The Importance of Precise Positioning for OFA radiographs

1. What do Rewards Have to do with it?

It’s poetic to think that dogs live to please their masters, but the reality is that dogs live to please themselves. When we ask our dogs to do something, the first thought racing through their heads is, “What’s in it for me right now?” Behaviors that are rewarded are statistically more likely to be repeated, so when we regularly reward our dogs for a job well done, they’ll want to keep showing up for work! Not all rewards are created equal, and understanding what your dog finds rewarding is an important step in the training process.

2. Using Food in Training

Food can be a very valuable reinforcer (paycheck!) for dogs during training. It’s one of a very short list of things that dogs are born already knowing is good. While most dogs easily learn to enjoy praise, petting and play – all of which also make good rewards -- food still holds a special place in their mind due to its primal nature.

Some people express concern about using food in training, worried they will create a dog who will only work if he knows there’s food. This is a valid concern, as it can happen if food is mis-used. The trick is to make sure that food is being used as a reward and not a bribe. There’s a big difference!

3. Reward vs. Bribe

If you ask the dog to do something, he does it, and you give him a treat, that treat is a reward. If you ask the dog to do something he knows how to do, a behavior that he has demonstrated repeatedly on request for a long period of time, and he doesn’t do it, maybe you ask again. If he STILL doesn’t do it, and when you then reach into your pocket and get a treat, and all of the sudden the dog springs into action to comply with your original request, THAT treat just became a bribe! You asked him to do it, he didn’t, you got food, and he decided to get to work. Good training strives to avoid this.

4. Preventing Bribery

The trick is to get the visual presence of the food out of the learning picture as soon as possible. For example, when lure-training (think cookie on the dog’s nose and over his head to achieve a sit), you want to get the cookie off his nose just as soon as you see him grasp the physical mechanics of the behavior. At that point, start using the same gesture minus the cookie, and reward the dog with a treat from your pocket once his rear is on the floor. This helps teach the dog the important lesson that he must successfully do the work before you’re willing to dole out the reward.

Another important tip for preventing accidental bribery is to make sure you have your dog’s attention before asking him to do something. Often, people resort to bribery because the dog didn’t respond the first time they asked – but when they asked, the dog wasn’t even paying attention. Try to avoid talking to your dog’s tail end! Before asking your dog to sit, lie down, or come when you call him, do your best to make sure he’s looking at you. Teach him to respond quickly to his name, so that when he’s distracted, using his name will prompt him to check in, at which point you can ask for the next behavior. You want him to respond to his name with the same enthusiasm that he responds to the words “Do you want a treat?”

5. Using Life Rewards in Addition to Food Treats

Once your dog is reliably responding to your hand-signals, begin to vary how he gets his rewards. Sometimes use a treat, but often times, use something else he’s telling you he wants – like his leash put on to go for a walk, his favorite toy to be thrown, or an invitation to join you on the couch for snuggle time. By using these types of “life rewards,” you’re teaching your dog that keeping you happy by complying with your requests is the key to opening the door to everything good in his world – not just food treats! This also allows you to use food randomly – as a surprise – which is extremely exciting for dogs, and often motivates them to work even harder.

Tricks of the Trade Treat Tips

• Use soft treats and make them small – about the size of a pea. Small, soft treats can be eaten quickly, which aids in your timing as a trainer. Using small treats allows you to be generous without over-feeding your dog. Dogs don’t care how big each cookie is; they’re more impressed by how many they get.
• Try different types of treats. A dog treat doesn’t have to be labeled as such on the package. Bits of cooked meats, cheese, hotdogs, pasta, dry cereal and even fruits and vegetables can be rewarding to dogs. Experiment to discover what really excites him.
• Remember that what’s exciting at home may fail in comparison to the distracting sights and smells out in public. Save your “extra special’ treats for training in distracting environments.
• Get into the habit of petting your dog as you deliver the treat. Don’t simply be a Pez dispenser. When you consistently pair petting with treats, you raise the value of your touch. Now you have another way to pay your dog: petting!
• If your dog has dietary restrictions and cannot tolerate many foods besides his kibble, you can use kibble for his training. To make it seem more interesting, put some in a baggie with a few chunks of cut up hot dog. The kibble will take on the hot dog smell.
• Don’t over do it! The goal is to achieve a trained dog – not a trained, yet pudgy pupdog! Consider cutting back a bit on what goes into your dog’s food bowl and/or set aside a portion of his kibble and use that for training.
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With the wide variety of dog trainers available and the differing skills and educational levels, you will no doubt encounter a diverse set of opinions when talking to trainers, reading their web sites and getting opinions from former clients, friends, and others. While the internet has been a great tool for education, it also has helped to propagate many myths about dog training. Here's some of the common ones that you may hear in your search for a trainer.

