Yooper Paws of Love is dedicated to providing training with love to you and your 4-legged friend!
My mission as a trainer is to EDUCATE owners to ENGAGE better with their dogs to EMPOWER them to function as an effective team together. As a trainer, I help families & their dogs learn to enjoy each other’s company by developing a teamwork and games based approach to dog training that is as individualized as the family I’m helping!
Join us for some fall fun at the Yooper Paws Training Center!
Bark & Treat
611 N Hooper St, Kingsford, MI 49802
October 29th from 5-7:30 PM
$10 To Enter the Trunk Design Contest!
Businesses, Families, & Groups are encouraged to decorate their vehicle trunk in Halloween flare, then pass out treats to owners and their dogs.
Set up begins at 5PM
Judging at 5:45PM
(Prizes will be awarded immediately following judging.)
Any fall flare decorations are allowed with bonus points earned for displays that are dog themed. Please do not include anything that is designed to pop out causing a startle response. Lights and scents encouraged!
Bark & Treat Owners
Owners are encouraged to bring out their dogs for the fun Bark & Treat Activities.
Social dogs are encouraged to attend from 6-7PM.
Dogs that may need a bit more space from other dogs are encouraged to attend from 7-7:30PM.
Please do not bring any dogs that are fearful of people in general for everyone's safety!
At Yooper Paws of Love we have a soft spot in our hearts for dogs that are fearfully reactive and do our best to include them in all activities. But safety for everyone including your fearful dog is our first priority! If your dog is on the fearful side, please contact Yooper Paws to schedule a time to pick up a treat bag and play the games privately.
In addition to the Bark & Treat Fun we will have additional games and activities set up inside and around the Yooper Paws Training Center.
Photo Contest will be held indoors with a winner announced the following day via Social Media and an email to the winners. You must register and have your photo taken by the Yooper Paws representative to enter the photo contest. All entries may be shared on any Yooper Paws social media sites and/or contest sponsor sites.
We are requesting a small donation of $2 per dog to participate in activities that will be used to help some of our local Service Dog in Training Teams.
Contact Yooper Paws of Love to reserve your Bark & Treat spot and enter the Trunk Decorating Contest.
Text us or leave us a voicemail at 906-399-0548 with the Name and phone number you would like to register under and let us know if you are interested in sponsoring one of our games or contests. You can also reach out to us via email at yooperpaws@gmail.com.
Special Thanks to Pawsitively Pups Training & Metal Roof Grooming for helping us plan this event!
How do you create patterns to speed up your dog training?
Before reading this post about patterns & pattern games, be sure to review the post on Understanding Routines that I wrote a few months ago. Routines & Patterns are very similar yet have different applications so I want to start with defining what I mean for both of those words.
Routines - Ongoing behaviors that often apply to daily activities such as meals, going out to potty, bedtime, etc. In a routine the dog may perform multiple behaviors in response to changes happening in the environment that are practiced every day or every time that event happens.
Patterns - Short repetitive behaviors that are used in the training phase of a new behavior that will often be modified to increase the difficulty of the behavior or phased out once the dog actually learns the behavior.
Think of this way, we use routines to teach our dog what is expected in specific situations in order to receive the reinforcement they are seeking and we use patterns to teach our dogs a specific behavior that will earn reinforcement which later will be put on a cue once the dog has learned the specific behavior.
The first example of a pattern game that I teach in all my classes is the Up/Down Game. Check out this video of Henney playing the game for the first time.
The directions for teaching the game can be found in the description of this video!
When playing a pattern game, I like to start with 10-12 small, easy to swallow treats in my hand so I can rapidly reinforce the desired behavior. Typically the game will last less than a minute. All my clients are taught how to use a pattern game to teach hand targets, then told to add that activity into something they do every day such as going to the coffee pot. I suggest they put a treat container at the place of their daily activity and pull out the 10-12 treats doing a 30-60 second hand target game before they fill their coffee cup, or whatever activity they are about to do.
