New Environment Training for Service Dogs

Helping Service Dogs be Successful in Early Public Access Training Sessions

Public Access Training should be among some of the last training sessions that you do with your Service Dog in Training!  Be sure to read my previous posts in this series, especially posts 9 through 11 about new environments.  This is the final post in my January series: Plan for Success and it targeted specifically at my Service Dog training clients.

Start slow by getting used to the environment before the environment!

The Car:

After getting my puppy used to riding in the car, some of our first pre-PA training sessions happen right there in the car.  We go thru drive thru's at restaurants, banks, and such, pay at the pump gas stations, and hang out in parking lots together from inside the car.  This can be done with young puppies before they are fully vaccinated and older dogs as well!  Pair the car outing with some great food and simply reward for being in the environment.  Then as the sessions advance, reward only when the dog looks toward a potential distraction such as a car driving passed, a person moving, another dog, a shopping cart, etc.  You can also start out in 5 min sessions, slowly building up to 20 minute sessions.  As you add time, you slow down your reinforcement rate and only deliver treats when something unusual happens or if you notice any fear or discomfort setting in. 

The Parking Lot:

The next step is to start some training sessions outside of the car.  Practice basic manners and obedience cues in the grassy areas on the outside of parking lots, slowly moving through the parking lot.  The first thing I do when I get out of the car with a dog is give them some time to sniff around, getting familiar with the environment and taking a moment to go potty.  Before I leave the grass, I will do a few simple behaviors and make sure that my dog is calm enough to listen to my cues.  This helps you to determine if your dog is stressed or overly distracted.  If your dog is not able to listen to your cues, you are in an environment that they are not yet ready to be in so find a quieter location.  If your dog is able to follow your lead, you can continue with your training session.

Doorways:

Once my dog is comfortable on the outside edges of a parking lot, I start working on parking lot manners, mainly walking on a loose leash, stopping for traffic, and walking near people & carts.  Depending on your dog, you may be able to do this type of training for just a couple of sessions or it may take longer.  I've had dogs that needed to work in parking lots for a few months, slowly progressing to busy, more active & distracting parking lots.  Take it at your dog's pace paying attention to their emotional state and you will progress much more quickly then you think.  As you are working in parking lots, choose a slower location and time of day to slowly make your way towards the door.  Pausing outside the door to watch some people coming and going.  Take some time to run through some basic cues in this location too.  

Pet Friendly Stores:

Then when you think your dog is ready, take a few steps into the store. This should be a pet friendly store even if you are training a dog to be a Service Dog!  There are a lot more pet friendly stores then you would think, you just have to look around your community.  Hardware stores, craft stores, and sporting goods stores tend to be pet friendly, so call or stop in without your dog and see if they allow dogs in the store.  Plan your first session to be outside the store for about 15 minutes and inside the store for only 5 minutes.   With time, at your dog's rate you can start slowly transitioning it to be the opposite, 5 minutes outside and 15 minutes inside.  Stick to just one or two stores to practice in until your dog becomes extremely comfortable in those stores.  Then you can slowly add in new locations, new distractions, and longer visits.  But don't forget to stop in the grass and let your dog sniff for a few minutes then capture focus before going into any store.

Service Dogs Public Access Situations:

There is no set formula or stage that your Service Dog in Training is deemed "ready" for public access training.  But every trainer has their own guidelines or things they want to be able see in a dog before beginning public access training.  Here is a short list of my preferred behaviors that I want my dogs to know and have a history of achieving in pet friendly locations:

• The ADA states that Service Dogs must be fully potty trained before being taking into any public access related environment.  Sure accidents happen, dogs get sick, etc.  But this should be a rare occurrence that your dog has an issue in the store.  I want to see that all my dogs can potty on cue before I start working in pet friendly locations & I want to see that they have generalized that to multiple environments before I start PA training.
• The ADA also states that Service Dogs must be under handler control at all times.  While this can mean a lot of different things, but bare minimum I want my dog to be able to walk nicely on a loose leash.  I don't expect a perfect competition heel, but I want my dog to be able to follow my walking lead matching my pass and direction changes accordingly.
• I also want my dog to feel safe, calm, and comfortable walking with other people nearby.  And while this is a process that can be perfected during PA training, I want to see that my dogs remain fairly stress free or the handler is prepared to take whatever steps necessary to help the dog feel safe.  I won't take any dog in training into a place where I'm not prepared to leave immediately if they start to show signs of stress!
• Lastly, I want to have a few cues generalized to be able to use as needed in the environment; sit, down, under, wait, etc.  Each handler needs to decide these cues for themselves as there is no hard and fast right set of behaviors that are dictated by laws.  If you are not sure what you want to have in place for your Service Dog in Training I suggest you review the AKC Canine Good Citizen Test as a bare minimum standard of training.  Your dog may not be 100% perfect on all behaviors, especially if they are in the adolescent phase, but you want to be happy, comfortable, and confident in their skills before you take them into a public access environment.  Remember to practice all new skills in pet friendly environments so you can begin the proofing process before you ask your dog to do a behavior in a public access situation.

Federal laws do not cover Service Dogs in Training, only Service Dogs.  So be sure to research your state and local locals involving Service Dogs in Training before you decide to take your dog into a public access setting.  If your state does not cover Service Dogs in Training, you will also have to have your dog trained to do at least one task that mitigates your disability to meet the ADA requirements before you start Public Access Training.  If you have additional questions about how I work in new environments, please reach out to me by leaving me a comment or sending me an email.

Adding Friends & Family into Training Sessions

As pet owners, we love our pets and it’s easy for us to think that all our friends and family love our pets too. That’s not always the case! And sometimes our pets are not very fond of some of our family members either. So, what can we do to set up our dogs for success when we want to take them into a friend or family member’s house?

First and foremost, whether you have a family dog or a working dog, such as a Service Dog, you must contact the person you will be visiting and get permission to bring your dog with you. Not only is this a way to show respect for the person you’re visiting, it also gives you an opportunity to discuss some things that you might need to manage during your visit.

Here are a few things to consider:

• What are the household rules? Are dogs allowed on the furniture or not? How about the carpet or in bedrooms? The quickest way to offend a person you’re visiting is to have your dog entering parts of the house they don’t allow their dogs to be in.
• Is there a designated “Go Potty” spot outside? Please be prepared to take care of any poop your dog may leave behind when you take them away from your property!
• Are there other pets in the home that may or may not like your dog? If there are other pets, how will you introduce them slowly or how will you keep them separated?