MYTH: If a dog can't learn a behavior, he is either stubborn, dominant, stupid, or a combination of the three.

REALITY: The truth is, dogs in many ways are just like people. Some dogs will pick things up very quickly and others will take more time and guidance. Often times when we as trainers see a dog having difficulty learning a task, it’s because the dog is not being communicated to in a way that the dog can understand. Other times they fail to learn a task because they are not properly instructed as to when they’ve done the behavior correctly and therefore have no way of knowing what you are asking of them . Always reward your dog for doing something right and use patience when demonstrating a desired behavior. If your dog still seems to have trouble learning something new, think about how you've been teaching the dog from the "dog’s point of view." Think about how certain behaviors may not be as clearly taught as you thought they were, or if there are elements in the environment that might be causing your dog to become confused or distracted. Is the behavior too complex and perhaps needs to be broken up into smaller steps? Another possibility to consider is whether the dog is capable of physically learning a certain behavior - for example, a dog that has hip problems might find certain positions like "sit" uncomfortable.

MYTH: My dog knows he did something wrong because he looks guilty.

REALITY: Guilt is a human emotion and whether animals feel emotions in the same way that humans do is subject to a great deal of debate among scientists! However, in terms of the "guilty look," a recent study at Barnard College in New York found that the “guilty” look people claim to see in their animals is entirely attributable to whether or not the person expected to see the look, regardless of whether or not their dog had actually done something to be “guilty” about. When a dog looks “guilty” it is because they are reacting to a change in our body language that tells them “something is wrong” and leads to body language on their part that "looks" worried and nervous to the human eye. In reality the dog has learned to exhibit these behaviors in order to appease humans who display angry or upset body language.

MYTH: A puppy has to be at least six months old to be trained.

REALITY: This myth originated from "old school" training where heavy collar corrections were used and therefore it was preferred that a dog be at least old enough to withstand wearing the collar and dealing with the pressure of collar corrections and punishment during training sessions. With today's modern methods of training based on positive reinforcement and cooperation with your dog, there is no reason you can't start working with your puppy as soon as you can! A puppy starts learning the moment they are able to observe and relate to their environment. Unlike an adult dog, a puppy may have a shorter attention span and this will require more patience when teaching behaviors, but there is no reason your puppy can’t start learning right away, and the sooner you start, the quicker your puppy will learn. It's important to socialize your puppy as soon as possible as well to expose him to new people and things so he'll grow up to be a behaviorally healthy and confident adult dog.

MYTH: That “positive reinforcement” training only works with small/happy/regular dogs, not tough/large/obstinate/stubborn dogs.

REALITY: Using positive reinforcement primarily to train animals is the norm among exotic animal and marine mammal trainers. If you can train a large predator such as a killer whale or a tiger through concentrating on rewarding behaviors, there is no reason you can’t do the same with your dog regardless of his breed. Moreover, as our knowledge of behavior is strengthened through research, the consensus is that using aversive training methods on fearful or aggressive dogs is more likely to lead to worse behaviors, whereas focusing on rewarding the animal and alleviating their fears and anxieties leads to more well-adjusted dogs and stronger human-animal relationships.

MYTH: My dog does pulls on leash because he’s dominant, or, my dog jumps on me because he’s dominant, or my dog lays on the couch because he’s dominant, or my dog won’t let me clip his nail because he’s dominant, etc.

REALITY: The concept of “dominance” has been used to explain just about every inappropriate behavior in dogs that owners can possibly complain about. The problem is, the term dominance as is used by most dog owners today, and unfortunately some trainers still, is completely incorrect. Dominance describes a social relationship between two or more individuals. It is NOT a character trait. Despite what many people believe, dogs do not spend their time seeking to establish control over humans. If a dog jumps on you, it’s because he has not learned that this is an undesirable behavior. If he pulls on leash, he hasn’t been taught that he should walk closely beside you. If he doesn’t like being groomed, he most likely finds the brush and clippers uncomfortable or scary or both. The moral of the story is, if your dog is doing something you don’t like, forget about worrying about “dominance.” Instead decide what it is you want your dog to do instead, and then proceed to teach him that and reward him for doing it right. 

MYTH: Using food in training is bribery.

REALITY: While food can certainly be used to “bribe” a dog, the above sentence displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the laws of learning theory. When you are teaching an animal—any animal, including humans!—something new, there needs to be a motivation for “getting it right” and a signal that you’ve done so (a reward, or more correctly, a “reinforcement”) In humans, this could be an A+ from a teacher, or a paycheck or bonus from your job! All animals “work” for reinforcements and dogs are no different. Trainers often use food simply because most dogs love food and find it worth working for, but we also can use toys, play, work, petting, happy talk and a whole variety of other things to reward our dogs. A reward/reinforcement is something that is presented to an animal in order to show them they got something right. A bribe is something that you give to an animal to get them to do something they already know how to do. 

