I was out for a walk the other day.
And I walked by an unfenced property with an adolescent dog and their
owner. And the dog just seemed to be listening. Now, if you are a dog owner,
who's struggling to get some attention from your dog.
Who's struggling because every time they see a distraction,
they want to leave you.
You might think that that owner just was lucky and got a great dog,
or they have the right breed. And that may be partially true.
Some breeds are just naturally a little bit more attentive.
They have been bred over generations to be the best listeners,
to be the hardest workers.
But one thing that I've noticed after seeing thousands of dogs here in our
training facility,
after seeing thousands of dogs in our online training programs from all over the
world is that these dogs who listen well,
all have owners who have something in common.
All of these dog owners understand the five rules that I'm going to be talking
about today. It allows their dogs to be more successful. More importantly,
it allows their dogs to have more focus,
even in the most distracting environments.
So let's figure out how to apply these five rules to your training.
I'm Ken Steepe. This is Mac. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
On our YouTube channel,
we publish videos every week to help you to have a well-behaved four legged
family member. And I like videos like this because regardless of your dog's age,
their breed, regardless of their stage in training their temperament,
you can apply these things,
these steps and tips that I'm going to talk about to your training,
to get better results.
The first thing I want you to think about when it comes to getting more focused
and attention and teaching your dog to listen outside is to understand that
being outside, after you're doing all your training,
it adds a layer of difficulty.
Reinforcing the fact that you are worth listening to is a really important step,
regardless of the location,
regardless of the kind of dog that you're working with, reminding your dog,
that you have,
something of value is going to be an important step for a lot of new dog owners.
Now, if you have the kind of dog who pulls the moment you step outside the door,
when they cause they love to go for walks, what would your walks look like?
If you started with a little bit more control instructor,
Carol does a really nice job of demonstrating this.
In her example is introducing a dog to like a park and going through that
gateway.
I want you to check this clip out and you're going to find it really useful.
If you have an excited dog who just loses their mind when they're going for
walks or when they get to the park.
Lucy's pretty excited about getting over there.
We're about to go through the gate and she's anticipating that you ever had that
you're leaving your house, your dog, can't wait to go there,
pulling your arm off,
or they're fighting you to get out of that car to get to the park. Well,
we're going to change the game a little bit in order to get where she wants to
go. She's going to have to focus on me.
So my value's going way up because I provide that grade area
with see how I work at home. We're pulling,
oh, hi, you exist. I do. Oh,
good girl. That's much better. So when she's on a loose lease all room,
I'll praise her. Yay. Good girl.
And I don't need to reward with food because she's getting what she wants by
going through there. That's the best reward ever. Yes.
Good girl. What girl? A little bit attention.
Black and white pass.
Go hide girl. Very nice. Yes.
XE grab. Oh, I got ya. One more time. You're almost there.
High value foods and treats are a powerful tool, but it won't fix everything.
I see far too often. People struggling in the real world.
Their dog is constantly pulling. They're just too distracted.
And that's a great example of someone who can't see that their dog isn't going
to be successful.
You need to really be aware of the temptations in the environment.
If there's too much temptation, change the location, distance is your friend,
especially when it comes to struggling, getting focus,
struggling to get some attention.
I think back to before a lockdown in quarantine,
we often would go do shows in the downtown Toronto,
and it would be a busy environment.
We would always love it when we'd have young dogs or adolescent dogs that were
in training,
because this was a great time to start to introduce them to some new
distractions. But quite often, we'd have to find a secluded quiet spot.
Maybe that meant going several hundred meters away to a quiet corner.
Maybe it's a little alleyway or the front of a business somewhere that
you're,
isn't so distracting so that your dog can be successful regardless of the kind
of food that you've got, the kind of reward you've got.
You need to ensure that that dog has an opportunity to be right by
removing all of the things in the world that are forcing them to be wrong.
Something that you'll notice a lot of dogs do that listen really well is they'll
offer attention. So I need you to find a spot,
find a space where your dog is going to offer you that kind of attention,
rather than you insisting on it. By calling their name by using a treat,
you need your dog to voluntarily offer you some of that attention.
If you're going to tell me that you can't find any space that looks like that,
or that feels like that, you need to look harder.
Lots of dogs are really motivated by motion.
We talked to in a recent video about finding a purposeful pace.
If you're struggling with your walking on leash, training,
your dog's constantly pulling on leash,
then maybe changing the pace can be an important step in getting some success.
Now,
walking too quickly is often unless you're trying to close your rings or get
more steps, not going to be helpful.
Your dog may even find that too exciting and start to get stimulated and pull
more walking too slowly is likely going to allow your dog to get more
distracted. But if, once you find that pace like you're late for something,
or you're going somewhere,
you'll probably see your dog lock in a little bit more,
allowing you to reinforce that position,
allowing you to reinforce that great walking on leash that you really want.