Having this discussion before you show up with your dog can be very helpful! Also, be prepared for your dog’s current training level to backslide a bit in a new household, especially if you have not generalized their cues in multiple environments. This new environment is sure to be filled with new sights, sounds, smells, and fun, which is really going to impact your dog’s ability to focus on you and maintain their manners. Leave your leash on when you first enter and until you can see your dog starting to calm down. Even if the dog is dragging the leash, this becomes a safe way to quickly get hold of your dog if you need to.

If you are going for an extended overnight visit, take some of your dog’s things from home to help him realize that you are settling in. These things can also help with management in this new environment if your dog begins to struggle. A bed or crate will let your dog know where their safe place is when you want them to settle. A baby gate can allow your dog to see you while also preventing access to certain rooms such as the kitchen or dining room. Your dog may be able to easily settle in their bed or at your feet at home during mealtime but might really struggle with this in a new place. Helping them settle in their spot with an enrichment feeder can make all the difference in the world in an over-stimulating environment.

Meeting Friends & Family in Pet Friendly Environments

Whether it’s an extended visit where you are staying in someone’s home or just an afternoon outing with friends, meeting in a pet friendly environment can also be a great way to start out on a successful note. Again, there are a few things to consider first! You want to choose your environment wisely based on the age and energy levels of everyone in your group.

Sometimes a local park or walking trail can be excellent for meetings with dogs that have never met. I also prefer to do this with dog friends that we see often as it provides a chance for the dogs to be a little extra excited in a doggie fashion as opposed to an indoor place where you want your dog to be on their best behavior. Unless your local dog park is fairly quiet, that might not be the best location because, if other dogs are being unruly or rude, that will set the tone for the relationship you are developing with your dog and your friend’s dog.

I like to seek out public places with fences for introducing dogs that have never met before. This way, each dog can be safe on their own side of the fence during the first greeting. First impressions matter so both dogs need to feel safe and have a desire to engage with each other if you want a successful introduction. If a fenced area is not available, start in a large open space where you can work at a distance that both dogs can remain calm and under threshold, allowing them to glance toward the other dog occasionally but still focus on their person.

Don’t rush this step! Let them get used to just being in the same environment for greeting. Most dogs will want to explore a new environment as soon as they arrive and adding in a new face-to-face meeting at this time can quickly push the dogs into an over-excited, uncontrollable mindset. If you are dying to run up and hug or greet the person you are meeting, do this before unloading the dogs from your vehicles.

Going with Friends & Family into Public Environments

This is kind of where I step over into the Working Dog Trainer mode for Service Dogs, Therapy Dogs, and other professional dogs with excellent manners. But these tips also apply to the person who wants to take their pet to outdoor events such as concerts, ball games, and family picnics.

My first piece of advice is to start small and work your way up to bigger activities and groups of friends. Before you think about attending a larger family gathering or community outdoor event, you want to make sure your dog has been successful at multiple trips to the park and/or walking trails with strangers around. Then, take your dog on a few outings that are solely focused on training in that environment.

Instead of going to an hour-long concert or walking around a busy flea market, plan to spend 10-15 minutes walking around the outskirts of an event that is not important to you at all. Avoid showing up at the beginning or end of an event when lots of people are moving around and setting up. Show up somewhere in the middle, do some walking and sniffing in the parking lot or a distance away from the action and slowly make your way closer to the more crowded environment. Stop at any distance that your dog starts to show signs of over-excitement or stress. You may be able to hang out in that spot for a little while to see if your dog adjusts or, you may need to back away just a bit so that your dog can become comfortable and settle for a few minutes.

You want to do this as many times in solo (just you and your dog) sessions as it takes for both you and your dog to be comfortable with their behaviors. Then, when you are ready, have a friend or family member meet you there. They can stay and enjoy the event, but you need to still be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice should your dog become uncomfortable or struggle to maintain their manners.

If you are going to an event that is important to you, such as a concert that a loved one is performing in or a parade that you want to stay for the duration of, do yourself a favor and leave your dog at home until you have done the work of having as many training sessions as it takes to help your team be successful together. Then you’re ready to start adding in more friends and family to your sessions to increase your group size. For me, this means that I might take my dog on a hike with my husband, then another time to the park with my granddaughter, yet another time to a concert with a friend. Only then will I start to take my dog to community events with larger groups of friends. It’s much easier for your team to be successful when you play at a quiet park with just 1-2 kids on several different days before you try a huge family outing with other adults and kids in your group plus strangers and dogs. This works the same for taking your dog to a sports event. Have kids that you know play some basketball near your dog before going to attend an actual basketball game. Apply this to whatever sport you want to attend, such as soccer, tennis, baseball, etc.

For my working dogs, make sure you are successful in outdoor environments before moving into pet friendly public places. When you are ready to start training indoors, back up to solo sessions starting with just you and your dog at 10-15 minutes.

Then invite a calm, positive person to join you in a session. You will probably notice that your dog struggles a little bit with focus now that you have a person moving with you everywhere. Your dog may even be more focused on the new addition than they are with you. Stick with this in short sessions until your dog learns to ignore the person you are with and gives you the focus you are after before you start adding in multiple people. The more distracted you are with talking to, watching, or playing with other people in your group, the more distracted your dog will be too. Teamwork goes both ways! If you disengage with your dog in these early training sessions, your dog will also disengage with you and seek out their own fun. If you are looking for more pet friendly places that you can practice in with your well-mannered pet, contact your local hardware and craft stores as many of them are pet friendly.

Please don’t take your pet dog into places that are not pet friendly! These environments only allow access to Service Dogs and, sometimes, Service Dogs in Training. This is extremely rude and often dangerous for Service Dog teams when pets visit places that they have not been sufficiently trained for.

Picking New Training Environments Wisely

It's just as important to pick an appropriate environment to train in as it is to plan your training sessions properly.  There are a few things you need to consider when choosing that environment.

• What emotional states will my dog experience in this environment?
• What distractions might be present in this environment?
• What management tools do I need to have in place to ensure safety?
• What type of reinforcement is going to work best in this environment?

Emotional States your dog may experience and how that impacts the environment.

