Insider Secrets From a Top Dog Trainer

Don’t train your dog how to walk while on a walk

This is an example of environment affecting behavior. The best place to start teaching a dog to walk on a leash is in a familiar setting in the house. I stand and have the dog in heel position on the left, and I pivot to the right a few degrees and give the dog a treat at my left knee. And then I keep pivoting to the right and feeding the dog at my left knee. In this way, the dog learns to keep their head at my left knee. Then I start taking random steps in various directions, and they stay right at my knee. The next place you practice is in the yard, where things are pretty predictable and pretty quiet. And then on the front porch, and then somewhere where there are no other dogs, or where it’s quiet. It takes a long time before you can walk with your dog without pulling.

But do use different settings to train

The environment controls behavior. So if you control the environment and distractions, then you can easily teach a new behavior. Next, teach it in a new environment, and another new environment, and another new environment. It’s just like when you learn to drive, right? First you drive in the driveway, and then the supermarket parking lot, and then at some point you go on the highway, but you don’t take your first lesson on the highway, passing a truck.

Skip the e-collar

The evidence across species is that aversive stimuli, like electronic collars or things that scare, frighten or hurt an animal after an unwanted behavior, have known side effects that include aggression, fear of the person who’s using the aversive stimulus, and fear of what’s in the environment around them. There is a lot of research showing that using reward-based methods has known outcomes without bad side effects.

Teach them that people walking by equals treats

First, the dog shouldn’t be out there alone in the yard barking at everyone who goes by, because every time it happens, that behavior is being reinforced. Teach alternative behavior. Sit with the dog, and every time it sees someone go by, feed it treats until the person goes away. So in that way, the person or whoever’s going by, instead of meaning “Bark, bark, bark,” means, “Hey, where’s my treat?”  The second thing that you have to do is, when no one is passing, do recall drills away from the fence. Stand 6 feet from the fence with the dog next to you. You toss a treat toward the fence to get the dog to go there; your dog runs to the fence to get the treat.  Now call the dog back to you, then throw the reward treat back toward the fence. You can give the dog a treat when it gets to you a few times, too. So you’re basically patterning: rewarding the dog for running away from the fence to you. 

Live by the one-bark rule

This trick will keep you both sane. Try teaching the dog that you will pay them for one bark, but not for barking like crazy. So as soon as the dog barks, you say “quiet” and give them a cookie. Over time, they will bark once and then look at you and ask, “Hey! Where’s my cookie?”

I taught my dog Radio how to bark once when he wanted to come in from outside. If he barked a bunch of times, I didn’t let him in. I stood on the other side of the door to train him. I’d wait for him to bark one time, and I’d throw the door open and let him in. And the result was that he would bark once and then stand there and stare at the door.

Get a jump on jumping

You usually know when your dog is going to jump on you. So as they come up to you, throw five cookies behind them. They turn around, they get the cookies, then they come back up to you. As they get to you, hold the food down at your knee-level, cue them into a sit, and give them a treat. Then reach down and give them a nice neck rub from above.

They learn that when Mom gets home, “I run up, I sit, I get a cookie, and then I get a neck rub.” All the time, their feet are on the floor. Or, let’s say the dog is 10 feet away and they’re coming right at you. So when they’re about 7 feet away, step your right foot about 4 feet in front of you, like a yoga thing. Take your arm and reach in front of that foot and make the “sit” gesture, offer the treat and bring your arm up. So now you’re 3 feet closer than you would’ve been. You’re telling them to sit, and they’ll slow down and sit. 

But beware of creating a “behavior chain.” For example, the dog jumps on you. You ask for a wanted behavior — sit. Now you reward the sit. But what you just taught the dog is that the way to get that treat is to jump and then sit. Tell them to sit before they jump on you, and then reward that.

And if they jump on you, then tell them to sit, but don’t reward. And next time, don’t let the jump happen. Step backward, outside the door, before they jump on you.

Want them to drop something? Put a treat on their nose

If you have a toy that the dog likes to tug on, then put some treats on a table near you and offer the tug toy.  As soon as the dog touches it with their teeth, say “drop it” and put a piece of food on their nose. They’ll let go. If you do that three times, the dog won’t even touch the toy anymore, because the food takes over. And then over time, if the dog does like to tug and you say “drop it,” the reward can be that the tug game will now continue.  

One thing that we always have in our closet in the clinic is paper towels, because it’s the thing that dogs are most likely to steal and run under a table and guard. So we’ll put a little meat juice on a paper towel, wrinkle it up and hold it out to the dog. As soon as they put their teeth on it, say “drop it” and then give them a great treat. 