Clients are instructed to play the Pattern Game exactly as we did in the session for 1 week. Then we tweak the game to make the behavior slightly more challenging. Week 1 they practice simple hand targets, Week 2 they play the Moving Target game, & Week 3 they play the Hand Target Heelzone Game. By doing this they are heavily reinforceing the hand target but slowly using that hand target to teach the behaviors they want the dog to do such as stand up, switch sides, heel, wait, etc.
When to use patterns and when to avoid patterns!
Those who continue training learn how to use Pattern Games to encourage behavior such as eye contact, heel, and recall. Since teaching heel is a struggle for many dog owners I'm going to use that as an example with 2 of my favorite games. Starting with the Finding Heel Game that I play.
Puppy Level
Adolescent Level
When you play lots of pattern games with your dog, at some point they typically start predicting what your next move is, often trying to get there before you even ask for it. At this point they know the behavior and if we repeat the patterns much longer without increasing difficulty or adding in new distractions, the dog will get board and decide to do their own game. Ideally we want to recognize this before it actually happens and make changes to keep the dog involved and learning.
To explain this a little better, I'm going to continue with the "heel" example and move on to the Bucket Game. By design the Bucket Game is geared to breaking patterns and routine habits, instead encouraging the dog to focus more on the handler for direction. If Belle sees my red buckets set up in pretty much any environment she easily jumps in heel ready to play the game because she loves it so much.
See the video description for details!
In real life, I'm not about to carry my red buckets everywhere! As a Service Dog in Training, I need Belle to learn to heel in very distracting environments which requires a great deal of focus. To teach that level of focus, I need to keep changing the games and patterns in a way that makes her focus on me even without specific resources that I use for pattern games. To phase out the props and move more into real life situations, I need a game that makes it easy to always change the criteria. Sometimes this means blending different pattern games together to make a new pattern. Other times this means creating a brand new game with lots of direction changes such as working in a wide open space like a yard, field or parking lot and frequently changing directions.
There is a lot more games when it comes to teaching a solid heel and a many more things you need to consider about leash manners in general before you can figure out what will work best for you and your dog. The Leash Manners E-Book that will soon be released is designed to walk you through some of the challenges with leash manners and provide you with helpful resources to teach the behaviors you love using reinforcement the dog loves by playing games vs using corrections and telling your dog what not to do. Watch this blog for more info about the Leash Manners E-book!
You may have heard me use the term Canine Coach before or if you've done any online training with me you've heard about the Crazy2Calm Canine Coaches. While many people still refer to us as the Dog Trainer (which is totally OK) this games based approach to training makes us more like a Coach. A good trainer should be able to teach each owner how to be successful as a dog/owner team.
As a Canine Coach, it's my job to guide the owner and dog towards things that will be make life easier and more fun for both them. This might involve teaching the owner and dog how to walk nicely down the trail instead of have the dog dragging the owner down the trail. Owners come to me with all kinds of issues; biting, jumping, counter surfing, pulling on lead, barking at people...this list could go on and on. As a Coach, I will observe the human/dog interactions and make small adjustments to the way they are doing things, giving them a change to improve bit by bit over time. Just like humans, dogs can't change their habits over night and big changes take more time to learn. Small changes that feel good and often natural can make the world of difference for my clients.
One of the ways we help the dog and owner make small changes into new habits is to set up obstacle courses designed to help them practice the new skills they are learning together.
Building Obstacle Courses
Check out this video of Canine Coach, Faith playing with her dog Echo on an Obstacle Course
Obstacle course make learning fun! We all learn better when we are having fun!
Obstacle courses improve teamwork as communication becomes more clear!
Obstacle courses build good habits that often reduce the chances of bad behaviors happening!
Gone are the days where most owners desire to dominate over their dog with an iron fist. Today people have dogs because they love having them around and simply want to co-exist successfully together. While dogs have lived with humans for thousands of years, that doesn't mean they are born knowing how to navigate or survive in this human based world. This is why puppies bite, jump, steal food and many other bad habits that drive owners crazy.
Dogs with bad habits are not bad dogs! They simply haven't learned the behaviors their owners love. Instead of a team that works together, dog and owner sometimes work against each other without realizing it.
Often this is due to a communication gap or language barrier. A good Canine Coach will help you bridge that gap and develop teamwork that leads to better communication, increased skills, and become a stronger team.
