September 2023 - 2 Minute Trainer

Get your dog to stop pulling

Dogs love routine. Dogs love patterns. You can take advantage of this, and cure your dog’s pulling on leash, with 3-step Pattern Walking. It’s a great way to get your dog to stop pulling.

3-step Pattern Walking is easy to learn for both you and your dog. The key aspect is to be absolutely reliable in your treat delivery. Never lie to your dog. If Phydeaux hears the magic word, even if you say it accidentally, Phydeaux gets a treat.

Get started

Pick a three-word phrase you can remember easily. It can be anything you choose – it will only have meaning for you and your dog. One-Two-Three. Do-Re-Mi. A-B-C. Wa’-Cha’-Wej. Whatever you like is fine.

Get a handful of treats and start teaching your dog your pattern words. Say the third word in your sequence and give your dog a treat. Five times. Just the third word and a treat. Your dog doesn’t have to do anything. You’re just familiarizing him/her with the idea that every single time they hear that particular word, they get a treat. That’s your magic word for your dog.

It bears repeating: Every single time you say the third word in your sequence, your dog gets a treat. Even if they’re not paying attention, even if they’re howling at the moon. If they hear that word, they get a treat. A really good treat – top tier nummies.

Next step is to say the last two words in your sequence. When you say the third word, give your dog a treat. You’re teaching your dog the pattern that leads to the golden ticket – your third word. Repeat five times.

Obviously, the next part is to say all three words and give your dog a treat when you say the third word. Repeat five times.

Dogs are smart

Most dogs catch on pretty darn quick. Getting 15 treats after hearing a single word is a powerful signal that it’s a wonderful word to hear. It’s pretty amazing watching them figuring it out.

How does this turn into loose-leash walking? How does this get your dog to stop pulling? By adding movement to your three-word sequence. One step for each word, reward on the third word. Every single time.

Remember that dogs learn by the timing and placement of rewards. For Pattern Walking, that means keeping the reward close to you. If you want a traditional “heel” position, hold the reward by your left thigh.

What if your dog is ahead of you or behind you? It doesn’t matter. Keep the reward where you want your dog to be. You’re showing your dog exactly where he/she needs to be to get the treat.

Stretch it out

As your dog learns the pattern and gets better at staying close, you can stretch out the sequence. Maybe say two steps between each of the three cue words. Pay close attention to your dog’s reaction. If your dog is staying with you, add more steps. If they’re wandering off, or starting to pull, keep the sequence a little tighter.

Most dogs catch on to Pattern Walking quickly. If your dog is still pulling, stop when you say the third word and wait for your dog to come back to you to give the reward. Don’t reach to give the reward – let your dog come back into position.

Don’t ruin your word

If you run out of treats, or forget them on an outing, stop using the three-word sequence. For it to remain valuable, you have to deliver a treat every time you say the third word. Failing to deliver on the promise will lessen, or eliminate, the value of the word. Reliably delivering on the promise you make to your dog will cement the behavior you want.

Don’t even bother telling your dog to “calm down”

Telling your dog to “calm down” is ridiculous. It means nothing to the dog, unless you teach a calmness protocol. And the absolute worst time to try to achieve calm with your dog is when they’re excited.

One of our favorite quotes is from science fiction author Robert Heinlein. “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.”

What you can do

Calm is not a dog goal. If you wanted a calm pet, you should have gotten one that either purrs or is stuffed with cotton batting. Dogs, even some senior dogs, are pets for activity. Whether that’s hiking, biking, canoeing, or strolling around the block.

Can you teach your dog to act politely, even when over-stimulated, stressed, and excited? Of course you can! And that’s the actual goal. You don’t want your dog to be calm. You want your dog to listen and remember their manners even when they’re excited.

