Science-Based Dog Training (with Feeling) - All 3 Days

Through Pavlov, Skinner and Thorndike’s discoveries, the history of learning theory was crafted. Edward Thorndike created Thorndike’s law of effect, which described how to change behavior. He stated that when a behavior is followed by a reward, that behavior increases and if the behavior is follow by a punishment, that behavior decreases.

In training you can’t separate classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In training you have an antecedent, behavior and a consequence, A B C. A reward as a consequence of behavior is so effective. Using punishment is effective if it is used right but there are a lot of side effects and secondary punishers that are created through this method.

Instructive reprimand used to be the most effective way to eliminate behavior you don’t want and get your dog back on track. That is not how Sirius does it today. The use of the words ‘punishment’ and ‘reprimand’ comes with a lot of baggage and you immediately think of pain and retribution.

Now we use our voices in training.  With our voices we can communicate three pieces of information: what you are doing right now is wrong, this is what I want you to do, and the potential danger of noncompliance. With one word and without raising your voice all that can be communicated and we can stop behavior quicker with this technique then any other behavior out there.

Learning theory has been generated through laboratory experiments with consistent computers generating data. But this method is irrelevant to humans and putting training into practice can be very simple. Rewards and punishers have become too technical and we are not consistent enough with them. By formalizing your inconsistencies, you will get better reliability with your training.

There are many pros and cons to computer based schedules of reinforcement and punishment. There are also many pros and cons to when people try and apply these methods. The good news is that we can devise a more practical reinforcement schedule that is more efficient and effective and can now use punishers in a non-aversive way.

The whole point of using intermittent schedules of reinforcement is to train animals to work more and more for less and less food rewards. You are preparing your dog to work more trials without rewards.

The single biggest problem with dog training today is that people are using too many food treats. Continuous schedules of reinforcement initially result in quick learning but end up with a decrease in rates of response and quality of behavior. With this method of reinforcement dogs learn that they get a treat after every behavior, which in turn denatures the food treat, and now it is no longer reinforcing.

Fixed interval and fixed ratio schedules of reinforcement you see either a scalloping of behavior or a increase in speed but a decrease in quality. We don’t want variable behavior from our dogs so why would we ever use these schedules.

Variable schedules of reinforcement are incredible at maintaining behaviors but they are almost impossible for a human to compute. Random reinforcement is so easy for humans to practice and is good for maintaining behavior but not improving behavior.

The best way to maintain behavior and also to improve the quality and speed of behavior is differential reinforcement. Reinforcement is given only to the above average responses and better responses get better rewards and the best responses get the best rewards.

What is punishment? It is a stimulus that causes the immediately preceding behavior to decrease in frequency such that it is less likely to occur in the future. It doesn’t have to be painful or nasty.

Punishment must be effective, immediate and instructive. Punishment must also fit the crime. If your dog has previous training they should know what it is they are doing wrong and what it is they should be doing. Give them prior warning before a punishment so they have the option of correcting their own behavior.

There is an infinite amount of things to punish and only one thing to reward. Consistency is absolutely important with punishment training. The danger here is the dog now learns something different then what you are trying to teach.

Many owners are afraid of using punishment in training because they believe that is has to be harmful so they opt to use only reward based techniques. In actual fact aversive punishments are rare. Punishment doesn’t need to be aversive it just needs to be effective. Using your voice as a non-aversive punishment is a great way to train. Use your voice to correct and give instruction to undesirable behaviors.

Verbal feedback does not have to be aversive. The voice is analogue versus non-instructive quantum feedback given by a computer. Communication is easy with analogue feedback. You can say the same words in many ways to communicate different things. Now your words can be instructive by using your tone of voice.

Tone reversals are useful in training. Shouting now means better rewards if you listen and only communicates urgency. With your voice you can give specific redirections. Now you can communicate what you are doing is right or wrong, how well you did, and the potential danger of non-compliance, all with one calm word with analogue verbal feedback. Teaching your dog the meaning of words now gives you the ability to instruct them what to do and use specific redirection and repetitive reinstruction when they err.

Repetitive reinstruction is useful when initially training a behavior or when demanding compliance. You will begin with poor response reliability but with repetition you can achieve greater response reliability. The difference between repetitive reinstruction and nagging is compliance.

Data gathered from studies shows that verbal commands are less reliable then hand signals and are even less reliable with distance.  With repetitive reinstruction you are building comprehension when training for distance.

We have to acknowledge the fact that we are inconsistent with training. A very useful trick you can use in training is called the dog con system. Have two different names for your dog, a pet name and a serious name. When you use his pet name you are simply suggesting he dog something but when use his full name you mean business and there is no option other then to do what you ask. When you are in dog con 2 that is the only time you have to be consistent and follow up.