Probably the single most important emotion to consider when thinking about choosing an environment for your training session is FEAR.  If you have a younger puppy or older adult that gets stressed out in new environments more easily, you have to plan for that taking baby steps in each new environment you enter.  I'm going to touch more on this topic in my upcoming post on "New Environments for Working Dogs" but I wanted to help you understand how fear impacts the environment in this post.  Fear is one of the basic emotions that all animals have no matter whether they have training with humans or not.  Most often fear causes the animal to slip into a fight or flight stage of brain activity that totally leaves them out of their mind and running on instinct.  That means that we have to be especially careful if we are going to be holding a training session with a fearful dog so that we can work at a level that can remain comfortable and in control of their actions with just a slight fear association that we can apply desensitization and counterconditioning techniques to.  If this is your dog, please consider contacting me or another professional dog trainer for assistance with creating a plan to help get you started!

Another strong emotion, but often overlooked is Over Arousal.  This emotion can present much like fear with inappropriate behaviors of barking, lunging, jumping, etc.  But since this over excitement is often considered happy or joyful, it doesn't tend to freak owners out or worry them as much.  We really need to consider this emotion when choosing a new environment as well or we will often regret it later.  Basically over arousal leads to a brain change that turns the brain off and sends the dog relying on instinct too, instead of fight or flight thinking the dog often goes into hunting or herding mode.  This of course throws almost all ability to recall your dog out the window and can have serious consequences.  It's important that owners learn to be able to see the subtle changes that occur with their dog when they move between excited/aroused into the over excited/aroused states.  If you can see the early warning signs of the change in your dog, you can end the session on a good note before something bad happens.

There are other less challenging emotions to consider as well.  If a dog is bored because you use the same training environment all the time, they may start searching for ways to spice up that environment in ways that you do not approve of; digging, rolling in the mud, hunting for trash, etc.  If your environment is one that you haven't used for a long time, the new smells might be too exciting so gaining your dog's focus may become challenging.  

If you would like more information about understanding your dog's emotional state, check out this infographic.

So you may be asking, how do you choose an environment that will best fit my dogs emotional state for the training session? 

First, consider the goals of your training session.  If you are going to be focusing on something new that you've only practiced at home previously, choose a location that you've been in frequently and been able to easily capture your dog's focus for previous training sessions in that environment.  Of course you want to take a few minutes to all your dog to explore that environment before you actually start the session.  If you want to practice something that you've been working on awhile so you are looking at more of a refresher or expanding current skills to the next level, you can choose a somewhat more challenging environment then the one you were successful at previously.  

For example, between 6-24 months you spend a lot of time working on leash manners as your dog does awesome some days and not so great other days unless you practice often.  Azul and I walk lots of different trails when weather allows, but we have 2-3 favorites that we use more regularly if we need to touch up on specific leash skills based on what that environment offers us in the way of management and potential distractions.

If your going to choose an environment that you know while raise your dog's emotional state towards excitement or fear, be sure to use better management and higher level reinforcement methods while lowering your expectation of what your dog is capable of in that environment

Considering Distractions in a Training Environment

No matter what environment you choose for your training session, if your not inside a closed place such as your house, you really can't control the distractions that pop up during your session.  That means you have to consider what is naturally in an environment before choosing that place for your session.  Some things are obvious and anticipated distractions such as wildlife on a nature trail or children playing in a park.  While other things are not common distractions, such as a moose walking through a downtown environment.  Then you also have distractions that are dependent on time of day, driven by nature or common human routine.  This would be more like more dogs walking on a public trail when weather is nice and after work, school busses or larger groups of children walking/playing right after school gets out, or weekend vacationer traffic if you live in a tourist area like Michigan.

You can use predictable distractions to your advantage when deciding where to hold your next training session.  The more challenging the behavior you are working in is, requires a less challenging environment with minimal anticipated distractions.  The more you practice any specific behavior, the more challenging the environment can become.  Going back to my leash manners training example of earlier, I want my dogs to move to the side of a trail when distractions are coming from us from the opposite direction.  Choosing my environments wisely, means that I will start this on a less crowded day at a trail we walk often so that my dog can practice a few times but not be totally overwhelmed by non-stop passers.  Once my dog is starting to catch on, I will slowly choose busier times of day until we can be successful at the busiest time on weekends in great weather.  Some days this backfires!  I may expect a low turn out of strangers to pass us by and find no people on the trail or the opposite and have way more then I expected.  Since we can't control other people on the trail, we need to be flexible in our training and adjust accordingly by moving further away from an over crowded trail or inviting a few friends to join us for practice during quieter times on the trail when we don't have the distractions we want.  

Then there are distractions that we can't predict or control, such as wildlife which is an ongoing battle while your training loose leash walking!  On these occasions, we need to rely on our skills of management to prevent bad things from accidently happening during our training sessions.

Choosing the correct tools to manage your dog in the environment you choose for training.

I'm not going to turn this into a push for my chosen tools because that is a different post and one I've covered previously.  Instead I'm going to talk about ways to decide what is best for your team in specific environments with some safety in mind.  Let's instead focus on how you choose which tools are right for your environment.  

One of my big personal rules is the more distracting or crowded the environment is, the shorter leash I use.  On our property where I can control most distractions, my choice is commonly a 50 ft longline where Azul has the option to make as many choices as possible and I can reinforce his great choices yet still manage his not so great choices.  Scaling down to a not so frequently used, but public walking trail or an open field near a busier park, I tend to use my 20 ft longline so again Azul has to make some choices, but he's not able to go very far away which makes the choice to choose me easier for him.  Scaling down yet again to a wider, nature trail environment I'm prone to using my 10 ft leash so Azul can explore the environment in a closer proximity to me and I can quickly get him back at my side when a distraction is heading our way.  If we are training in public area such as a downtown district or outdoor event, I will use a 4-6 leash typically with Azul expected to walk in a loose heel position or settle near my feet if we are sitting down somewhere.  Then my final scale down is for public places such as pet friend stores and Service Dog level public access situations where I use a 2 ft or shorter traffic lead attached to my shoulder strap for hands free leash management.  

Another big thing I consider is the amount of distance I want Azul to be away from me to participate in the skills we are training during the session.  If I'm practicing recall or down/stays, I want more leash to build up a greater distance where as if I'm practicing heel work, I want less leash so I don't have to much in my hands.  If I've been working on a particular skill for quite awhile, proofing it in multiple environments, I want to use as much leash that I feel is safe for the environment to give Azul as much freedom in choice as I possibly can with safety driving the final tool selection.  