Again: your real goal is for your dog to listen and behave everywhere, no matter what’s happening around you. Your objective is a dog who thinks and acts appropriately, even in a state of high arousal. Even if there’s a squirrel running across the street. Especially when a bicyclist zooms by. Definitely when your child’s entire 2nd Grade class is shrieking through the house playing “Hide and Seek.” So telling your dog to calm down won’t work.

How to get there

Dog issues seem to clump into clusters. We’ll hear about the same issue from several people within days, then nothing about that for months. This week it was definitely getting dogs to “calm down” in the presence of stimuli on walks.

And most people seem to think that calm is achieved by redirecting or distracting your dog. It’s not. It’s letting the dog see what’s going on, learning that it’s really not all that exciting, and choosing to get on with life. Two of our students this week mentioned their dog going nuts watching squirrels while out on walks.

We asked them what they did when their dog started lunging and pulling to chase the squirrel. Both pretty much said they dragged their dog off in the opposite direction. So the dogs learned absolutely nothing other than how strong their people are, and which buttons to push to annoy the heck out of them.

Changes in attitude

Instead of redirecting, distracting, and dragging, how about letting your dog watch the damn squirrel?
Try to get far enough away so your dog can watch calmly without pulling. Then just stop and let your dog watch. Squirrels are kind of fun to observe for a few minutes. Your dog will, in time, tire of it. If your dog isn’t chasing, the squirrel’s probably not going to do anything all that interesting.

Just wait. If your dog sits, great! Give him/her a cookie. Don’t tell them what to do. You don’t even need to talk to him/her. This would be the time to check your phone. Let your dog have a couple of minutes to do dog stuff.

When your dog is done watching, or at least staring intently at the squirrel, say something like “Okay, let’s move on!” and go. This is another instance where distance is your friend. Be far enough away so your dog can see, be seen, and still listen to you, a little bit.

Chances are the next squirrel won’t be as fascinating as this one was. Will your dog ever not notice squirrels? You hope not! It’s one of the things dogs are meant to do. Will they be able to glance, recognize, and ignore? In time, as long as you teach them that’s the proper way to behave in public.

Whisper to your dog

There’s a person on this planet who claims an ability to “whisper” to dogs. Nonsense. This tip has nothing to do with that person’s outdated, cruel, made-for-video dog harassment. We’re sorry that a perfectly lovely, onomatopoeic word has been corrupted. Because we do, in fact, want you to whisper to your dog.

Quite serendipitously, we learned this week how useful it can be. In an otherwise horrible, terrible, very bad week (both sisters down-for-the-count with Covid), it was the brightest discovery. We had no voices, no “Mom voice,” no audible authority. So we whispered to our dogs. And they listened.

A wonderful, quiet surprise

Understand that a significant part of dog training, for us, has been about the volume. Public spaces tend to be noisy. Dog training classes always start out noisy. Dog shows are super noisy, especially if a performance event is held in conjunction with a conformation show, which is often the case. Added to the crowd sounds, dogs barking, loudspeaker announcements, catering, are blow-dryers. Not a good place to hear yourself think.

So we’ve always given our dogs short, easy-to-yell names. Our students might argue differently, but we’re not, by nature, loud people. We’ve never been “hushed” by a librarian in our lives. And we’ve spent a lot of time in libraries. It’s taken years for us to shed the polite volume of conversation for the projection teaching demands. But it’s important, so we do it.

Along the way, we may have become louder with our own dogs. Even harsh-sounding at times. Which is odd to listen to, because every time we play training games with our dogs, the overwhelming emotion is joy. This loving, lovable being wants to play with me!

So we whisper to our dogs

We’ve often said that the best part of every day is the time we get to play training games with our dogs. Those couple of minutes when you’re in sync and having fun set the whole day off right. We always say, “Tell your dog everything,” so we weren’t quite sure how it would go the day we woke up with super-low, no-volume voices. We whispered because there was nothing else to do.

So we tried it. And the dogs loved it. They listened harder to make sure they didn’t miss anything. We even got the cutest head tilt from Booker (he’s the only one who actually does it). Their focus was intense. It was wildly successful.