Take learning theory and apply it with a basic training sequence 1234, request, lure, response, and reward. It is important to fade out the lure quickly and now your sequence will be 134 and you will be able to reward with life rewards.

We are teaching two parts of training, to have a reliable response on cue and the session of a behavior on cue. Another thing we do as trainers is increase and decrease the frequency of behaviors.

The five reward based training techniques are physical prompting, lure/reward training, all or none reward training, shaping and auto-shaping. Physical prompting and lure reward training follows a basic sequence of 1 request, 2 lure or prompt, 3 response, 4 reward. If you follow this sequence then you will be able to accurately be predict the response because you cause the behavior to happen. But if you want to increase or decrease the frequency of the behavior only lure reward training will work.

The beauty of all or none reward training and shaping is that you don’t ask for the behavior, so the dog can’t be wrong. Just wait for a desirable behavior to occur. However with these two techniques it is much harder to put the behavior on cue because you have to capture it.

The first stage in lure reward training it to teach the dog what we want them to do and phase out the lure. The second stage is to then teach the dog to want to do what we want them to do by phasing out the food reward and replacing it with life rewards. You want the dog to enjoy training and the worst punishment you could give him is to stop the training session.

Stage three is to enforce compliance without force, insist the dog does it. By using the dog con system you can let the dog know they have to do it and calmly insist they do it and repeat it before life can continue for your dog.

The art of training is discovering the most effective lure. But the trick is you have to get rid of the lure as quick as you can. A food lure in your hand is only to help teach the dog what the behavior is and what the hand signal is. Remove the food from your hand quickly. If you do not remove the food lure then you are simply bribing your dog.

When giving a verbal cue you must be careful not to give any body cues as well. And it is important that the verbal cue precedes the lure by half a second or the dog wont hear the verbal cue at all.

Now you can use differential reinforcement by rewarding responses that are above average.  The best rewards are given to the best responses. The biggest life rewards you can give your dog is to walk with them or to let them go play. Your walk with your dog is a great training opportunity to reward our dogs responses with a continued walk.

There are about seven different behavior problems that become distractions in training that could work against you. These are all behaviors that occur frequently and something the dog usually likes doing. We can use these behaviors in training as a reward for low frequency behaviors.

Jazz up and settle down is a great way to gain control over a high energy dog. Ask your dog to woof and shush on cue to control that alert bark. After your dog offers a sit then he can jump up. Teach your dog to pull on leash or speed up and slow down. Have then take something from you then let it go or drop it only to take it again. Reward a recall and sit with a game of chase. Now that food rewards are phased out and replaced with life rewards, the behavior sequence becomes 1-3 as the behaviors themselves are self-reinforcing.

Remember to use the dog con system when demanding compliance from your dog. Just make sure you follow up if you mean it. And if you ever have to repeat the command, they have to repeat the exercise. So they learn the quickest way to t go play again is to sit on the first command the first time you give it. Its so simple and takes a lot of punishment out of learning. You will have a much easier life with your pet this way.

Face up to the fact that there are times when your dog is going to be out of control. Meet the beast and deal with it right away, don’t avoid it. Now teach him that sit means sit even when there is another dog around or when there is someone coming in the front door. Trouble shoot these behaviors by repeatedly exposing the dog to the same stimulus.

There are seven steps in training. These steps will accelerate training. The first step is defining your rules and all verbal commands used to communicate with your dog. Define the criteria and what you want the behavior to look like. What do you want your dog to do and what not to do and when. Define all these variables to your training because if you don’t know them, your dog won’t know them either.

It is very important to train off leash so you do not use a physical prompt as a crutch.  If you have a leash in your hand you will learn so many bad habits. It is much quicker to put responses on cue instead of relying on a leash.

Centripetal attraction towards you is also important. We want to be the center of our dog’s universe and have owner gravity with our dogs. There are a lot of really great exercises you can do with your dog but the best one is a following exercise.  A trail walk is a perfect place to take your dog. Set the criteria to how close you want the dog to be to you. Once your dog approaches that distance ahead turn around and go the other way.

Teaching body position changes, is better then just teaching body positions.  If you work with at least three positions at a time then your dog is less likely to predict which behavior is coming next. Now teach each of the three positions from the other two. When you randomize the commands it forces the dog to pay attention.

Distance commands can be achieved by using a physical barrier like the edge of stairs or a crate. Practice body position changes there and make sure your dog doesn’t creep in towards you with every change. The most important distance command is the emergency sit. The emergency sit is a great way to integrate distance commands into walks and play time.

Now you want to proof your dog’s stay. Work towards duration, distance and distractions but not all at once. Teaching stay and proofing the stay with repetitive instruction is a great way to work on emergency sit and to get reliable distance commands. Having a bomb proof stay is very important.