But it's not just limited to walking on leash. Skills like response to name,
skills like the recall.
This is something that we do with all of our puppies in our puppy,
restraint recalls. We want to activate the dogs, chase drive.
We want to really make them excited about the process of getting to us,
not just the reward at the end. This is about that full motivation.
So when you call your dog's name, you back away and you can reward them. You,
when you called come, you run the other direction,
you'll be amazed at how motivated your dog gets by the act of chasing after you.
I remember a time when I was snowboarding in the mountains in British Columbia
and we're down in the village and someone's Husky had gotten loose and people
are running around all over the village trying to catch this dog.
And when the dog came out onto the road, I was on,
I just made a funny noise and ran away. Well guess where the Husky went.
It chased right after me.
So take advantage of some of these natural behaviors from your dog.
And you're going to start to see that they're choosing you more often because
you're exciting. Just the act of chasing after you is a lot of fun for them.
Remember,
you're competing with all of the other distractions in the environment.
So you better be the most interesting thing don't underestimate the power of
your
people will often comment on our puppy training videos when Kayl gives her yet
less to do with what you're saying and a lot more to do with how you're saying
it. Now, this doesn't mean that you need to have a high pitched bubbly voice.
When you're communicating with your dog.
When you're trying to maintain some of that attention,
maybe your dog loves lower gruff gravelly kind of sounds,
but as you're training, you need to figure out what works for them. Now,
this won't be forever. This is something that's going to bridge that time,
as we're really trying to be able to reinforce that attention on you.
The other great part is that this is what we're doing in between rewards.
This is how you can start to wean off of having food in your hand,
or rewarding constantly that using your voice,
bridges that time and over a while,
you can start to distance it out because you're using your voice to support that
attention between rewards and every training session with a motivated dog.
This is something that's really important to remember,
especially for those of you with young puppies,
the best thing you can do is plan for three or four,
10 or 15 minute training sessions throughout the day,
rather than one one-hour session.
We want to really make sure that our dogs are motivated.
And when we're talking about puppies, they have small, small bellies,
short attention spans. When we're talking about adult dogs, you know,
you might be introducing that sort of a brainwork to your dog or introducing
that kind of physical work to your dog, and they can get tired pretty quickly.
So you want to plan for several multiple short training sessions throughout the
day, so that you end up with a dog.
Who's just as excited about the training at the end of the session,
as they were at the beginning. In fact, as your dog starts to run out of energy,
they're likely to make worse choices, get more distracted, sniff the ground,
do all sorts of avoidance behaviors because you've just worked them too long.
So using, have you done this?
Have you played fetch until your dog stopped bringing the ball back?
It's a really, really common mistake that dog owners make. If that is the case,
then you need to stop that train.
The next time you play fetch stop that training session three or four throws
earlier so that your dog is constantly excited about the act of fetching.
They're excited about the process of training, right? Last thing you want to do,
especially when you have a young dog in training is burn them out to make you a
lot less interesting because they'll stop listening to you and you'll be using
all of your commands ineffectively. This is a bit of a bonus tip,
but something made me think about it.
When we were talking a little bit earlier about motion,
don't be afraid to switch up your rewards and toys can be a great way to do it.
No,
our young dog Euchre,
who you've seen on the channel from the day we brought her home. She's a dog.
That's not super motivated by food,
but when we introduced toys into our training for specific exercises,
it's like we entirely changed the game for her.
Another thing for you to keep in mind is that sometimes having altering rewards.
So maybe you work on your recall and the one time it's food,
you reward your dog in a control position with food.
The next time you pop out the toy at the end,
they're never really sure what that reward is going to be.
We talk about motivation and a great way to do that is to get them excited about
what that ending's going to be. It's like a jackpot reward.
Sometimes the other thing that's really nice about using toys,
especially when we're talking about interactive toys,
is that the benefit of that toy,
the excitement of that toy only happens with you.
So something like our McCann Dogs, fuzzy tugs, or our McCann Dogs,
puppy tugs is a great way to engage the dog.
And the only time it's available to them is with you. You'll find in,
we definitely saw this with Uker, but you'll find the dogs,
excitement level goes through the roof,
which means that for certain exercises it's appropriate for others,
you might want to avoid it. So when you're working your response to name,
when you're working your recall,
any of these exercises or skills where you want to really crank up the
speed, really crank up the drive, pull out your toy.
It is a great way to reinforce for your dog, that you are lots of fun. Now,
all dog owners want a dog who listens just as well off leash as they do on leash
and instructor.
Carol's made a great video that you can check out that teaches you how to go
from sore hands to no hands when you're working outside with your dog.
So flip that card right there, and if you're looking for some personalized help,
that's specific to you and your dog's needs,
make sure you check out the link in the description to our Life Skills program
with one of our McCann Dogs.
Instructors can help you through your dog training process on that note,
I'm Ken, Happy training.