Talking to Our Dogs

Good relationships are all about clear back-and-forth communication, listening, and especially, understanding the other's point of view.

This can be challenging in people-people relationships, especially when one party speaks a different language, or when trying to communicate with pre-verbal babies or non-verbal spouses. However, in people-dog relationships, we have even more of a language barrier.

Which language should we use for our magical, inter-species dialogue? Our language? Or one of the dog's many languages — olfactory, auditory, or visual?

Do we try to communicate via olfactory signals and for example, pee on the threshold of our front gate to signal 'No Entry'? Do we fine-tune our woofs, whines, whimpers, and growls? Assume a playbow to entice them to play. Or, do we put on faux ears and a tail and have a go at body language?

Flatten both ears when we are upset, or practice different wags to advertise our mood: High frequency, low amplitude vibration-wags like a buzz saw when we are on edge or upset; High amplitude, very low-frequency swishes to warn that we are wary; or the Wonderful Wag — high amplitude and high frequency — when we are beyond happy to see our dog.

All certainly possible, but highly impractical, inconvenient, sometimes challenging, and often bordering on the silly. Instead, it's just so much easier to teach dogs to understand the words we use as instructions and guidance.

Given that most dogs can read our facial expressions, body language, and the tone and volume of our voice like a book, I think it would behoove us first to: 1. Swot up on learning how to read theirs and 2.

Think about more effective ways to teach dogs ESL — English as a Second Language. Now, of course, we all talk to our dogs, but the big question is: How much do our dogs understand?

I have found that human-doggy relationships transcend to atmospheric levels once people learn speedy, simple, and effective ways to 1. Teach dogs the meaning of each word that we use, and 2. Test the dog's comprehension of each word., so that we don't assume that they understand more than they do and consequently, become frustrated and sometimes angry when they don't comply.

Welcome to the wonder and awe of dog-friendly, people-friendly, quick-and-easy, highly effective, fun-and-games, off-leash, results-based, lure-reward training.  

Luring the Responses You Would Like

I use regular air-dried food from the dog's daily diet as food lures when teaching basic manners and for classically conditioning dogs to unfamiliar people, unfamiliar dogs, unfamiliar places, and novel scenarios.

To teach basic manners, first practice luring your dog to nod 'Yes' and shake his head, No' by moving the lure up and down in front of their nose and then from side to side.

Children love this. Ask your dog, "Are you a good dog?" and the dog nods, "Yes". "Did you pee on the carpet?" and the dog shakes, "No". Actually, I love this too!

Now try luring your dog to Sit, Down, and Stand. I'll start you off with Sit: Move the food lure upwards and backward over your dog's nose and between their eyes. As your dog follows the food lure with their nose, they sit.

Why? Well, try it yourself. Keep the palms of your hands and soles of your feet flat on the ground, keep your arms and legs straight, and try and look up at the ceiling. Hurts behind your knees, right? Now bend your knees and try again. Same with your dog.

As they look up to follow the lure, they bend their knees and sit to assume a 'coyote howling at the moon' posture and so, praise and offer the food as a reward. Now see if you can get your dog to lie Down and Stand.

If you're having difficulties, check out some of the short videos I posted on the Dunbar Academy FaceBook page back in July, or check out https://dunbar.info/freepupbooks and download the free Good Little Dog Book to look at the marvelous sequential photographs.

Stays

Randomize luring Sit, Down, and Stand until each movement is prompt and picture perfect. Now here's a little trick, as soon as your dog moves into each position, immediately praise, but delay giving the food reward for a second or two. See how long you can keep your dog in the desired position by holding the food in front of their nose.

Count the number of seconds, and then you'll know the length of the Stay. So now randomize Sit, Down, and Stand with variable-length Stays in each position. What you're aiming for are lightning-quick position changes and rock-solid Stays.

Just Three Steps

Lure-Reward Training comprises three distinct stages:

1. To use food lures to teach your dog the meaning of hand signals (hand lures), to use hand signals to teach the meaning of words, and then completely phasing out food lures.
2. To Motivate to the Max. by decreasing the number of food rewards to increase their reinforcing power and mostly replacing food with infinitely more powerful life rewards.
3. To test comprehension and motivation as you progressively build your dog's reliability.

Phase out Food Lures

It is so important to phase out food lures completely, otherwise, you'll find your dog's responsiveness becomes contingent on you having food in your hand and you'll end up bribing.

The food lure was simply to entice your dog to pay attention to your hand movement. This is very easy for dogs to do because they read body movements with the fluency of their natural born language — body language.