Just as important is walking on leash. This is a difficult exercise for owners. If people have dogs that pull on leash, it can destroy a dog’s quality of life. Pulling on leash is a sign that the dog doesn’t want to be with the owner. Give your dog a reason to be close to you. If you accomplish off leash following and heeling then you will have a great walk on leash.

Everything about dog training is easier if you start it earlier in the puppy's development, especially socialization and housetraining.  The vast majority of behavior problems in adult dogs could have been easily prevented during puppyhood.  These behavior problems are often the reason dogs end up abandoned at shelters.

That's why we make BEFORE & AFTER You Get Your Puppy available as a free download.  This PDF file can actually be customized with your business contact information and then distributed freely as a valuable promotional tool.  You'll be promoting good puppy-raising practices and thereby helping to keep dogs out of shelters, all while promoting your own business.

BEFORE You Get Your Puppy
by Dr. Ian Dunbar

When you choose a new puppy, you need to meet six developmental deadlines before your puppy is just five months old. If your puppy fails to meet any of these deadlines, he will never achieve his full potential and will be playing ‘behavioral catch-up’ for the rest of his life. BEFORE You Get Your Puppy covers the first three developmental deadlines covering the period from puppy selection to your puppy’s first week at home. The last three developmental deadlines that your puppy needs to meet before he is six months old are described in a second book — AFTER You Get Your Puppy

1st Developmental Deadline — Your Education About Puppy Education
You need to complete your education about puppy education before you search for a puppy. You need to know how to select a good puppy and how puppies work. Selecting a puppy is similar to buying a car: Do lots of research beforehand and "test drive" a wide variety, especially including the one you intend to buy. But first, you need to learn how to drive. Specifically you need to know how to teach your puppy: where to eliminate, what to chew, when to bark, where to dig, to sit when greeting people, to walk calmly on-leash, to settle down and shush when requested, to inhibit biting behavior, to enjoy spending time at home alone, and to thoroughly enjoy the company of other dogs and people — especially strangers and children

2nd Developmental Deadline — Evaluating Your Prospective Puppy’s Progress
Before you choose your puppy, you need to know how to assess your prospective puppy’s current socialization and educational status. Regardless of breed or breeding, if socialization, errorless housetraining, and basic manners are not well underway by eight weeks of age, the puppy is already developmentally retarded.

3rd Developmental Deadline — Errorless Housetraining & Chewtoy-Training
Make certain that an errorless housetraining and chewtoy-training program is instituted from the very first day your puppy comes home.

Everything about dog training is easier if you start it earlier in the puppy's development, especially socialization and housetraining.  The vast majority of behavior problems in adult dogs could have been easily prevented during puppyhood.  These behavior problems are often the reason dogs end up abandoned at shelters.

That's why we make BEFORE & AFTER You Get Your Puppy available as a free download.  This PDF file can actually be customized with your business contact information and then distributed freely as a valuable promotional tool.  You'll be promoting good puppy-raising practices and thereby helping to keep dogs out of shelters, all while promoting your own business.


AFTER You Get Your Puppy covers the last three developmental deadlines that your puppy needs to meet before he is six months old.

4th Developmental Deadline — Socializing Your Puppy to People

Your Most Urgent Priority is to socialize your puppy to a wide variety of people, especially children, men, and strangers, before he is twelve weeks old. Well-socialized puppies grow up to be wonderful companions, whereas antisocial dogs are difficult, time-consuming, and potentially dangerous. As a rule of thumb, your puppy needs to meet at least one hundred people before he is three months old. Since your puppy is still too young to venture out to dog parks and sidewalks, you’ll need to start inviting people to your home right away.

5th Developmental Deadline — Teaching Bite Inhibition

Your Most Important Priority is that your puppy learns to inhibit the force of his bites and develop a "soft mouth" before he is eighteen weeks old. Whenever a dog bites a person, or fights with another dog, the single most important prognostic factor is the degree of bite inhibition and hence, the likelihood and seriousness of injury. Accidents happen. Someone may tread on the dog’s paw, or a child may trip over the dog while he’s gnawing a bone. A dog may snap and lunge at a person when hurt or frightened, but if the dog has well-established bite inhibition, it is unlikely the dog’s teeth will puncture, or even touch the skin.

6th Developmental Deadline — Continuing Socialization in The World at Large
The Most Enjoyable Priority of dog ownership is to introduce your well-socialized puppy to the world at large. Your dog will only remain sociable and confident if he continues to meet and greet at least three unfamiliar people and three unfamiliar dogs every day. Meeting the same people and dogs over and over is not sufficient. Your dog needs to practice meeting, greeting, and getting along with strangers, not simply getting along with old friends. Regular walks with your dog are as essential as they are enjoyable.