No matter what leash length I use, I'm most likely attaching that leash to a back clip on a harness with an option of creating a second attachment at the front of Azul's harness if there are more distractions than I anticipated or if he is struggling with focus.  Plus I almost always have my leash clipped to a shoulder strap or waist belt as my hands drop things too easily and I want to prevent Azul from bolting on a dropped leash.

Choosing the correct reinforcement for the environment.

All dogs are different as to what is reinforcing to them, so knowing what your dog loves can make all the difference in whether your training session will be successful or not.  This is especially true in more challenging environments.  A puppy might work just fine for kibble in low distraction environments, but it's common to need a higher value reinforcement in more distracting environments, especially if there is going to be a presence of even slight fear in the new environment.  As dogs age, they tend to find certain behaviors more reinforcing which tends to overpower the use of kibble as a reinforcement.  Sure they might still work for kibble in low distraction environments when their hungry.  But if they find sniffing the ground reinforcing, a low value kibble or food reinforcement is not going to be enough to encourage them to stop sniffing.  This goes for the behaviors we don't like such as jumping or barking and difficult behaviors such as recalling during puppy play sessions.  The more food motivated your dog is, the easier it will be for you to determine low, medium and high value reinforcement options to load into your treat pouch for the session.

What if your dog is not food motivated?  Or what if you don't want to carry kibble & treats for the rest of your life?  Then how do you reinforce your dog for choosing to do the behaviors you like?  I'm not a fan of the whole paycheck idea when it comes to dog training.  While I do believe in heavy reinforcement for the all of your dog's lifetime, I don't like when it becomes a transactional partnership of perform a behavior get a paycheck.  This is where you need to work on developing other ways to reinforce excellent behavior.  For example, getting to go on a hike and sniffing all the trees around becomes an awesome reinforcer for not pulling me over.  If sniffing becomes too distracting, we take a break of not moving for a bit so that my dog can settle down a bit before continuing the walk.

Once you've learned how to use some other reinforcers such as praise, petting, and games you have to then think about which reinforcer is going to work best for the environment you want to hold your training session in.  If we are working in an exciting environment, I want to make myself more fun than anything else in that environment.  This is where I'm going to play my dog's favorite game of tug or chasing the flirt pole or laser.  If I'm working in a less stimulating environment, then some well timed verbal and hands on communication can let my dog know that I'm happy with their choices.  And some environments call for both types of reinforcements depending on the behaviors I'm asking for.  If my pup is super chill and not wanting to participate in a training session out of boredom, I'm going to choose a reinforcement that is more fun based.  If my pup is extra hyper or excited and I want to reign them in a bit for more focused trained, I'm going to switch to something less exciting such as petting.  Having the right motivation for the job is one of the toughest things to learn when it comes to dog training and planning successful training sessions.  There will surely be more help in this manner in the future.

Having realistic expectations for the environment.

And last but definitely not least in picking new environments wisely is to set realistic expectations for the environment you've chosen for your training session.  It's not uncommon to need to back up a few steps in your training when you first move into a new environment.  If it's a skilled behavior such as sit, down, or making eye contact that you've only been working on a short time, you may need to go back to step one with luring the behavior with a reinforcement.  You also have to keep in mind that there may be a barrier or unexpected challenge to a certain behavior in some environments.  Your dog may struggle to sit on a slippery floor and so you make need to change your expectation into a down position instead.  A down could be challenging in some environments due to fear or an aversion to the surface which could make your dog dislike the behavior you are asking for.  These challenges take time to work through and probably require a higher motivation then what your offering.  

Other things that have happened your dog's day can also effect their behavior and cause a need for you to change your expectations; say weather prohibited the typical walk you would have done before the session so you may want to change your goals for the session from working on down/stays because your dog has too much energy for goals of working on loose leash or heelwork where your dog can move more.  Another thing that is common in the training world is the quote, "Work the dog in front of you at the moment!"  This is very important when we are trying to set our training sessions up for success.  If our dog is really struggling with a behavior during a specific session but has been more successful with that behavior in other sessions, it's up to us to figure out why and how we can fix that for our dogs.  That might mean we need to give our dogs a break to relax or play a game before circling back to the training session.  If there are other challenging in the environment that we didn't expect, we may need to cut a session short or work on different skills then we planned.  It's important to keep our expectations realistic for the dog we are working with in the environment we asking them to work in.  It's ok to push the expectation slightly to strengthen your teamwork, but be careful not to push too far too fast or you'll be stuck in one place in your training for a very long time.

Next up on blog for the January Theme: Plan for Success is applying new environment training with family and friends.  Watch for this post later in the week!

Generalizing Cues

 Why won't my dog do what I ask?

Almost everyone knows to start training new cues or behaviors at home in a calm, quiet environment.  Our dogs learn quickly there, then we head out to have some fun on a walking trail running into a friend and try to show off our dog's new skill to our friend...and the dog stares at you like you're speaking a foreign language and they have no clue what you are asking.  Does this sound familiar?  If so, you want to keep reading to learn all about generalizing behavior and how that applies to Planning for Success.

Understanding How Dogs Generalize Cues

As humans we think of communication as talking, using our words, and teaching a dog to respond to certain cue words; sit, down, stay, etc.  Dogs think more in the context of the environment, where am I right now, what is my person doing, what else is happening around me, and what behavior can I do right now in this moment to earn that tasty treat my person is holding?  Listening to that verbal cue is the last thing on a dog's mind, and for many dogs the verbal cue is the last part of learning that they do with a specific behavior.  Now that doesn't mean we have to stop using verbal cues as a way to communicate with our dogs.  Instead that means we have to think of the bigger picture to help our dogs be more successful, especially early in their training of any new behavior.  

First that means that we need to pay attention to emotional and physical language we are presenting to our dog when we are training something new.  Hand signals are very common these days and most of us give visual signals whether we realize it or not.  I've got some cool games if you ever want to try to see if your dog is responding to your verbal or visual cues!  Distractions also play a role in how easily our dogs respond to our cues in other environments.  I'll be doing a more detailed blog on how to add in distractions slowly to increase your chances of success in your training session.  But one of the most commonly overlooked reasons that our dogs struggle to succeed is caused by environmental changes that are often out of our control.  Since we can't walk around inside a tent to block all the distractions in our environments, we can work to generalize our cues in multiple environments in a way that helps our dogs be successful.