Obstacle courses can be set up to teach just about any skill or concept you want to teach your dog. Start with defining the overall goal for the obstacle course.
"I want to help my dog earn reinforcement for walking in the heel position while having fun!"
I created a game with buckets, similar to horse barrel racing, where teams can practice heel and turning around corners/objects in a predictable or unpredictable pattern. Some dogs do better when they can predict what the owner will do, while other dogs focus better if they don't know what's happening next. The bucket heel zone obstacle allows us to figure out what the human can do to make heeling easier for the dog to succeed. You can also build some speed variation into the bucket game for dogs that like speed or humans that want to make it more challenging.
Once you have your first set of obstacles to practice your main goal, I'll also set up a few other obstacles that my dog has already practiced and does well it. Then you can spend 1-3 minutes doing the bucket game, move on to perhaps a parkour station, then maybe some mat training or basic obedience stations, then circle back and repeat. This can help keep your dog engaged and having fun longer with a mix if mini-sessions, under 3 minutes each, then rolled together in a longer session or 10-15 minutes.
Obstacle Course to Teach Cues
Any good trainer to tell you to avoid using a verbal cue until your dog is good at the behavior. Using a cue for heel before your dog knows the position can add confusion to your training. Playing games such as doing obstacle courses that rely on your dog staying in heel can build the excitement and reinforcement history for that skill, then slowly you add in the verbal cue while the dog is doing the skill correctly.
My SDiT Rosalind struggles with getting her leash tangled on everything, including herself! I've always taught my dogs directional cues by capturing the direction changes on walks with a verbal cue. As an adolescent Roz is way too distracted on walks right now to learn these cues. To make it easier, I set up an obstacle course at the Training Center to teach her the concept of going the same way around things as I do. This helps me to teach the left, right & follow cues that will help us navigate public spaces together as a team instead of every man/dog for themselves.
Canine Coaches are happy to help!
Canine Coaches have lots of great games to teach all the skills you and your dog need. We want you to succeed and therefore we are committed to modifying our games based on all the individuals (human and canine) involved.
Games grow Concepts
Concepts grow Skills
Skills grow Confidence
Confidence grows Optimism
And Optimism grows Resilience.
If you're ready to start playing the games to help your team grow, reach out to our Canine Coaches so we can help you create the teamwork you've always wanted between you and your dog. Reach out to us at yooperpaws@gmail.com and we will find a package that will work for you!
These 3 dogs (Azul, Roz, & Maverick) are all Service Dogs which means they need to be able to focus on the job no matter what is happening around them. Many dogs are easily distracted in the presence of other dogs. Games such in this picture can help dogs learn to focus around distractions. This is a calming game to help the dogs relax after a play session. Their job is to stay on their station and listen for their name to be called to release them. It may sound simple, but it's not easy for dogs that were just racing around.
Games can be set up differently depending on your overall goal. You can set up something with lots of movement if you want to get your dog responding to cues more rapidly or your can set up something with very little movement if you want your dog to calm down. For dogs that struggle with rebounding after something really exciting or fearful, you can design games that start fast and slowly switch tracks to calmer, slower activities.
Often people get stuck on thinking a dog will rest when they get tired, then give dogs more exercise when bad behaviors start to happen. Sometimes a puppy chewing on your shoes needs a walk or play time, but sometimes that puppy chewing on your shoes really needs a nap but does know yet how to settle. Just like children, dog's do not come pre-installed with an off switch. Thankfully games can be used to help teach a dog calming behaviors that they can do without destroying the house. You wouldn't go on a roller coaster or something really exciting that gets your adrenaline up, then simply lay down for a nap. It's not really fair to expect our dogs to do that on their own either.
As in the picture above, the dogs became really aroused or excited by playing with each other. They played roughly 20 minutes in the Go-Go-Go mindset. When they'd had enough, they came to me for human interaction. All 3 dogs followed me around the Training Center while I gathered the stations. This took them from a running state of adrenaline rush down to a slower but still moving state of mind. Once the stations were set up, they all chose their own station. I started with simply asking them all to come to me for a treat, then get on a station for a treat, having them all move back forth. Then we slowly transitioned to everyone holding their position until their name was called to come get a treat and return to their station. All of this was taught with previous games starting with 1 dog at a time.
