Each day that the dog walkers come, they leave a little note describing their visit and what the boys were up to while I was at work. Those notes are the highlight of my day; as I’m driving home, I often wonder what the note will say. I know my guys inside and out. I can describe my dogs’ personalities in intricate, intimate detail, and I worry that someone else may not pick up on all the little details that make them them. Although, turns out, their personalities must be strong enough to shine through because the notes really capture facets of their individuality! I’m often so surprised when people – people who likely have never loved a dog – don’t seem to realize the depths that their personalities have.
All this is a roundabout way of saying that training a new behavior can be a gigantic pain with two dogs who are so completely different in every possible way. Emmett is food motivated and desperate for approval. So, in theory, he should be really easy to teach. But he gets himself all worked up, offering every behavior he can think of – sit, down, wave, roll over, sit, bow, down – in a rapid succession that the first hurdle in teaching him anything is to get him to STOP offering behaviors so that he can focus. Lucas, on the other hand, is only sort of into food (unless it’s American cheese – then he’ll do algebra for me), and he sort of wants approval, but if the mood strikes him, he’d rather run in circles. Or chase a fly. Or pounce on a toy. Or bark out the window. Or clobber Emmett.
It occurred to me over the weekend that I face the same challenge with both boys – attention – but for wildly different reasons. For Emmett, it’s getting his attention; for Lucas, it’s keeping his attention. We only work for 5 to 10 minutes at a time, so I feel pretty confident that they’re not being over-worked… but I don’t know?
So all you dog-savvy readers: How do you get (or keep) your dog’s attention when you’re training a new behavior? Any tips or tricks?
I’m with you, American cheese is a really good motivator! I also find that certain times of the day my dog Kelly is more motivated than others. So maybe if you key in on your dogs “peak performance” times, that could help?
you need to start by training them seperately. Start with the “watch me” or “focus” command. Put a treat up by your eyes and get them to make eye contact with you before you give them the treat. Then lengthen the time that they have to make eye contact before they get the treat etc….hope this helps
My Lilly is pretty food motivated and generally has good focus, but I think that has a lot to do with me teaching her to focus. I do “watch me drills” a lot and I find it helps a ton when we compete in rally, train, and in everyday life. I don’t really do much in the way of commands before we go in the ring, but I ALWAYS do a lightening round of “watch me drills” with some really awesome food and toys.
http://adayinthelifeofamutt.blogspot.com/2010/06/teaching-watch-me.html
When teaching a new thing, TONS of preparation goes into it before I even bring the dog into it. For example, when I taught Lilly the “back up” command, I set up “backing troughs” with our agility jumps so that her chances of going in the wrong direction were drastically limited. I still set up a line of jumps and have her “back” along side of me in “heel” position with those jumps on her outer side because she’s not quite ready to go it alone. Eventually, I will still use the jumps, but I’ll have her “back” further away from them. I find it’s much more effective to use “props” to make them more likely to do something correctly in the first place than to try to fix it later. (certainly there are some cases where that is not necessarily true)
Here’s a video of Lilly learning “back”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8HDDelXwIk
Notice the point where I could tell she was under too much pressure and needed to do a couple “burn outs” to release some of it. I think this is one thing that lots of people fail to do. After her quick “party” she was back and rearing to go again. Even a short session sometimes needs a release, especially in this case (for my Lilly) because it includes a lot of “spacial pressure” which is hard for her.
Great tips, everyone! And thank you so much for taking the time to leave such insightful comments!
Some questions you have inspired me to ask: What is their best, most-focused time of day? (My instinct is late afternoon, before dinner, but I’ll test!) How can I craft the sessions to be short, fun, interesting spurts – for one dog at a time?
Thanks for the book suggestion! I haven’t read Control Unleashed but will check it out of the library! I’ll let you know if I work anything out to help Emmett and Mayzie! 🙂
Have you read “Control Unleashed”? One of the things she talks about for dogs whose attention span wanders is to keep it REALLY short. Like, a minute or less. So, if memory serves, (it’s been awhile since I read it), you do a short little burst of training and sit down while they still seem to be in to it and tell them to go do something else for a set amount of time. Then do another little short burst. She says that the dog will probably start coming back to you for more before the set break time is up. Worth a shot, I guess.