Generalizing Behaviors at Home

You've been working hard to teach your dog a new behavior at home, for this example I'll use a down/stay.  You start by training in a quiet room whether that's a training room, living room, or bedroom, you generally practice in an environment where you can control or reduce the amount of distractions.  Once your dog starts to catch on, you move into different rooms of the house, now asking for a down/stay while you refill your water in the kitchen, then while you start a load of laundry, then while you brush your teeth.  It doesn't matter what you are doing while your dog is holding the position, the key is that you are practicing at different times of day and in different rooms.  While your hand signal that cues the down/stay remains the same in every room, the actions you do while your dog is holding position change.  Once your dog can hold the position inside the house, you generally start asking for it outside the house again in environments you can control such as your driveway or backyard during low distraction times.  By doing this, your adding in new elements to the cue.  The grass might be wet or there might be snow on the ground or any other changes in the surface where you are requesting the behavior.  Distractions become harder to control with birds, squirrel, and traffic that may suddenly appear.  With some repetition, practicing the cue in these multiple environments builds up the verbal & visual cues YOU are using and tones out the environmental cues that were present when you first started teaching the behavior indoors.  This will build up your fluency for the behavior by adding to the reinforcement history making the behavior a fun & rewarding behavior to do.

Generalizing Behaviors to Known Environments

The next phase would be to start asking for your behavior in environments that you visit frequently.  Depending on your routine, this might be a walking trail, near a park, your favorite pet friendly store, or a relative's house.  Since you are trying to set up for success, you only want to ask your dog to practice this new behavior in environments where they have a high chance of being successful.  Avoid heading out to your new destination to practice and jumping right into your training session!  Even in well known environments, your dog needs a few minutes to "read the newspaper" or get to know what is in that environment at that time.  Allow them to spend some time sniffing the environment, greeting friends, listening to all the sounds, etc.  Then once they have settled you can start your training off with some simple behaviors your dog has done in that environment in the past.  A great way to tell if your dog is interested more in the environment or ready to engage with you is running through a checklist of simple behavior chains.  I like to use my Body Positions Game where Azul does a series of hand targets to move around me into various positions because this adds more value to choosing to be with ME.  Any fun warm up style game or behavior chain will work, as long as it allows you to tell when you might be rushing your dog into a training session they are not ready for vs when your dog has sufficiently explored the environment and is ready to have fun with you.  This is really a critical step that I see lots of teams skipping!  As humans, we have limited time available for a training session and tend to have a one track mind of we need to accomplish this goal, then we can play.  Our dogs work the other way, they may appear to have a one track mind...gotta sniff, gotta sniff, gotta sniff!  But really they have a basic need to feel safe, calm, and happy before they are ready to learn new things, therefore allowing them to adjust to the environment before beginning the training session allows them to transition into focus and learning mode.

Generalizing in New Environments

The very last step in generalizing a cue is to practice the behavior in new environments.  This is especially important for working dogs such as Service Dogs & Therapy Dogs that visit new environments on a regular basis.  It's important to remember that this is the step where frustration tends to leak into our training sessions.  We tend to think that since our dog can easily keep a down/stay at home for 30 minutes or longer while we totally disengage to do a chore, we expect our dog to do this in all environments as well.  It's important to remember to lower your criteria when you are first practicing a newer behavior in a newer environment!  You will need to reinforcement much more frequently in places where distractions are more intense.  If after just a minute or two, your dog is starting to show signs of stress while you have asked them to down/stay you need to realize this and change your criteria to be successful.  Subtle signs of stress might be shifting their weight, whining, licking their lips, shaking off, etc.  Learn your dog's warning signs so you can end the training session on a successful note instead of pushing them to far into a state of being uncomfortable holding the position.  If you see signs of stress, allow your dog to stand up, change positions, take a short walk, or something else that involves movement before requesting another down/stay.  Alternating between 2 minutes of down/stay and 2 minutes of action, can help your dog to adjust to the environment relaxing into the down/stay position where you can reinforce more frequently until your dog can handle the behavior while still feeling safe, calm, and happy about holding the position.

In the dog training world, this is called PROOFING the behavior; doing the behavior in multiple environments successfully.  Once you have proofed a new behavior in multiple environments, you can start asking for that behavior in more real life situations vs just training sessions.  But remember to adjust your rate of reinforcement based on the distractions in the environment to help your dog be successful.  Reinforcement builds behaviors so if you want your dog to do a particular behavior such as hold a down/stay in a distracting environment you have to be prepared to reinforce that in some way.  I like to change up reinforcement at this stage, maybe using a treat some of the time, but also adding in the use of praise, touch or petting, and ending with a jackpot reward or game at the end of your activity.

This video shows a practice session where Azul is practicing his Service Dog level stay in our training room at home.  Cam is also practicing a stay in his kennel during this training session.

 Find It Games!

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!

Shaping Games

 

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.

More About Shaping

 This is Part 2, so make sure your read my first post about Understanding Shaping Exercises before reading this post!

Shaping is by far one of the most challenging training tools for me to learn!  I think this is probably due to my "Helper" nature, as it's hard for me to "not" help my dogs along.  Shaping is more about giving them a chance to figure it out for themselves by keeping expectations small in a series of successful steps towards the end goal.  When I see my dogs starting to make a mistake, my gut says help them!  Mistakes are part of shaping exercises, and only through doing different behaviors can the dog figure out what behavior you really want.  

For example, in my last training session with Cam my goal was to make some advances in his nose targeting skills.  If you watch my video on Cooperative Care with Cam you can see that I'm using nose targeting to get him into some simple positions and he is struggling with a bit, mainly because he is excited because I have a ball in my hand.  That session let me know that it was time to practice some simple Nose Target Shaping Exercises with Cam.  During today's session, when I asked him for a nose, multiple times he offered a paw instead to the point of he was beginning to get slightly frustrated.  This means that I had to alter my hand positioning to a place that was less confusing for him so he could understand what I wanted, then after a few repetitions I was able to slowly step back towards my original hand position for that session.  

Shaping Tips & Tricks

Here are a few lessons that I learned the hard way when it comes to shaping exercises.