All you need do, is make the same luring hand movements, but with an empty hand, i.e., hand-lures, or handsignals. I usually start by taking two steps backward and then instructing, Come and Sit, and following each verbal request with a flourishing hand signal to Come — arms open wide and Sit — quickly raising your arm (palm upwards) in front of your dog's face.

Then try, Come, Sit, and Down with verbal cues and hand signals only. Then Come, Sit, Down, and Sit-up. Now you are off and running so try randomizing Sit, Down, and Stand with variable length stays in each position, using only verbal Requests, which your dog is yet to understand, quickly followed by a hand signal, which your dog reads well.

Teaching Dogs ESL is as Simple as 1-2-3-4

Now let's start teaching your dog the meaning of words. You can teach your dog the meaning of any word, English, Spanish, Japanese, etc., by following the 1-2-3-4 sequence:

1. Verbal Request, 2. Handsignal, 3. Response, 4. PRAISE, and maybe Reward

As you repeat this sequence over and over with each Request, your dog will learn that every time you say, "Sit", for example, you immediately signal to Sit. Your dog soon learns to predict the Handsignal that follows each verbal Request.

Eventually, your dog will sit after you say, "Sit", but before you signal Sit. Voila! Your dog has learned the meaning of the word, "Sit".

Reduce the Number of Food Rewards

Praise lots but be extremely discerning with food rewards. Count them out before each training session and treat them like gold to reinforce only the very best quality responses. Ask more for less: Try to get more and more responses e.g., Sits, Downs, Stands, and very short repetitive Come-Sits, for fewer and fewer food rewards.

Ask longer for less: Try to get longer and longer responses, e.g., Stays and Watches, for fewer and fewer food rewards. As you reduce the number of food rewards, their value to the dog will increase dramatically.

Get in the habit of using rewards that really matter to your dog — LIFE REWARDS — such as the instructions to: "Go Play", "Go Sniff", "Let's Go", "Fetch", "Tug", "Tag" and "Hide'n'Seek. For example, ask your dog to "Sit" every 25 yards on walks and reward by saying, "Let's Go".

When your dog is investigating or playing off-leash, every minute or so, ask your dog to "Sit" or "Come-Sit", and reward by saying, "Go Play". These two simple exercises radically increase your dog's responsiveness and reliability.

In no time at all, your dog will want to Sit when you ask, because rather than letting play and sniffing become massive distractions that destroy training, you have converted both activities into life rewards that reinforce training.

Testing Your Dog’s Response-Reliability

This is so easy to do. Pick any verbal Request, for example, Come, Sit, or Down (for control), or Playbow, or Rollover (for a laugh). Walk around your house, and ask your dog to Sit, for example, ten times over in different rooms.

Count how many times you had to instruct "Sit" in each instance. Then divide the number of Responses (10) by the total number of verbal Requests you gave to get those ten responses and multiply by 100 to get a percentage. There you go.

That's the Response-Reliability Percentage for sitting in your house, specifically, the percentage likelihood that your dog will Sit following just a single verbal Request. If it's 90%, well done! If less than 50%, let's bring back some food rewards to troubleshoot training and improve that score.

Measure out your dog's dinner into a bag or bowl, whether convenient to use an air-dried, freeze-dried, dry, or raw diet, and spend the next half an hour walking around your house and periodically instructing, "Sit".

Praise your dog for each Sit, and each time your dog sits following a single verbal, cue SUPER PRAISE and offer a couple of pieces of food or a spoonful of raw. Slow Food for Dogs! Now test again without any food in your hand or on your person. Better score?

The Response Reliability Percentage is a single index of your dog's Comprehension of your Request and Motivation to Respond in that scenario.

Progressive Comprehension

It is essential to have an objective view of your control over your dog in any scenario. For example, what is your dog's likelihood of sitting if they wiggle-crashed a child's picnic in the park, or dashed out the front door towards a busy street?

Also though, it is important to know how well your dog understands your Requests, rather than just assuming that "He knows it", and then getting upset and angry when your dog does not comply. "He's stubborn!" He's dissing me!"

The most common reason for non-compliance is that your dog doesn't fully understand your instructions in that scenario. Don't believe me? I'll prove it to you.

Go outside and retest your dog off-leash the garden, and then on-leash on the sidewalk. You'll find that the reliability and promptness of your dog's Sit varies enormously depending on the location, what the dog is doing, what's going on, who gave the Request, and what they were doing.