That’s not to say it’s always going to work that way. Just like anything else, if you do it all the time, it’s no longer interestingly different. Then it’s just another routine. But every once in a while, it’s worth trying. Maybe if you’re having a hard time getting your dog’s attention. Or if they seem distracted or a bit “off” that day.

Old memories bring smiles

It actually reminded us of our mother. When we were growing up, she rarely, if ever yelled. Instead, if she wanted us to stop fighting, or pay attention, she whispered. We know of some parents who go so far as to just pretend they’re talking.

Try it! When you whisper to your dog, it’s a pretty effective way to get your dog (or your kids!) to be quiet and listen, instead.

Dog Trainers Talk To Aliens

If aliens ever really show up on Earth, the most in-demand people will be animal trainers. Think about it. Who else makes a regular practice of clearly communicating with another species? Dog trainers talk to aliens all the time. It’s what we do..

Granted, the shoe would be on the other foot. If an alien species gets here, they’ll clearly be far ahead of us in terms of technology, if not intelligence. Although, since they’ve probably cracked faster-than-light travel, and we haven’t, they’ve probably got us there, too.

But assuming we don’t have Star Trek’s Universal Translator by then, who’s most familiar with trying to figure out what non-humans are trying to communicate? It’s animal trainers in general. And maybe dog trainers specifically.

No one else has a better understanding of what it takes to clearly communicate with an alien species. In the thousands of years dogs have thrown in their lot with humans, they still haven’t developed the anatomy to speak our languages.

Communicating clearly

So how can people communicate clearly with dogs? By understanding how dogs learn and making use of that knowledge. Dogs are actually pretty straightforward:

Dogs always do what’s most rewarding to them.
Dogs learn by the timing and placement of rewards.
What gets rewarded gets repeated.
And, for unknown reasons that we’re profoundly grateful for, dogs really do want their people to be happy.

Timing is key

One of the best things you can do to clarify things for your dog is to work on your timing. That’s one of the reasons we advocate using a clicker. If your finger’s on the clicker button while your eyes are on your dog, you’ll hit that button as soon as you see something you like. Taking the time to think about it, travel from your eyes to your brain to your mouth to say “Good Whatever!” may not be as instantaneous. Your message to your dog may get muddied. Especially if your dog, like ours, is extremely active and busy.

You can see a clear demonstration of this in our video “Booker learning to “Push!” Like all the Boston Terriers we’ve known, Booker uses his paws a lot. For this game, the objective was to have him use his nose or muzzle to “Push!” the bowl. It’s the beginning of an idea we have for a “hockey” game for our dogs.

In the video, Fran’s eyes are glued on Booker’s interaction with the bowl. The clicker is in her hand, ready to go. As soon as he swaps using his paws for his nose, he hears the click and gets a reward. Because we’re human and we tend to talk to our dogs, Fran also says “Yes!” when she sees it. That’s okay. He knows he’s good and he repeats the action that got him the “click” and reward.

Crystal clear

Also notice where Fran rewards Booker in this sequence. She doesn’t pull him away from the game. She brings the reward to the “thing” he’s supposed to be focusing on. And it works. Booker knows that the bowl is the object of the game. He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do with it yet, but that’s okay. It’s a process.

Good timing and reward placement are key to bridging the communications gap between you and your dog. You’re never going to be able to speak “dog.” And your dog will never speak English. But you can still understand each other. Let’s hope the aliens are patient with us, as we are with our dogs.

Teach, don’t tell, your dog

Your dog learns nothing if you’re always telling them what to do. You need to turn that around and teach, don’t tell, your dog.

As an example, the most common dog issue we address every single class is dogs jumping up on people. Every time a dog jumps on someone, the dog’s owner tells the dog “off” or “down” and pulls on the dog to make that happen. If the dog’s on leash, they pull on the leash. Wearing a collar? They pull on the collar. If the dog’s naked, they grab the dog’s legs or shoulders to make it happen.