• Think in baby steps!  If your dog is finding it easy to sail through your steps, that's awesome and is a great example of your teamwork together.  However, if your dog is struggling or either of you are getting frustrated, your probably taking steps that are too big.
• Only shape one thing at a time!  While you can hold multiple shaping games or training sessions in one day, focusing on different goals, you need to only pick one shaping plan for your current session with one goal in mind.
• Keep sessions short and quick by taking breaks between sessions to play and reset.  Shaping exercises should stay at 3-5 minutes long.  But you can get multiple sessions in rather quickly if you break it up with fun.
• Have only one trainer per Shaping Plan.  I'm a big advocate of dogs being able to learn to work with multiple people, this can be especially difficult when learning something new and when doing shaping exercises.  Going back to the example above, multiple people ask Cam to do nose targets but I'm the only one to shape that skill in training session mode.  Everyone else uses the final cue in real life situations.
• If you find that your really struggling with a certain step in your plan and it seems like you just can't get passed it, talk to another trainer to see if there is another step you might be missing.  Shaping is not as simple as a straight staircase, think of more as the room of staircase mazes with more then one way to get to the top.  Having a fresh set of eyes on your plan and progress can be extremely helpful.
• Last but least, work the dog in front of you.  Today I set up for a shaping exercise with Azul and after about 30 seconds, he checked out walking away from me.  This is his way of saying that he is not in the right headspace for a training session right now.  While I might find a high value motivation to help him get his head in the game sometimes, it's better just to hold off on the session and do it later when you both are ready for the session.

I hope this helps you feel more comfortable about using Shaping Exercises.  Here are a few links from some of my favorite trainers about shaping:  

Service Dog Training Institute

Shaping to Fine Tune or Reshape Old Behaviors for Greater Precision

DogsThat.com - Susan Garrett

Planning for a Successful Shaping Session with Your Dog

6 Keys to Shaping Behaviors

Shaping Exercises

What the Heck is Shaping?

Simply put, shaping is all about leading your dog down the correct path to a goal by slowly take steps from Point A where your dog currently is to Point B where you want your dog to be.  For example, I want to be able to position Azul anywhere around me with a simple hand target.  But I couldn't just toss a hand target out and hope that Azul decided to hit it, that would not be planning for success!  Instead I used a shaping exercise.

Step 1: Teaching the dog to touch my hand that is holding a treat.

Step 2: Presenting the hand in front of the dog without a treat.

Step 3: Adding a cue to the behavior.

Step 4: Changing the location of the hand target slightly; left, right, up, down in small steps.

Step 5: Changing hands, getting dog to move to my left side then my right side.

Starting to get the picture?  Each time I make a slight change to my expectation or criteria for earning reinforcement.  If the dog offers any behavior other then the current step I'm after, I quietly ignore it and patiently wait for the right behavior.  By offering choices of different behaviors, the dog learns what will earn the reinforcement the quickest, then by repeating that new behavior that becomes the normal thing to do.

Shaping exercises are most challenging for us people to learn how to use, but for our dogs it makes learning easy relying on their natural brain/thinking patterns that help them survive and thrive in a people world.  One of the key points to effective shaping is working the dog that is in front of you.  While one dog might work through steps 1-10 in one session, another dog (or that same dog a different day) might only make it through 3 steps in one session.  If you move to slow or too fast through the steps, the dog can become frustrated and give up being unsure of what you expect them to do.

The 10 Laws of Shaping - developed by Karen Pryor

1. Raise criteria in increments small enough so that the subject always has a realistic chance of reinforcement.  
2. Train one aspect of any particular behavior at a time. Don't try to shape for two criteria simultaneously. 
3. During shaping, put the current level of response on a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement before adding or raising the criteria.
4. When introducing a new criterion, or aspect of the behavioral skill, temporarily relax the old ones.
5. Stay ahead of your subject: Plan your shaping program completely so that if the subject makes sudden progress, you are aware of what to reinforce next.
6. Don't change trainers in midstream. You can have several trainers per trainee, but stick to one shaper per behavior.
7. If one shaping procedure is not eliciting progress, find another. There are as many ways to get behavior as there are trainers to think them up.
8. Don't interrupt a training session gratuitously; that constitutes a punishment.
9. If behavior deteriorates, "Go back to kindergarten." Quickly review the whole shaping process with a series of easily earned reinforcers.
10. End each session on a high note, if possible, but in any case quit while you're ahead.

This might seem kind of daunting, but think of them more as guidelines to setting up your shaping plan for success.  Then if something isn't working, look back at these guidelines to see where you may have something that is interfering with your session.

Creating your Shaping Plan

Since you are going to start with a behavior your dog already does, you need to define that behavior to develop Step 1 of your Shaping Plan.  What can your dog already do?  Break the action you want to teach into small steps toward your final goal.  Teach through each step, with a back up plan in place so you don't get stuck on any one step.  Always end on a high note!  If the last step you are aiming at isn't working, step back a step or two to end at place where your dog can be successful and revisit your plan to see if you might be missing a step.

I'm going to use a shaping exercise that I developed for teaching Cam to retrieve items.  Cam had an aversion to putting people things in his mouth due to being taught as a pup NOT to chew on people things.  This created a hurdle I had to get over!  Here is a full write up of how I taught Cam to retrieve if you'd like to read it.  The steps I had to take to overcome the hurdle had to be really small.

Baby Step 1 - treat for sniffing

Baby Step 2 - treat for moving the meds bottle with his nose.

Baby Step 3 - treat for picking the meds bottle up more than an inch

Repeat Baby Steps 1-3 with 2-3 repetitions for each.

Baby Step 4 - treat for hand delivery, at this point I basically moved my hand to his mouth as he was still only picking it up about an inch. Repeating 4-5 times

Repeat Baby Steps 1-4 with 1-3 repetitions for each.

Baby Step 5 - Tossed the meds bottle off to the side to encourage Cam to move his head to my hand instead of me moving my hand towards his head.

You see Cam needed a whole ton of encouraging and reinforcement to get started on this shaping plan! We also needed to set up for success, meaning we had to find a low distraction environment where it was just Cam and me with no one around to interrupt us. Now I'm wishing I had taken the time to set up a video camera to record these sessions because after 4 yrs of trying to teach this using various techniques, I was finally able to achieve my goal with shaping.

Here is a video of Cam retrieving a raw egg for your enjoyment!

