Turning a Negative into a Positive
The first thing I always do with puppies is “name recognition” because how else are you going to communicate if they don’t know you’re talking to them?! Remember your parents saying “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”? Well, I feel the same about dogs. If I’m just spewing out cues, I’m doing just that. No one is listening unless I say “Fido, sit!”. Then Fido knows I’m talking to him.
Once we’ve got the pup turning on a dime when he hears his name, we can move on to bigger and better things. We work through the basics like “sit” and “down” – both super easy with puppies of this age, and of course, Buttercup (the pup in question here) learns these cues quite quickly and generalizes it to all three of us in a matter of minutes with a little practice.
Suddenly, in the middle of our session, Buttercup decides that he has found something better to do and he races off to the front door to grab one of three pairs of flip-flops we have left there. I can see both parents sighing as if to say “here we go again”, so I tell them not to worry “watch this”.
As soon as he grabs the flip-flop, I start praising him and calling his name while clapping my hands and getting all excited. He can’t resist this excitement, but the shoes taste soooo goooood so he has no choice but to carry one with him as he races back to me to see what I’m all excited about. As soon as he gets to me, I hold a little treat out in front of his nose and tell him what a good boy he is. He drops the flip-flop and takes the treat while I grab the flip-flop and put it up out of the way.
Both parents have a little chuckle but I’m not leaving it at that. “Go get a shoe!” I say as he turns to race back to the door and lo and behold, he grabs one. I start all over again with the excitement and we run through the process again and again until he’s brought us all the shoes at the front door and needs a drink of water. It’s hard work, you know, fetching shoes.
So instead of Buttercup being punished for something that is impossible for him to control himself against right now, we’ve turned it into a cue. “Go get a shoe!” We’ve turned a negative into a positive and his self esteem stays high, the way it should be.
Of course, this behaviour isn’t rock solid yet, but we’ve got a great start here. It will need to be practiced on a regular basis, but also managed. Why managed? Because sometimes you don’t want to play fetch with your shoes, so you put them away so there’s no opportunity. Other times you leave them out and arm yourself with little treats so that you can set him up for success. Eventually, he’ll understand the verbal cue “go get a shoe” and he’ll be able to do it when asked.
This is when you put the behaviour on stimulus control (by only rewarding him for bringing the shoe if you have asked for it) so that he only does it when you ask him to – not simply when the opportunity presents. That way, you can leave shoes out all the time and not worry that it will be a constant game of fetch going on when you’re home.
This is a great technique that can work in the most interesting situations – take a behaviour that you don’t like and train your dog to do it on cue, then put it on stimulus control. Suddenly your dog is trained to jump up on people, bark his head off, open the fridge, and dig in the garden, but only when you ask him to – never any other time.
Isn’t that more fun than punishing your dog for being a dog?
Disclaimer: setting your pup up for success also means managing the environment and never leaving a young puppy loose in the house when you are unable to supervise 100%. Utilize a crate so that your pup doesn’t learn improper behaviour when you are not around – this is when most pups chew shoes, and that tends to be more rewarding than fetching.
Date: July 19th, 2011
Author: Caryn Charlie Liles
Copyright 2011, Whatta Pup!