For example, most dogs learn to ignore anyone the moment they turn on the TV or pick up their iPhone. Yes, that's why interrupting walks and play with a simple Sit is so important. Every little training interlude occurs in a completely different scenario until eventually, the dog generalizes that "Sit" always means Sit.

Dogs learn so differently from us. People tend to generalize, and dogs discriminate. For example, if you taught a child to sit on cue in the living room, they easily generalize to sitting on any chair in any part of the world. Or, if someone had a bad experience in a NY taxi or restaurant, they say, "I hate New York'.

Based on a single isolated experience, they condemn an entire City and its population of millions. However, if you train a dog in the kitchen, that is exactly what you get — a 'good kitchen dog'. But the dog won't respond to your instructions so readily in other scenarios until you train her to. Similarly, the dog won't respond as readily to other family members, until they train her to.

The Sit Test

In my training workshops, I used to select the best-trained dogs, usually Obedience Trial Champions, and give them a quick test in which all the dogs had to do was Sit eight times in a row, following a single verbal cue from their handler. However, each Sit took place in a scenario that was just a teeny bit different from the norm.

For example, I would ask the owner to instruct their dog to Down and Stay, take two steps backward, turn their back towards their dog, and instruct, "Sit". Very few did. I gave each owner five chances and then if there was still no response, asked them to turn around and instruct once more.

All dogs sat immediately. I strongly suspect that dogs seldom Sit on cue when their person's back is turned because they cannot see the owner's face to read facial expressions and body language.

So, if we can demonstrate that a dog doesn't Sit when the owner's back is turned and they are only two yards away, what would make us think that the dog would Sit, or Down, or Come when their back is turned, they are forty yards away, and chasing a squirrel?

We shouldn't get angry if the dog simply doesn't understand, in that scenario. Let's just teach and test comprehension of the words we use.

So Which Words to Teach?

Come, Sit, Down, and Heel are obvious choices because of their many uses. Also Stays, but which Stays? Sit-Stay and Down-Stay for basic control, but I also love Stand-Stay and Rollover-Stay for examination.

Stand-Stay facilitates examination and grooming of the front, top, sides, and back of a dog and Rollover-Stay (Bang! — a supine Down-Stay) allows us to examine and groom the underbelly. What else are we going to do? Use a mirror on a stick, or slide underneath big dogs with our back on a skateboard?

I also love teaching Beg (sit pretty), PlayBow, Paw Raise, Shake Hands, High Five, Wiggle, Wag, and Dance on cue. Simple tricks, yes, but also friendly appeasement gestures. If we ask a dog to act friendly, I strongly suspect it feels friendly. Let's test this for ourselves. Go to a mirror and smile at yourself.

I bet some of you ended up laughing. Yes? So, how do you feel? That's a good way to start every day. (There's a mirror in the bathroom.) Friendly behaviors are extremely useful instructions for helping dogs calm themselves when anxious and stressed.

And they are a very effective means for calming other dogs and owners who might be wary of your dog. A dog in a playbow with a waggy butt is a much more reassuring optic than one that is eye-balling, barking, and lunging.

Early in training, I teach Shush, Settle, Steady, Go Pee, Chewtoy, Bed, and Off (don't touch) because a single spoken word can instantly convey two essential pieces of instruction:

1. Stop what you're doing and 2. Do this instead. When dogs misbehave, always ask yourself, "If this is 'wrong', what is right?" Think what exactly you would like your dog to do instead and teach your dog to do that on cue. Then if your dog is barking, say, "Shush". If your dog is using your living room for agility, say, "Bed" and/or "Settle".

If your dog is chewing your sneakers, say, "Chewtoy". And if ever in doubt as to what to say to your dog, say, "Sit". A simple Sit stops or prevents a good 90% of annoying doggie behaviors. However, do remember your dog's point of view, if your dog is barking while practicing agility in the living room, do make sure to instruct your dog to let off steam at appropriate times and in appropriate places.

For example, play 'Jazz-up and Settle Down' in the yard each afternoon, or have a Barkathon or Howlathon in the car while driving to the store. And do make sure you howl along with your dog. "She understands me; she gets it. I love my person!"

For More Information about Dr. Dunbar's dog-friendly training techniques, read his latest book, Barking Up the Right Tree, and go to https://dunbar.info/freepupbooks and just CLICK to download three free puppy and dog training eBooks, view a number of free puppy and dog training course, and receive one month's free access to a wonderland of hundreds of hours of video to learn how to train your puppy or dog, and to watch puppies and dogs playing with each other, and with their people.

Barking Up the Right Tree »

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