Shaping exercises can be a very helpful training resource to have in your tool belt if you can learn to use them effectively. Getting started can be challenging, but you will learn to step away from the "cookie cutter" approaches to dog training and into a world of teamwork that will help you and your dog become the best you can be if you embrace shaping exercises.

Capturing, Luring & Backchaining

Capturing

Capturing is where you wait for your dog to do a behavior you like and reinforce that behavior to increase that chances that the dog will choose that behavior more frequently in the future.  Every time your dog does a behavior that you want to be repeated, you simply reinforce it appropriately with food, petting or praise. Once your dog is repeating the behavior a few times a day, you can start to add in the cue word you want for the behavior. Then once the dog understands the cue you can lure them into position. And finally you can start to proof that behavior by calling for it in various environments.

For example: I want Azul to calmly lay by me during meal time.  So when he was very young, I rewarded him with kibble for laying calmly while I ate.  We did this in a variety of places; near the kitchen table, near me on the couch, in the car, etc.  Slowly I phased out the kibble and switched to a larger reward at the end of my meal.

I also did the same thing when we were visiting with friends.  Azul could get up and play, sniff, whatever when he chose to.  But if he chose to lay calmly at my side, he got rewarded with kibble and petting. 

Science has proven that animals will continue to do behaviors that are reinforced.  Capturing in training sessions is based on that principle.  You basically ignore behaviors you don't like, such as putting their puppy paws on you and reward a calm sit by your feet.  If you don't reinforce good behaviors, the things you don't want such as jumping on people often become self reinforcing because it doesn't take long to learn that jumping on people will get a response.  It might be cute for a puppy but if you don't want a full grown adult dog to do a behavior, don't reinforce it.  It's much easier to do this with young puppies but even older adults can learn by capturing the good behaviors you want and ignoring or preventing the behaviors you don't want repeated.

Luring

Luring is commonly the first type of training we do with young puppies and most of us do it whether we realize it or not. So I'm going to talk about this from the puppy perspective. But it's also important that luring doesn't become your only training method or you really limit yourself and your dog's ability to learn.

Keep in mind that puppies need to be puppies, so keep expectations realistic for your pup's age & breed. Second, there is more to training a pup than teaching them cues/commands to obey.  And finally all dogs are different so move at your pup's pace.

The very first thing to teach a puppy often comes up.  For me, that's relationship building.  I start with teaching pup that good treats (even kibble) comes from my hands.  I start this on day one, sometimes before we even make it home.  I don't use any words, but maybe some fun playful noises and/or puppies name.  Each time the pup looks at you, present your hand very close to the pup's nose.  Eventually you can hold your hand further away and pup will look for your hand when making that sound or say their name.  That's step 1 in creating a strong bond.  And that leads to step 2 and warming up your pup's brain for future learning using the luring technique.

Step 2 is using luring to get behaviors that you eventually want to put on cue.  Holding a treat slightly above the puppies head and slowly moving it toward pup's back can be a great way to lure the pup into a sitting position.  Trainers often use the phrase, "Don't name it, till you love it!"  Or in other words don't start adding the cue until you can successfully lure your pup into the position you want.  I use this training method to teach young pups several positions.  And this brings us to #3.

Step # 3 is choosing the order in which you train specific behaviors and you can use luring to your advantage if you focus on behaviors your puppy enjoys doing naturally. There is no hard and fast correct way to train your pup.  No two pups are exactly the same.  Nothing says teach sit the first week, down the second, etc.  Watch your pup and how well you can communicate with each other.  If a pup offers a down before a sit, work on that first.   This also means don't compare your pup to your neighbor's or other people online.  You are different, your pup is different, so don't force yourself to stick to someone else's timeline.  Enjoy your puppy & let your puppy be a puppy with lots of playtime, bonding, and finding out what works for you.

And this doesn't mean that you can only use luring to train early basic behaviors! As you grow as a team, you learn how to encourage your dog to make good choices and often you will use luring to provide that encouragement. Teaching a dog to touch a hand target can help you expand your luring technique without using a food lure all the time.

Back Chaining

Another term commonly used when discussing capturing is "back chaining." Back chaining behaviors can be used with different training methods, but it's simplest to start during capturing training. If you want to teach your dog to go potty on cue, you often start giving your cue while your puppy is going potty then as time progresses you back up your cue earlier and earlier until you can give the cue and your puppy will almost immediately go potty.

Another form of back chaining involves linking behaviors together by teaching the last behavior first and working backwards until the whole chain has been taught. A great example of this is the hand delivered retrieve that is commonly taught in 4 stages; pick up the object, hold it in your mouth, bring it to me, and drop the object in my hand. It doesn't really matter which order you teach each of those behaviors independently, but when creating the behavior chain you really want to start with the last one first which is often the hardest, drop.

Now this might should challenging because how can you teach drop if your dog doesn't put things in their mouth. That's a very valid point! If your dog was trained to not chew on people things at an early age, they may really struggle with even picking up any item in the first place. That's a case of where you may not want to use back chaining. Another example of when NOT to use back chaining is when the end behavior is more complex the the starting behavior. I have trick called "take a nap" which is a basic twist on play dead but it requires the dog to first lay down, then either place their head down on the floor or lay on their side in a relaxed position and hold still until they are released to wake up. I can't very well teach my dog to lay with his head down until I my dog already knows how to lay down on cue. And I can't very well teach my dog to hold still in this position until I can get them more comfortable in this position.

So when would I use back chaining for teaching a complex behavior? The simple answer is any time I want to expand on what my dog already knows to bump it up to the next level. Think back to the puppy stage, at first you watched them like a hawk and rushed them out the door to go potty at an slight signal they may need to go. But eventually you want to be able to teach them to give you some kind of a signal that they need to go so you don't have to watch them like a hawk. Then as they get older, you may need a different signal that can be given in different environments when your not at home, especially if you travel with your dog like I do. You can also use back chaining to increase distance or time to a behavior that is already known. For example, I teach my dogs to find the car, first at home in my driveway then in parking lots. Once they can find the car, I start going from the checkout lane to the car until they are successful in that. Then I add the step of finding the checkout lane from various locations in the store. Then if I need to make an hasty exit, I can tell me dog to find the car from nearly anywhere in the store and they will take me past the checkouts to the car. I can then use this teach other common places that I may need to go regularly like finding a bathroom or a chair to sit in. I know this steps more into the Service Dog world with advanced training, but the method of back chaining is used in teaching many dog sports and competitions too. Learning to use back chaining effectively will really up your training abilities.

