Biggest Mistake Dog Owners Make

I just came across this fantastic free online workshop on dog training from the K9 Training Institute that I recommend that you sign up for right away.

This is the first workshop of its kind that is designed to help "normal" dogs like yours have the same level of calmness, obedience and impulse control as service dogs.

The workshop was a complete eye-opener for me and helped me understand why regular dog owners often have so much difficulty training their dogs.

Washee photo copyright A. Higgins

Giving Your Dog a Job to Do

One of the many things I learned from the workshop is the biggest mistake that most dog owners make with their dogs is that they don't give their dogs work to do.

The reason service dogs are so well-behaved is that they always have work to do.

Now, by “job” or “work”, I don’t mean that a service dog is always doing something physical in nature.

Instead, what I mean is that when you give a service dog the hand signal for the DOWN cue for instance, here’s how the service dog would have been trained to think:

“My owner has now given me the job of lying down. So I will remain lying down here in this exact spot until my owner tells me to do something else, because the job that my owner wants me to do for her now is to lie down.”

So unlike most “normal” dogs who think of DOWN as just a trick that they have to perform for a few seconds after which they can do whatever they feel like, service dogs think of DOWN as a serious job that they have to do with commitment, dedication and purpose until they get their next job from their owner.

As you can imagine, it’s a dramatically different mindset!

And this mindset is the reason service dogs are so well-behaved, and so many “normal” dogs (even if they know cues like DOWN or SIT) are not.

How to Train Your Dog to Have the Same Mindset as a Service Dog

The good news is that you can train your dog to have the same mindset as a service dog as well.

That’s precisely where K9 Training Institute's free online workshop comes in.

It helps you to train your dog using the exact same techniques used by the service dog training industry.

It's being conducted by Dr. Alexa Diaz (one of the top service dog trainers in the U.S.) and Eric Presnall (host of the hit Animal Planet TV show "Who Let the Dogs Out").

Frankly, the techniques described in the workshop are fairly groundbreaking - I haven't seen anyone else talk of these techniques.

This is because it's the first time ever (at least that I know of) that anyone has revealed the secret techniques used by the service dog training industry to train service dogs.

The tips shared in this free workshop work on ALL dog breeds - from small breeds like Pomeranians and Chihuahuas to large breeds like English Mastiffs and Great Danes.

Also, puppies as young as 6 weeks old, and previously untrained adult dogs as old as 13 years, have been successfully trained using these techniques.

It's not a live workshop - rather, it's a pre-recorded workshop, which means that you can watch it at your convenience.

However, while the workshop is free, I am not sure whether it's going to be online for too long, so please check it out as soon as you can.

Here's the link again.

Advanced Dog Tricks For A Disaster And Daily Life

If you are keen to ensure your dog is useful in the event of a disaster, you do need to teach it some tricks. You can start off with some simple things that all dogs should learn. This includes sit, stay, heel and come. These are the four basic commands that you need as a dog owner. It’s important to realize that these will be important, regardless of whether or not you are using your pet as a disaster dog.

As well as these, there are many more that could prove useful, both in the event of a disaster and in everyday life as a pet owner. On this guide, we’re going to look at some of the tricks that you can teach your dog, and as well as this, we will look at how they could help you as a pet owner and in the event of a disaster.

Leave It Alone

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Leave it alone is an incredibly important command to teach your dog in everyday life and in a disaster as well. Let’s start by thinking about daily life as a pet owner. You will be taking your dogs on walks, outside, perhaps even letting them off their leash. If this is the case, then you need to be careful what the dog eats while it is outside. Dogs can be drawn to droppings due to their smell, but by eating it, they can get worms or any other number of infections. They might also decide to roll in it which will lead to a nasty clean up job for you later.

Many people think dogs do this to show their owner where they’ve been, like a little souvenir stench. So, by teaching your dog to leave something alone, you can save yourself a lot of trouble and protect the health of your dog.

Getting a dog to leave something alone can be accomplished through positive reinforcement. The easiest and safest way to do this is to use a treat in a closed hand. When the treat is in the closed hand, you can hold it at a height in front of the dog where they can smell it. They will nuzzle at your hand, perhaps even using a paw to try and get it out. Use the command and wait until they obey. Eventually, they will grow tired of the game and sit down leaving the treat you are offering. At this point, you can then give them the treat that they have been opening for, repeating the process until they respond immediately to the command. It can take a little time.

Be aware that variations of this command can be useful in a variety of situations including when strangers try to give your dogs treats. It’s very difficult to get your dog to turn down a treat from a stranger because some might drop it right in front of them or hold it out. But, with training and using a family member as the stranger, you can stop them from eating the treat. That’s important because you can’t always trust strangers. Helper dogs are actually trained not to accept treats from other people because it could leave the person they are helping exposed and unprotected to criminal behavior.

