why it is so important to get a solid foundation of behavior established early on.  Dogs continue to learn (even “old dogs”), but things learned during that 5-6 week period are more firmly ingrained into the dog’s behavior patterns. It is during this time that puppies, left with their mother are learning adult behavior patterns for survival from their parents.  It is during this time, you may have seen puppies pick up skills simply by watching older dogs work.  

Having said this, keep in mind that, just like very small children, the younger the puppy is, the shorter is its attention span.  That’s why it is more beneficial to learning, during this age period, to teach or train in frequent, but short training sessions.  If you make the session too long, the dog will quickly loose interest, and retention of what you are trying to teach will be diminished.  Older dogs have a much greater capacity for attention and associative learning, so they have the ability to put pieces of the puzzle together, in terms of complex tasks, especially if you have built that foundation of basic skills.  The more a dog matures, the better they become tolerating lengthy training sessions, as long as the experience is positive; meaning that they have success and reward for their work.  While they may thrive on your attention, a puppy’s primary concerns are being fed, warm, and secure.  Whereas, older dogs receive pleasurable feelings from receiving human approval and praise, and pleasure through gratification of natural drives, which, in the case of retrievers, is chasing birds and other moving objects.  

The second part of this commandment could probably stand alone: don’t treat a dog like a human, at least in training.  The bond between human and dog is timeless.  There can be no denial about the real symbiotic relationship and the communication dynamic, which have paired dog and man since the time of first recorded history.  But, people are people and dogs are dogs, each with their own distinct methods of learning, communicating, and interacting with their environment.   I won’t deny that, I speak to my dogs like they were my closest friends (they are). However, humans have the ability to communicate and interact with the world through complex abstractions, conceptualizations, and constructions, while to the dog, things are much more simple: one-plus-one is two.  The dog requires no complex theorem to explain the concept of base 10.  It can’t be altered by some obscure mathematical postulate.  One-plus-One equals two… period.  To paraphrase Sir Issac Newton, for every action there is a reaction, either positive or negative. That’s all a dog needs to know in order to survive.  They learn by association.  A sensory cue is associated with some type of effect from the environment.  A smell can say to the dog, friend, foe, danger, or food.  

Do dogs understand what we say?  The answer is yes, but not so much in terms of what we say, as of how we say it.  When we say, “get over here,” unless we have taken the time to string that word combination together in training the dog to come to us, the dog has actually learned to respond to the tone of your voice and your body cues and body language.  I’m not saying you can’t talk to your dog as if it were human.  What I am saying is, teach your dog using one-word commands.  This makes the association between the command and what you expect the dog to do much less confusing.  And, remember Commandment II: be consistent. Don’t teach and train a one-word command, then take the dog home and start talking “human” to him, at least not for those specific commands.  When you are 100% sure the dog is solid on the single command, then you can start talking to him like he is your beer buddy (no political reference intended).

X. Plan Ahead - Though it is presented as the last commandment, this is a primary rule for training.  Before you start a training session, whether it is by your self or with your training group, decide what it is you want to work on.  If you plan your course of training, then you can set a goal for what you want to accomplish.   Even if you don’t reach your specific goal for that session, you will at least be able to come away with some measure of progress and a picture of what you need to work on next.  

In training, you also want to plan ahead for what you will do, if the dog doesn’t perform correctly.  If you are not prepared for an incorrect response from the dog, you are unlikely to make a timely correction, and therefore, will miss an opportunity to advance your dog’s performance.  If you anticipate the possibility of an issue, you can react to it within that brief learning window of opportunity.

 Of course, there are other rules that should be applied to training your dog, but the ones presented here are some of the most important, and the ones that are most often forgotten or ignored.

 FYI: I  cannot reply directly to questions left in the comments section.  If you have a question or otherwise wish to contact me, use the “e-mail” button at the top of the article, or you can e-mail me directly at Kenmacsn2labs@aol.com.  I will include in my articles, any questions or information which might be beneficial to other readers….

Thanks, Ken

Announcements:
For anyone in the Wichita, Ks area interested in training your retriever and having the opportunity to work with your dog throughout the year, rather than just hunting season, or if you are interested in retriever hunt tests and field trials, you are invited to attend the meeting of the Sunflower Retriever Club, this Tuesday evening (8-19-09), at Gander Mountain.

Sunflower Retriever Club Fall Field Trial, October 9,10, and 11, at Hazelton, Ks. (more details to come)