This brings me to another point in why we need to use games for training, No matter what game you set up, there is always a way to make it slightly harder, slightly more entertaining, slightly more reinforcing for the dog. Games always start simple and build up! Watch this cone game with Azul to see how we start with a simple Go Around.
In this Movement Puzzle the frisbees represent a start and stop place where reinforcement will be delivered. The cones start out really close together so Azul can learn the basics of going around. Then the cones start to move out further apart to work on the concept of working at greater distances.
Azul struggles when I change things to quickly, so I have to change my game set up to make it easier. This meant I had to get another cone to fill the empty space so he didn't take a short cut. Azul already knows the cue to go around but he's never played this game before so he's moving slowly.
At the end Azul tells me he is done with this game by going in between my legs. This tells me he wants to play his favorite game of moving together as a team with Azul standing between my legs. We are a bit out of camera range for this game, but I think you can tell what we are doing.
Games Help Fearful Dogs
When Lana first came into the Yooper Paws Training Center she was extremely scared, timid and barky! Like many owners, Lana's person didn't quite know what she was getting into when she agreed to give Lana a home. While Lana's person knew a great deal about training Aussies, she needed help figuring out how to deal with the fearfulness. We spent 6 sessions building up Lana's confidence around other people and dogs, teaching Lana how to process the threats in the environment better and how to communicate her needs to her person. Lana's person learned to read Lana's micro movements to better predict when Lana would feel the need to lash out in a barking frenzy. Helping Lana feel safe, calm, and happy in the environment was our goal.
Lana and her person now join in on the Wednesday morning walks almost every week. She used to bark at the sight of one dog, and now she walks with 3-5 other dogs successfully. On our Distracted & Fearful Dog Walks, we stop to play games throughout the walk. We use games that help dogs learn to walk passed other dogs on the trail, learn about being the leader of the walk and following other dogs, explore the environment, and focus on their person when requested. Lana and her person display awesome teamwork on these walks as they support each other along the trail.
We also introduced Lana to nosework! This one thing of learning how to use her nose to find an object of interest or a specific scent has helped Lana tremendously. Lana went from barking and asking to leave the Training Center to now wanting to run into the training center for some fun. I try to always have some good things for Lana to sniff, lick, and chew when she arrives so that she can have some safe exploration time. Then we set up for our nosework session. Check out this video that shows a simple set up where Lana is trying to find the scent in a box.
Lana sure makes finding the scent look easy! Many times she goes right to the box with the scent without even questioning the other box. Since Lana is still working on confidence building we provide lots of searches where she can easily be successful. The video above is just a short clip of the session, if you want to watch the full video it is over 20 minutes long and available on the Yooper Paws YouTube Channel.
When people come to their first session at the Yooper Paws Training Center, they are often surprised by our training style. I hear things like, "This is so much fun!" "This is so easy!" "All we do is play games!?!?" As positive reinforcement based trainers, we want to teach dogs what TO Do vs what NOT to Do. Playing games based on teaching skills and concepts allows us to heavily reinforce the behaviors we want. If we use reinforcement the dog wants, getting behaviors becomes much easier. Teaching in a way that both owner and dog have fun, makes learning so much easier. For those who are not familiar with Games & Concepts Based Training let me break it down a bit.
Watch this Movement Puzzle with Azul
Movement Puzzles are designed to reinforce skills we want our dogs to be good at while teaching concepts that can be applied to life skills.
In this puzzle all Azul has to do is put his front paws on the trampoline and return for a treat. I start by standing really close to the trampoline and using hand targets to guide Azul back and forth. Once Azul has the idea, I slowly back away from the trampoline. This is to teach the concept of sending the dog out to do a job and returning to their handler once the job is done, creating long distance work.
This is Azul's first time doing this puzzle so he's moving pretty slow, but with a few sessions he will start to build up some speed.
For dogs that find speed and movement reinforcing, the game becomes so fun that they don't even realize they are learning.
Here is Roz doing the same puzzle.
