Training a Shelter Dog
Expert advice on teaching a rescue dog your rules.
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All dogs, no matter what their age or background, need to know what pleases and what displeases the people in their homes. They learn this most readily when appropriate behavior choices are consistently rewarded, the theory behind positive training. The more good (rewarded) behaviors your dog learns, the less inclined it will be to engage in bad (unrewarded) behaviors. Make it your goal to catch your dog being good as often as possible. You'll soon find your dog offering more and more rewardable behavior.
Says Sternberg, "Rewards for desired behaviors should be generous, and intense and unrelenting." Anything your dog really likes can be used as rewards. This includes treats, of course, but food isn't the only good reward. Dogs also like games, toys, belly rubs and lots of other things. Figure out what your dog likes and start thinking of all those as potential rewards.
Two types of positive training — lure/reward and clicker methods — work well and can be used together.
With a lure/reward method, you guide your dog into position (sit, lie down, stay) by using a treat or toy as a lure. When the dog follows the lure into the proper position, it earns a treat or toy as a reward. For example, raising a treat slightly above your dog's nose encourages a sitting position; lowering the treat slowly to the floor encourages the dog to lie down.
With the clicker method, you'll make a sound to mark the instant the dog does what you want, then reward it with a treat or toy. Simple behaviors (like sit or lie down) can be quickly trained this way, but one great advantage of clicker training is that you can split complicated behaviors into smaller mini-steps, rewarding each step until your dog performs without hesitation. Once your dog learns the mini-steps, you can link them together in a sequence to produce the more complex goal behavior.
Lure and clicker methods work well together. Encourage the behavior by luring your dog, then clicking and rewarding it the instant the behavior occurs. The click informs your dog precisely which behavior earned the reward. Dogs quickly discover they can make you click by doing certain behaviors and will start offering those without being asked, hoping for a click and reward.
To prevent dependence on lures, however, phase them out as soon as possible. After your dog follows the lure several times, make the same hand motion, but without holding a treat. (Hold the treat out of sight in your other hand.) When you dog follows the motion of your empty hand, quickly drop the treat into that hand and reward the dog. This lets your dog know it can earn rewards whether or not it sees them.
Lure and clicker methods can be used together. The handler initially lures the dog to encourage desired behavior, then marks it by sounding the clicker at the precise moment the behavior occurs. This lets the dog know the instant it's done right, and it's then immediately given a reward.
Practice training each new skill in different settings with gradually increasing distractions. Your dog will learn it should do as it's been taught regardless of the situation.
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