As for Emmett, I don’t have any input. Mayzie’s the same way sometimes and I haven’t figured it out yet.
I have crated one dog while I worked with the other for a bit, let one outside while I worked the other in the house, left one in the house while I went outside, put one in another room, used baby gates, whatever works. I have always found it’s good for dogs to learn how to deal with me working another dog in view (and not giving them all my attention) without throwing a fit.
I also have the luxury of one dog with 11 years of training under his belt that can easily hold a down/stay while I work with Lilly. (Or, he just stays back and watches from a distance on his own because he knows he’ll get his goodies in due time)
I never train two dogs at once other than “going for a walk” everyday training.
I have a 16 week old pit bull/pointer mix I recently adopted, that I’m in the midst of training. I live with my sister who has two dogs of her own, so training can be difficult at times just because of the numbers. So I do short, sometimes a minute, bursts of training all the time. I train everywhere, at home, the vet, at the creek, all the places he has a hard time focussing. Like others, my very first command was focus. He has it down, but we work on it all the time, so when I need his focus, all I do is say the word. My favorite time to train is after excersize, but sometimes even then he’s not always too interested in doing something just because I asked him to. He’s funny, I always get this look from him that seems to be asking me what he’s going to get out of it! I have found that I always have to have treats with any new trick, or anytime I call him to me. For this my favorites are turkey/ chicken hot dogs cut into tiny pieces, and pet botanics training treats. My sister is a dog trainer and loves the pet botanics, and because any dog will do anything to get it, it’s new name is puppy crack. With either of these treats my pup will focus on me, then start in with every trick he knows to try to get it. I will also use the shavings off of meat from my boyfriends dinner. Anything new with a new smell of meat and he’ll do anything I ask. These treat combined with working everywhere we go seems to work pretty well.
Hi Diana! Thanks for stopping by and commenting! Those are all great ideas… and I’m so impressed you’ve accomplished it all with a 16-week-old pup! Way to go!!
I really like this post – “he’ll do algebra for me” – even though I may not know your boys, I feel like I do through your descriptions. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
“then he’ll do algebra for me”- that made me laugh 🙂
Hi Maggie. I just came across your blog today.
I think everyone has pretty much answered all your questions here. I just wanted throw in a book recommendation. It’s called “Feeling Outnumbered?” and it’s written by Karen London and Patricia McConnell (both certified animal behaviorists). Here is one thing I learned from the book:
1. Always teach basic obedience to your dogs one dog at a time. (This includes loosh leash walking.) Amanda already pointed that out, but I wanted to repeat it here because it’s so important to remember. You can also create a group name for your dogs. So if you want both dogs to come to the door you could choose something like “Boys, come”. The book explains in detail how to go about it.
I also agree with Mayzie’s Mom that perhaps you should try training for shorter periods than 5-10 minutes. Do it one minute at a time thoughout the day. Perhaps in your case it IS probably important to train before they eat their meals. In fact, use the meal for their reward. How high value are the treats you are giving? Must be something they love.
A big part of dog training is teaching frustration tolerance. For Lucas, you could tie one end of the leash to your belt. Just stand there until he starts to focus on you. Don’t move and don’t pull on the leash. He’ll eventually get frustrated and start paying attention to you. Reward him the minute he makes eye contact with you.
Thank you so much for stopping by and for taking the time to comment. I haven’t read that book, but I’m heading to the library today to look for it! I love your idea of having a command for both (“boys”). I think we may start working on that this weekend! Since I wrote this post, I’ve been working on one minute or so a day having them individually respond by name. For example, I tell Emmett to get on his bed and to wait, then I call Lucas. Lucas gets rewarded for coming; Emmett gets rewarded for staying on his bed. We’re still working on it – we haven’t gotten much distance yet – but it’s really having a positive impact on getting their attention. They’re learning to listen more closely, I think!
Thank you, everyone, for weighing in!!