Roz has done 4-5 sessions already so I can build distance and speed much faster with her. I can also slow down my rate of reinforcement faster with her because she already knows and loves the game.
Games based dog training allows us to repeat behaviors without acting like a drill sergeant or forcing a dog to do something they don't want to do. We can play the game using body language to guide the dog to the behavior we are after without giving any cues. Then once the behavior is well known we can associate a verbal cue to request the behavior. By training this way, we avoid punishment when our dog struggles doing a behavior they are still learning. We can reinforce a behavior that's almost correct and slowly shape that behavior to the skill level we want.
Since learning this way is fun for both owner and dog, they are more likely to practice by playing the games between sessions. And your dog trainer can always tell if you've practiced or not!
Let Yooper Paws of Love or the Crazy2Calm Canine Coaches help you learn how to set up puzzles to train the skills you want your dog to have! Email us at yooperpaws@gmail.com.
Our goal as dog owners is to have healthy & happy dogs that enjoy as much of life as possible. And if you live in the USA, you can't help but notice obesity is a huge topic of concern for people and dogs. While many of us are doing our best to think in terms of being healthy and fit plus including that vision with our dogs, the question of how much exercise does my puppy/dog need. There are some general guidelines out there for puppies ( 5 min at a time per month of age, 5 min X 4 months = 20 min total), but the truth is this is individualized for the dog as any other basic needs.
We start our puppies out slow with a 5 min walk, then 10 min, then 15-20...the more our puppy gets in to trouble, the faster we escalate this to try to wear them out so they will sleep more. But puppy needs for sleeping is a while different post! Then our puppies become adolescents and we often apply that same thinking to other forms of exercise; walking, chasing balls, jogging, running beside a bike, etc. This builds up our dog's stamina so walking a mile every day soon turns into 1.5 miles, then 2, then 3. At this point we humans often struggle to keep up so we switch to another activity like biking so they can run. Just to be clear, none of this exercise is bad for the dog as long as you are doing it safely with proper gear and conditioning.
The STRUGGLE begins!
The struggle starts when our dogs exercise needs start to surpass the owner's exercise needs. Typically my walks are 1-2 miles long, maybe an occasional 3 mile hike but I don't hike this much every day. Although I probably should! As a disabled person that could be laid up for days, weeks, and even months in a row, I'd really struggle with a dog that needed a 3 mile hike every day to feel normal. Often when we seem to not be able to meet our dog's exercise needs, we turn to tossing a ball for a game of fetch. Again playing fetch with our dogs isn't the problem, but it's the way we do it. At first we just play 10 minutes for fun, but then when we can't walk 15 min running fast chasing that ball can help our dogs be calm, right? At least that's the common belief. But before we know it, that dog needs their walk + 15 min of ball and it just keeps building as we keep finding new ways to help our dogs be tired.
My first Service Dog, Talia, was the prime example of this. We live in a climate that sees lots of snow in the winter which makes taking walks somewhat dangerous for my balance issues, especially with an adolescent dog that might pull on the leash when something exciting crosses our path. Both Cam, my German Shepherd and Talia loved to chase balls and our plowed driveway was the perfect place for such a fantastic winter activity. Or so I thought, but I got stuck in the trap of always needing to add more. I realized that when we went out and about in public after she played ball she was perfectly behaved, but if we went out without playing ball she struggled. To make things easier, we just played ball first! More and more ball! Then spring settled in and we began walking again, but that didn't change her need to play ball. Talia was a Super Athlete! She had amazing muscles and awesome control so she could fly, spin, jump...she was fast. That might be awesome for a dog competing in agility or other dog sports, but it's not so great for service dogs or even the average pet.
The STRATEGY that works!
The trick to exercise is something we are very familiar with...moderation! How many of us would eat ice cream instead of supper every day if we could, yet we know that wouldn't be healthy. Name your most loved activity, and you pretty much want to do it every chance you get but you've learned to moderate your participation in that activity to avoid hurting yourself. Our dogs don't understand moderation. Sure they might appear to moderate their food intake if you free feed, but that is nature as a dog that is hungry finds food and a dog that isn't hungry doesn't search for food. It's up to us owners to figure out a way to moderate our dogs activities so those activities remain beneficial for the health of our dogs.