Set up a treat taste test

I’ll ask the dog, “What do you like best? Chicken or surf and turf? Hot dogs or cheese?” Hold out different kinds of treats, one in each hand, and see which one they pick. Do this with four or five different treats. And they’ll tell you which one they like the best. Dogs have a better sense of smell than they do of taste. 

So if you smell it and you kind of gag, it’s probably going to be good. If you’re training in the house where there are few distractions, your dog will probably work for a low-level treat, like kibble. But not if there’s a rabbit in the backyard. The environment has changed. You have to pay more — a high-value treat. If your dog won’t take a treat, it’s likely because it’s too nervous or excited. It’s in an environment where it can’t learn. Food is a primary reinforcer. If a dog won’t work for food, or respond to food at times, that is because they don’t like the treat; they have not learned the behavior in that setting (I taught a dog to lie down in the kitchen once, and it took three weeks to teach the same behavior in other rooms of the house); or they are overwhelmed in the setting because of fear/anxiety or excitement and are too nervous to eat.

Toys for energy, food for calm

For a dog with a lot of drive who loves to tug, you can use a tug game as a reward. All the dogs who work at the airport, all the detection dogs, they don’t work for food. They work for toys, tug games, ball games, because those things keep them excited and happy.

But if you’re a regular person at home, then you don’t want a dog who is at the ready all the time. Food has a calming effect. So if you want to keep a dog jazzed up, then you can use toys, tug games, a ball, a tennis ball, things like that. But if you want a dog to be a little more sedate and working for you eagerly, but not in a way that they’re losing their mind, then you use food.

However, if your dog doesn’t seem interested in treats at all (and you’ve tried the taste test), then go ahead and try to motivate them through a toy or play. Perhaps your dog will come when called because you will throw a ball for them and they love a ball more than anything. Many agility competitors have Border collies who love to tug, and their handlers teach them to tug as a reward for running the course.

Introduce a mechanical helper

I’ve had a remote Treat and Train feeder since it came out, in the ’00s. But anything that can supply food in a certain area so that you can station a dog in one place is a potentially valuable training tool. I use the Treat and Train to keep my dog from eating the vacuum when I’m vacuuming. At first you have your dog lie down, you tell it to stay, and you manually press the button every one to two seconds. 

And once it’s really staring at the machine and it’s really motivated to stay there and stare at it, then you can set it on an automatic schedule, and it’ll come out on the average of whatever number of seconds you set. My dog Ribbon can work for an average of 15 seconds, which actually can be kind of long. But when you put that machine down, she’ll just lie there and stare at it and wait for the food to come out. 

Figure out your word for ‘no,’ and stick to it

You have to have some kind of word for “Put down that roast” or “Don’t run out that door.” But you don’t want to go around scaring your dog all the time. I use the word “stop.” When I first get a dog and they’re doing something naughty, I say “stop” so they know. And I go over and hold them by the collar for about two minutes. So “stop” means I’m going to prevent you from doing that. That’s about as aversive as I get.

The simple truth is, you get what you train. When I say “stop,” I say it quietly. If it is an emergency, like the dog is running out a door, I might shout it, but that should be rare. The idea in training is to teach a known consequence for behavior, and teach an alternative behavior so it does not keep happening. If you have to scare or intimidate your dog to train it, you run the risk of damaging the bond with the animal. For example, I knew someone who used all aversive methods to train her dog and then wondered why her dog wouldn’t sit with her on the couch at night.

Body language matters

Just like people react to body language, so do dogs. But canine body language isn’t necessarily the same (dogs don’t like hugs!). Here’s what to know:

• Dogs don’t like to be stared at.
• If you move toward them, they tend to move away.
• If you turn your back and move away from them, they tend to move toward you.
• Dogs don’t like to have their heads reached over.
• Don’t hold your fist out to their face to make friends with them. They can smell you from 30 feet away. Dogs hate that.
• If you meet a new dog, stand there and see if the dog approaches you. If they do, hold your hand, palm out, by your thigh. And if they approach again, then scratch them on the chest.
• Don’t reach toward a dog. Let them control their approach and their exit.
• This one might be hard for many of us, but dogs generally don’t like to be hugged, and have to be taught to tolerate it.

Be your dog’s protector

We often think of our dog protecting us, but it’s important to protect them as well. If you want to enjoy your dog as a family member and establish a really strong bond with it, you have to develop a training relationship where you train the dog to do the things that you want, but protect it at times when they can’t behave the way you want.

If there’s somebody who comes over that they’re afraid of, just put them in another room. Don’t have the 6-foot-3 plumber lean over to give your 30-pound dog, who’s shaking in his boots, a cookie. Be an advocate for your dog. That’s something that dogs really need.

Don’t grab your dog. Don’t yell at your dog. Be a predictor of really good and gentle things for your dog. ​​