MYTH: Using head collars will cause neck/spinal injury.

REALITY: This is an oft-repeated claim that can be found all over the Internet. In fact there are no documented cases of dogs getting neck and/or spinal injuries from head collars. Proper use of these types of collars should have no ill physical effects on your dog.

MYTH: I heard my dog should work for me only because he wants to please me.

REALITY: Dogs do what they do ultimately because it works for them. As humans we can count ourselves incredibly lucky to have such creatures that appear to enjoy our company and share our lives. However, we need to understand that this is a mutual relationship, and dogs benefit from their relationships with us through getting food, shelter, play, and affection, among other things. Therefore when a dog does something that makes us happy, we shouldn’t jump to the assumption that a dog “only wants to please us” —they are doing things to make us happy because it also gets them a treat or a belly rub or a pleasant environment to be in. If you subscribe to the theory of mind that a dog only should do things to please you and never be rewarded or reinforced for doing what you want, you will most likely find yourself with a dog that is difficult to train because he will have a hard time discerning when he’s done something right without any reward history from you.

MYTH: If you adopt an older dog, it won’t bond to you or learn new behaviors and how to live with a new family because "an old dog can't learn new tricks."

REALITY: You can train a dog, or any animal for that matter, at any age. However, keep in mind that the older an animal is and the longer they may have had rehearsed a behavior that youmay now want to change. Because of this it may take a little longer to change that behavior. On the other hand, in some ways training an older dog can be easier than training a puppy. Older dogs are generally calmer than young puppies and in turn have better focus and attention when working with you.

MYTH: My dog is urinating in the house because he's angry that I left him alone.

REALITY: If your dog is urinating in the house, it can only be for one of a few possible reasons: 1) He has a medical condition such as a urinary tract infection or 2) He is suffering from extreme separation anxiety and is in distress. 3) You left him alone longer than you can reasonably expect your dog to hold his bladder. 4) He is not fully housetrained. Dogs are simply not capable of the type of thought processes that would allow them to think that doing an action such as urinating in the house will get back at you for a perceived slight, no matter how much we'd like to believe that's the case! If your dog isn't fully housetrained, sometimes its easier to go back and start at the beginning as if he is still a young puppy and make sure you are absolutely consistent about supervising him in the house and rewarding him for going outside. Sometimes changes likemoving to a new house can trigger confusion for you dog too. As a precaution you should take him to a veterinarian to rule out possible medical causes.

MYTH: You should never play tug of war because this creates aggression.

REALITY: Tug of war can be a great game to play with your dog as long as you do it properly! Dogs should learn that it's never ok to put their teeth on your skin when grasping for the toy with their mouths, and they should learn to "drop" the toy on command when you're ready to end the game. Using tug as a reinforcer instead of food is actually very common among many dog sports competitors and working dog trainers because dogs enjoy it so much!

MYTH: I shouldn’t use food to train because then I will always need food in hand to get my dog to do something.

REALITY: Your dog will only look for food in your hand in the future IF you do not fade out the food lures quickly. 

MYTH: Using people food in training will make my dog beg at the table.

REALITY: Feeding your dog from the dining table will cause your dog to beg at the table, whether you feed the dog food from your own plate or from a bag of dog kibble. If you don't want your dog to beg while you're eating, teach him a "go to your place" command to show him that he needs to go hang out somewhere else in the house while you're enjoying a meal.

REALITY: Dogs are not wolves and there are many significant differences between dog and wolf behavior such that wolf behavior is completely irrelevant to how we live and interact with our dogs. Moreover, when wolf behavior is mentioned as a model for dog training, the understanding of wolf behavior used is often incorrect and based on studies that have long since been disproven by research scientists who study wolves extensively. 

OBEDIENCE TITLES                 

SCHUTZHUND

HERDING TITLES - AHBA (AMERICAN HERDING BREEDS ASSOCIATION)

HERDING TITLES - ASCA (AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD CLUB OF AMERICA)

FIELD TRIALS - AKC, CKC

GO TO GROUND/TERRIER TRIALS/TESTS

COURSING TITLES - ASFA (AMERICAN SIGHTHOUND FILED ASSOCIATION)

COURSING TITLES - AKC

COURSING TITLES - NAOFA (NORTH AMERICAN OPEN FIELD ASSOCIATION)

COURSING TITLES - NACA (NORTH AMERICAN COURSING ASSOCIATION)

HUNT TEST TITLES

WORKING CERTIFICATES (BREED CLUBS)

GERMAN TITLES & RATINGS

OTHER DOG-RELATED ACRONYMS