Stop doing that. For two reasons:

It doesn’t work. Witness the fact that you have to keep doing it.
It teaches your dog nothing. Evidenced by the fact that your dog’s still doing it.

If you need more convincing that your current practice isn’t helping, try looking up Einstein’s definition of insanity. If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.

Do this instead

It’s hard to teach any dog what “not” to do. Instead, give your dog an alternate greeting behavior that everyone will enjoy. How about you teach your dog to “Sit!” to say hello?

Set up the situation by enlisting the help of a friend who won’t mind, and won’t get hurt, if your dog does jump on them. Arrange a time and place that your friend will come to your house or meet you. Have your dog on leash and as your friend arrives, tell your dog to “Sit!” Your friend comes over to you and your sitting dog. Both of you give treats, praise, and pets to your dog as long as they’re sitting. If the dog gets up or jumps on the friend, both of you immediately disengage with the dog, stay quiet, fold your arms across your chest, and stare at the ceiling.

Your dog won’t know what’s happening at first. They may keep jumping, or nudging at either or both of you. Ignore it. Don’t say anything. Your dog may act a fool for a bit. That’s okay. Just wait. Sooner or later, your dog will figure out what was working and try it again. As soon as the dog is sitting, both of you praise, pet, and reward the dog. Make a big fuss for good behavior. Repeat as needed.

Hold up your end of the bargain

Depending on the dog and the people, and how long the behavior’s been entrenched, it may take a few sessions to get the message across. Letting your dog think it through is the way to teach them, rather than tell them, how to act.

All dog training is negotiating with your dog. They get what they want (attention) when you get what you want (polite behavior). Dogs aren’t picky about the kind of attention they get. Dogs don’t distinguish between positive attention (praise, rewards, pets) and negative attention (shouting, corrections, punishment). As long as you’re paying attention to them, they’re happy. Pulling on them, yelling at them, kneeing them in the chest is all attention. That stops the behavior for the moment. But it’s a very temporary fix.

Take it out for a ride

It won’t really take long for your dog to get in the habit of “Sit To Greet!” for you and your friend. When your dog is successful most of the time, change the friend you practice with. Or change the place you’re practicing. Go to the friend’s house, or a different friend’s house. Let your dog know that the same behavior is good wherever you are, whoever you’re meeting.

When you think your dog’s understanding is pretty solid, go someplace you can recruit a couple dog-friendly strangers to reward your dog for polite behavior. Go to a pet shop, veterinarian’s office, grooming shop, or any dog-friendly place. When you ask people to help, explain what you’re up to and what you expect your dog to do. With our own dogs we’ve even set ourselves up outside a nearby commuter train station. In that situation, look for people not hurrying, who smile at your cute dog. Those are the ones most likely to help.

Just ask one or two people, then call it a day. You don’t want to overload your dog. This kind of exercise, especially with strangers, can be stressful, stimulating, and exhausting for your dog. Having to think and control their impulses is hard work. You can judge how your dog is doing with a small sample. It takes a while for the taught behavior to become your dog’s first response. Give them time to get it right.

It will happen

Most of the dogs in our “Manners” classes jump on people at the start. And we offer ourselves as the “friendly stranger” every week. The first week, all the dogs jump on us and it takes a while. The second week, there’s usually an initial jump followed fairly quickly by a “Sit!” The third week, most dogs sit as soon as we head in their direction.

What actually takes the most practice is getting the people to be quiet and stop physically manipulating their dogs. Common courtesy demands that we don’t let our dogs jump on other people. But in this case, we have to put politeness aside and let them be rude. When rudeness doesn’t work, the dogs engage their brains and try something else. So, we’ve seen that it doesn’t work if we just tell our dogs what to do. Teach, don’t tell, your dog.