Here is a short video of how I taught Azul to settle at my feet, under my chair or under a table while I eat my meals. This video demonstrates luring Azul as a young puppy with food. But since I also captured this behavior regularly once the behavior was learned it because second nature and now is an automatic behavior that just happens without the need for reinforcement all the time. He does still get reinforced for doing it regularly, he just doesn't need it all the time!

Plan your Training Sessions

 

Creating your training plan for a 3 month, 1 year, or whatever length of time is only the first step in the process to becoming more successful as a team.  The next few posts in my series "Plan for Success" is going to be all about setting up successful training sessions.  You have to be able to take your bigger picture plan and now figure out how that applies to where you and your dog are today.  And the best way to do that is to decide which training method you plan to use to accomplish your goals.  Here are a few examples:

Luring is the most commonly used training style where you use a treat or other reinforcement to lead to your dog to do what you want them to do.  To get a sit, you use a food lure near the puppies nose, raising it slowly and as the nose goes up the rear end goes down.  Repeating a few times until you get consistency, then start teaching the cue that goes with that action.

Capturing is one of my favorite techniques because you simply reinforce the things your dog naturally does to encourage them to do it more often.  Your young puppy chooses to lay down by your feet, you give them a belly rub or a small food reward and go back to what you were doing.  If they stay there, you reinforce again every few minutes until they chose to get up and move away at which point the reinforcement stops.  I use this method to reinforce heel and recall as well!

Shaping is relatively new to the dog training world and is all the rage among the best trainers!  For shaping you basically start where you and your dog is at working toward taking baby steps to slowly move up the staircase from steps 1, 2, 3...until you reach the end point.  This is a simplified explanation, but there will be another post on this topic later this week! 

There are other methods as well, but this gives an idea of the most common possible ways to teach a dog to repeat a behavior.

Choosing the Environment

This is a huge part of whether or not your session will be successful!  You need to examine your training area thoroughly before you begin the session.  What you look for will depend on your dog, so here a few things to keep in mind.

When training something completely new, especially if it's more difficult, it's always best to do this in a very low distraction environment.  It's nearly impossible to create a no distraction environment, but there are a few things you can do to help reduce distractions in environments that you can control. 

• Block access to your training area with gates, chairs, or other objects to prevent your dog from leaving and other dogs or people from walking through while your training.  My dogs are trained to hold a place while I'm working with the other dog.  But no matter what I do, I can't seem to prevent the humans from walking through our training area...and I live in a very quite household!
• Pick up any unwanted distractions.  If your dog is really into tug toys like Azul is, picking up the tugs can help him focus on me but balls laying on the floor are not a distraction.  You may not need a totally distraction free room to hold your session, but for sure remove any items that you know are going to be extremely distracting.  If you are using these items in your session, keep them up and out of the way until you are ready for them.
• Limit outside interference.  I use my phone to record my training sessions, so my phone is always in the room.  Yet setting my phone to silent so that it's not beeping and buzzing during the session, distracting me even if it doesn't distract my dog, is a big help.  Another tip, when using my phone to record is I will set up before I start and then just let it record for the whole session instead of trying to start it and stop it aiming to get that perfect video that I can share.  If you want your dog to be totally engaged with you during the session, you need to commit to being totally engaged with them during the session.

Once my dog is doing the behavior I'm after, I will start slowing adding distractions back in.  To do that, I start right in my training area by allowing distractions to move around us; dogs and people we are used to is my first step.  Then I might add some other mild distractions in that environment before moving to other rooms of the house to start generalizing the behavior.  

I will also have future posts next week about generalizing behaviors in multiple environments!

Choosing the Reinforcement

Often trainers refer to reinforcement as a paycheck for doing the job.  While this is a simple explanation of what reinforcement is, I'm not really a fan of this analogy because it then implies that you can also bribe your dog to get what you want.  My end goal is that my dogs see value in doing what I want them to do and will choose to do this whether or not reinforcement is immediately available.  But as trainers we walk a fine line of trying to figure out when to use reinforcement correctly and efficiently without becoming reliant on needing to constantly being able to produce treats to get the correct behavior.  Learning to use alternative forms of reinforcement has been a challenge for me, but has also made me a much better trainer.  Here are a few of my best reinforcement tips:

• Treats are by far the easiest reward to use when training new behaviors!  Especially if you are luring, capturing, or shaping behavior.  This why so many people get stuck here.  It's easy and it works most of the time.
• Toys are a bit harder to learn to use in training sessions and comes with additional challenges that are not involved with using treats.  Toys make it easier to add speed to behaviors your dog already knows.  If your dog is ball motivated and your working on recall, tossing that ball between your legs can easily get a slightly distracted dog to recall to you very quickly.  Since Azul loves tug, I've used this to reinforce tons of positions around me and switching between those positions rapidly simply by capturing those positions in our tug sessions.  Learning to use toys are reinforcement takes some practice, but it something every dog owner can learn and will help improve your team work much faster then relying on food rewards for everything.
• Talking as a reinforcement can be difficult to harness but surely the most easy way to provide reinforcement in real life situations.  Let's face it, most of us talk to our dogs and most of us like it when someone gives us a compliment so telling our dogs "Good Dog" seems like it is too simple.  But with some thought, this praise can be used to your advantage to get more out of your training sessions if you put some thought into your timing and how praise is offered.
• Touching is also reinforcing for many dogs, but definitely not the place to start with dogs that you haven't already developed a relationship with.  I use touching in the form of belly rubs with my young puppies as a reinforcement for choosing to lay down near me or snuggle with me.  This helps build value for the physical contact.  If you haven't taught your dog to love your touches, it's not going to be an effective reinforcement for you.

Learning what your dog loves and how to use that as a reinforcement during your training sessions and real life situations will definitely help you plan future training sessions more successfully.  I'm going to posting more on reinforcement, I'm just not sure when I will get around to that.  Stay tuned this week to learn more about using this information to set up successful training sessions that will expand the teamwork between you and your dog.

For your entertainment, here is a video of Azul and I using tug as a reinforcement for capturing basic behaviors.  Keep in mind that none of these behaviors are new to Azul, we are simply practicing known behaviors to keep our reinforcement history high.