If you and your dog loving playing dog together, continue to do so but limit how long and how frequently you do so. Cam, being an old man would still chase balls until he dropped, but his would leave him limping and sore for days. I moderate his ball play so he chases 6-8 balls and takes a break, then if he's good we might do another session. Azul is more of a flirt pole chasing dog, but again this can have the same over use issue that playing ball can have. My best advice for managing this is to create a routine that can meet your dog's needs and fit into your schedule. The routine should follow this order.
Physical Exercise - fitting your dog's breed, age, and individual desires.
Mental Exercise - often in the form of a training session, but I suggest this be a game based training session.
Calming Activity - something you do with your dog to help you both relax after exercise.
Ideas for physical exercise include fetch with a ball, walks/hikes, tug, flirt pole and games such as Recall Ping Pong and Hide-N-Seek.
Mental exercise has a tons of options. I want to keep the fun going, but instead of fun based on moving I want fun based learning. There are so many games that you can play to teach your dog skills. You want to start with a more exciting game that combines moving and thinking, then slowly move to more thinking and less moving. Here are some of my favorite games.
The Positions Game
The Positions Game is one of my favorite games because it has endless possibilities. The video above shows me teaching basic game concept of rewards are delivered in the heel zone. The video below is a more advanced version of Azul staying in the position between my legs and moving with me,
Games can be used to teach most everything you want your dog to learn. If you search this website, you'll find lots of posts about games. The Focus Around Distractions Mini Workshop is a great place to start, with Day 1 giving instructions on how to play the positions game. Soon I'll be launching a brand new podcast that is all about games called The Playful Paws!
Dogs naturally know how to use their nose for things that come natural to dogs. They figure out pretty quickly which scents are appealing to them, which scents mean danger, and definitely which scents come from desirable mates. But with a bit of training we can teach them which scents are important to us and which scents they should ignore.
Dogs easily learn that most people's food smells delicious without much training. And if we completely ignore that, our dogs would gladly enjoy any food they can reach. Through training we can teach them that greater rewards are available when they control themselves and ignore people's food. My dogs don't raid the trash can because with reinforcement, I've taught them that the treats I give them from my hand is much greater than any treat they find on their own.
Dogs that work in scent related fields need to learn to ignore many people's scents. Service Dogs learn to ignore other people, focusing on their person. Police dogs learn to ignore environmental smells like people, other pets, and various other common household scents and search for chemicals or scents such as drugs, bombs, even gun powder. Dogs are being trained to detect new smells all the time!
My Service Dogs are trained to smell chemical changes that happen before I have a migraine. I always start teaching my dogs to interpret scents at a very young age. My life depends on their ability to process smells. This makes it even more important to me that I allow them to have fun with their nose too.
Basic scent training for fun or recreation is simple and fun! This is where I got started with scent work 30+ years ago. Some people do more formal scent work training designed to help you teach your dog to win competitions. But for me, it's not about competition or being able to find better or faster then other dogs. It's more about improving the day to day life of my dog and myself in a fun, engaging way. So if you're looking for a formal competition class, this won't be what your looking for. But if you want fun scent work with practically endless ways to apply the skills to your day to day life, keep reading!
I start with easy games such as Find It, Pick One & Hide-n-Seek. The instructions for a simple version of Find It & Pick One can be found in previous blogs. Hopefully by the end of the month I can give some more advanced examples of these games for those who are looking to extend the basic training to the next level. I've discussed Hide-n-Seek before, but never gone into great details so I'll explain that one a bit here.
Hide-n-Seek
Instead of always having to call my dog to come back to me when they are on following their nose, I build in value for this game so that they want to come find me and keep an eye on me.
Here are the basic instructions to train the game.
One person stays with the pup, keeping him in a certain room while another person hides.
In the beginning, the hiding person should pick simple spots like on the couch, sitting in the middle of a room, etc.
The hiding person calls out the dog's name prompting the dog's helper to release the pup to start the hunt.
When the pup finds the person, they get a reward of treats, toys or praise to help teach them that they did a good job.