Bear in mind that a person doesn’t need to be nefarious to endanger your dog with a treat. They could just give them something that they are allergic to, or that is dangerous to them. These tips are to make sure that your dog is always safe. As such, it’s always best to avoid your dog getting these types of treats.

In the event of a disaster, there could be various issues and distractions around that could injure or endangered either you or your dog if they choose to explore. For instance, there could be loose, live electrical wiring or even something on the floor that is explosive.

 

Close The Door/Pushing Objects

Image Via Pixabay

In basic life situations, closing the door can stop your dog becoming a nuisance. You might just have settled down to watch TV in the lounge, shutting the door, when your dog pushes his nose against it and wanders in to be with you, leaving it wide open. Most dogs will learn to open doors naturally by themselves without any command but closing the door is another matter. You’ll have to teach that one with a sticky piece of food and a few tries at a command. You put the stick piece of food on the door and ask him to wait. Then, tell him to take the treat. When he does, and his nose touches the door, reinforce it with another treat. Repeat it until the dog looks to you after touching the door and remove the first treat keeping the second.

Now you can use the phrase shut the door or move the door, and he will respond to get the treat. You can keep doing this until the treat is no longer a necessity. Once you’ve taught a dog how to move the door, you might be able to use the same trick to get them to move items, and this could be useful in a disaster scenario.

Find An Object

Pic Credit Source

Lastly, you might want to teach them to find objects. Remember, dogs can find objects by smell and may even remember where something was. As such, they could be incredibly useful during a power outage to find an item that you need.

In general daily life, it could also be a cool trick if you’ve lost your keys or just want them to bring you your slippers. You can do this by starting with your set of keys. Add something to your keys that makes them easy for the dog to pick up like a squishy key-ring and use them as a toy, getting your dog to tug on them or fetch them. Once you have done this, you can get him to exchange the keys for a treat. After you have taught them this trick, you can then get them to pick up your keys off the ground when you have dropped them. Again, exchange the keys for a treat. Keep doing this, and eventually, you can move on to leaving the keys somewhere and asking them to find them.

Any of these tricks could be very useful in both an emergency disaster situation and everyday life. The best part though is that they’re not actually that difficult to teach.

Family Dogs and Working Dogs Scent Discrimination

Family Dog and Working Dog Scent Discrimination

This article explains how your family dog can tell the difference between you and another person or object. This information applies to Family Disaster Dogs, Tracking Dogs and Trailing Dogs as well as any dog who is using its nose to find an object, person or pet.

Scent discrimination can be a complicated and complex subject.

When I was first learning Bloodhound handling and training with my dog Sue, our SAR dog mentor and instructor, Lt. Ezra Roberts explained the basics of scent discrimination to me in what I continue to believe is the easiest way possible.

Amber and Incredible Sue

I smile in remembrance of Ezra as I write this..I couldn't of asked for a better mentor.

He said, " When a Bloodhound smells a chocolate cake they smell every ingredient of the cake. The flour, sugar, eggs and coco while other dogs smell only the chocolate cake. "

This is the difference between a dog trained to scent discriminate. They smell one scent out of many many scents.

Dogs that are not trained to scent discriminate will search for only one scent, such as, live human scent but not each individual person within that human scent. They will find any human scent and all human scent in a certain search area by air scenting, tracking and  grid working. They will find every person or object's scent they are trained to find, such as bombs, drugs, humans live and remains. They are trained using only one scent article or smell.

Other dogs are trained to find many different scents or a scent they are given by the handler. These dogs are scent discriminating when they find a drug or object the handler asked them to find.

Service dogs who are trained to get the newspaper, slippers and dropped items of their owners are scent and sight discriminating. They know your slippers from another person's slippers.

Bloodhounds are different in that they process the ability to scent discriminate naturally. When a Bloodhound is given a scent article they start looking for that scent without much training at all. The handler gets most of the training and not the dog.

We don't train Bloodhounds they train us. Family dogs of all ages act naturally like the Bloodhounds when they stay close to their owners, bring your their toy or follow a special family member.

These dogs are choosing to discriminate. All dogs can discriminate and they do naturally.
It is up to us humans to take advantage of this natural ability in the dog and teach our dogs what we wish them to find or who.

When we train our family dogs to find objects by name we are teaching them to discriminate.

You can learn how to train your family dog to discriminate by going to our lesson page here. or click the page button at the top of this page.

Coming Soon "My Puppy Can Find Me" picture book that teaches your child and dog to work together so they are never lost and can find you ! 

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