As your pup gains experience, you can gradually pick harder hiding spots such as in the shower, behind the shower curtain, upstairs or downstairs.
Have some fun with it and your dog will too!
Often in Hide-n-Seek in the house, dogs will use sight, sound, and scent to find their person. But when you move the game to outdoors or larger environments the dog will most generally choose to use their sense of smell because it is their strongest sense.
The number 1 distraction among those who registered is other dogs and today's information is focused on that issue! At almost 2 yrs old, Azul's biggest distraction is new dogs entering into our environment so we practice remaining calm often. Check out today's video for more information about training exercises you can do with your dog around other dogs. Then check out the games below!
Here is a Google Presentation on Exercises that shows you how to do 2 great exercises with your dog with the help of a friend with their dog.
Magic Hand Game
Food dropping: with your arm bent at a 90° angle allow the dog to move on it’s own and drop a piece of food from between your fingers.
Don’t worry if they don’t catch it right away. They will learn.
This teaches the dog to follow your hand.
Whip It or Flirt Pole Fun
You can buy a flirt pole made for dogs or a horse lunge works nice for large dogs. But you can also make a homemade flirt pole with a rope or old leash. The idea behind this game is to build value for playing with you, the handler, by extending your reach out further away from your body so that your dog has to chase the toy more enthusiastically.
If I'm teaching this game to a house with older kids, we make a homemade version of attaching a soft tug toy or soft webby ball to about 6ft of rope. The kids can run dragging the rope behind them and add in some quick turns or gentle swings of the rope toy. If you are not a runner, or plan to play this game from a chair, you can attach the rope to an old broom handle, rod, or stick to extend your reach farther.
The first thing I do is work on getting that On/Off Switch we discussed previously in this workshop. Your dog will get amped up with this toy, so don't punish them if they struggle with the drop or stop cue you've previously taught. Just be patient and wait them out. If the toy stops moving and you stop tugging, typically the dog will get bored and drop the toy allowing you to play some more.
Practice this arousal up, arousal down exercise with simple cues until it becomes easy for your dog to follow your cues. Then you can add in more advanced cues to help your dog focus on you more.
Be careful playing this game!
If you're dog is spinning to fast or making quick direction changes, they could injure themselves. Be sure to play at a speed and difficulty level safe for your dog!
Also be careful to avoid tangles with the line that could injury your feet or your dog's feet. The first thing I teach my dog is an "All Stop!" cue so that if a tangle starts we can fix it ASAP and then play some more.
This is one of my “Go-to” games for rainy days or any down day that I want to give my dog some mental work in a fun way because exercise is out of the picture. What makes this game so awesome for our dogs is that it’s easy to start simple so they can learn to use their nose, but it’s also easy to keep changing it up to make it constantly harder so that we are challenging our dogs. This is typically the 2nd game I teach all my dogs and especially dogs that I want to train medical alert skills to.
Before the game, use a 2nd person to hold your dog or place them behind a gate while you hide the treats. Once your dog has learned the cues that go with this game you can ask them to down/stay while you hide the treats. Start the game using the same treats every time you play and your dog will associate that smell with the objects they are finding. Once your dog becomes more advanced you can start hiding different items and add in a “sniff” or “smell” cue to tell your dog which scent they are searching for during the session.
At first, allow your dog to see you drop 2-3 treats on the floor in the center of the room, then go to the dog and release them to find it. They will run to the treats and gobble them up. Slowly start moving the treats further away from each other and closer to furniture or other obstacles in the room. Once you’ve made it to the outskirts of the room you are using, start positioning your dog so they can not watch you hide the treats. By this time, they should be starting to understand the game but if they struggle too much, place the treats in easy to find places such as the center of the room again. Slowly add in hiding spots that are at different levels; on the floor, on a low ledge, on the seat of a chair, on top of a shoe, etc. Make sure all hiding spots stay below the dog’s nose when you're in the early stages, but as your dog progresses, you can pick higher hiding spots. One rule that I use is I never place a treat on a table top, even a coffee table, as I don’t want my dogs to think that it is ok to eat food left on tables.
Here are a few more slow progression steps I take as my dog learns to search better:
Make the area bigger, hiding treats in multiple rooms.
Switch to an old dog toy that has been played with often. This allows you to add in your sniff cue. Present the toy, place your dog in a different room to hide the toy in an easy spot, give your search or find it cue, and if your dog struggles you can shake the toy a bit to get them interested. Use the same toy over and over again until the dog starts to get the idea.
Raid the kitchen for smelly items that the dog can’t actually eat such as a banana, empty spice container, or nearly empty peanut butter jar. Loosen the cap on the container or jar to allow the smell to escape. Garlic, pepper, and cinnamon are some of my go to smells in the beginning.
Slowly pick items that are not as smelly such as clothing, a hat, bandana you or another dog has worn.
Hide the treat in places where the dog can’t reach without assistance. This allows you to build in a behavior or alert you want your dog to give when they find the treasure. Our dogs sit and stare at the place the treat is hiding. Make the first higher hiding spots something that is easy to see and smell. I have a chandelier in my living room that works well for this.
Once your dog is really good at the game you can hide items inside boxes, dressers, and other containers. Make it easy at first by leaving a door or drawer slightly open until the dog understands to alert you for help in opening the container for them to find the object.
When your dog is really good you can play with items that you frequently lose such as your keys, phone, inhaler, or meds container. If you associate the name of that item, you will be able to ask your dog to go find your phone which is an awesome task!
There are a ton of games you can play with Shaping Exercises. One of my my favorite games that I have developed with Azul since he was quite young, is our Positions Game. The video above shows Azul moving through various positions while we play the game in a quiet aisle to break up some public access training we are working on. Every position you see involved a Shaping Plan on it's own, then we turned it into a game by stringing them all together. We are still adding new positions and twists to the game all the time.
Games like Find It & Hide-N-Seek are also basically shaping games as you start small and work your way to more difficult finds. One of the most common Shaping Games is 101 Things to Do with a Box! This game helps both you and the dog to learn how to play other shaping games but teaching your dog to keep trying different choices. Basically, you create an open space with you, your dog, a box, and reinforcement. Your dog earns reinforcement by basically doing anything with the box that they haven't done yet; sniffing it, a nose target, paw target, placing 1 foot inside...it doesn't matter as long as it's different. They often will repeat behaviors at which point you simple ignore it and wait for something new. If it's been awhile since a behavior earned reinforcement, say more then 4-5 rounds back in the game, then I'll go ahead and reinforce it again. But I won't reinforce the same behavior twice in a row. While 101 Things to Do with a Box isn't a true exercise in shaping because you don't have an end goal in mind, it's an awesome place to start. I repeat this game whenever I find my dog starting to get frustrated in our shaping sessions because it's an excellent reminder to the dog to keep trying new things.
The Blanket Game is another simple fun Shaping Exercise. This is basic Place or Mat training, but it's a fun, easy way for your dog to earn easy reinforcement while learning to try different things. There are lots of different steps you can use, but here are my basics for getting started.
Toss a treat on the blanket, and dog runs to eat it.
Hold a treat over the blanket, reward when dog steps 1 foot on blanket.
Then 2 feet, then 3 feet, then all 4 feet.
Move further away by just a step or so then cue dog to go to the blanket, again reinforcing 1 foot, then 2 feet, etc.
Reinforce when dog offers a sit or down on the blanket.
Reinforce when dog stays on the blanket for 2 seconds, slowly increasing time.
Continue adding distance away from blanket at start, time staying on blanket, and behaviors the dog does on the blanket.
Once your dog is great at the Blanket Game at home, you can take it on the road to generalize cues in new environments. Remember to start in lower distraction environments, slowing adding in more distractions. Also, start back at Step 1 where your dog can easily succeed and build up slowly.
As with other training sessions, recording your Shaping Games & Exercises can help you to see things that you may not have noticed during your session. I've noticed missed opportunities to provide reinforcement when I allowed myself to be distracted! If you do record any Shaping Exercise, I'd love to see them. You can send them to me via FB Messenger or via email at yooperpaws@gmail.com.
_20250507_102709_0005.png)
