Positive Training Blog Hop

Today, pet blogs that are interested in the topic of Positive Training can submit their blog links to the Positive Training Blog Hop.

This is so that we create an interest group around the topic and hopefully, help to spread wider awareness of Positive Training and how it can help pets, particularly sensitive ones that are quick to react in fear like Donna.

What exactly is Positive Training?

I’m testing myself here by typing out what I understand by the term. So please do feel free to correct me if I am wrong and set me right. :D

Positive training refers to training where the dog is not forced or coerced in anyway to perform a particular behaviour.

Rewards are an important part of positive training. Rewards…

1) make the training fun so that the dog is motivated to focus on the training.
2) encourages the dog to replicate the desired behaviour or trick in order to be rewarded.
3) helps dog look forward to future training sessions

Training is positive when…

1) dog is having fun with the training, with the appropriate relaxed body language

2) dog volunteers the behaviour or trick being trained because he wants the rewards

3) dog does not show signs of fear or distress, such as tensed body, ears pinned back against the head, tensed, closed mouth, whale eyes, looking away repeatedly and for long periods of time

4) dog does not offer the behaviour or trick being trained because he is forced to e.g. pushed on the rump to sit, pulled by the collar to correct barking, grabbed by the muzzle to stop growling. He does not offer the behaviour or trick because he wants to avoid punishment e.g. tug on the collar, a kick, being pushed down to lie flat on the floor

Looking at the above, I have to conclude that positive training is grounded in an understanding of dog behaviour and body language.

If a person is unable to tell if a dog is relaxed and happy versus tense and upset, if a person is unable to tell when a dog is being pushed to far that he will lash back or pull back into himself and become unresponsive, the person will find it hard to positive train a dog effectively.

I do think that the more I work at this, the better I get at reading and reacting to her body language.

Particularly when I film Donna on video, I am sometimes disturbed that I continue to stress her for too long, despite her repeatedly looking away and liplicking. Honestly, without the videos, I may not even be as aware of what I am doing. That’s one of the reasons why I love to video what we do as much as I can. Although that can be hard without a helper.

So, here’s a quick run through of what I have been doing with Donna in the past weeks using positive training:

Urban agility and Balancing skills
Urban Agility is a method of exercising your dog using public structural components and park furniture. Training with your dog to sit, trot along or jump over obstacles found in the urban environment helps with improving the dog’s agility and providing positive mental stimulation for the dog. When trained positively, the dog should gain greater confidence with navigating these obstacles. Click to read full article.

Are forcing the dog to balance things on her head?
Sometimes in social media, we see pictures of dogs who don’t look like happy campers balancing objects on their heads. They typically show pinned back ears, whale eyes, tense closed mouths, etc. How can we teach this trick to a dog positively so the pictures show a happy, smiling dog instead? Click to read full article

House manners: How does dog react to people at the door?
If your dog jumps at you, take a step back so the dog lands on the floor missing you. This is a no contact, force free method that ensures safety for both the human and the dog. But what if your house guests are afraid of dogs or just annoyed by what they perceive as a badly behaved dog? Guests don’t know how to manage the dog appropriately like you, so it makes a better experience for all if you train the dog how to behave in advance. Click to read full article

Positively reinforcing street cats not to react to Donna and vice versa

Sometimes, I bring down some fresh boiled meat and feed the pieces alternately to the street cats and Donna. Cat gets more the nearer he steps towards Donna. I’m trying to positively reinforce the kitties to see come over the dark side and see Donna friend! :P Click to read full article.

Wave left, wave right
Resuming teaching the training trick after we left off of it from last year. Last year, I was still not good at managing and more often than not can push her too far until it stops being fun. This year, I have become much better at breaking it up into small fun sessions.

Training. Keep it short, fun and yummy. Click to read full article.

Teaching dog to wear head accessories the fun way
While I was away, I bought Donna a pair of Doggles or doggie goggles. It was an impulse buy. :P
So now poor Donna has to start to learn to like wearing her new doggles :P Click to read full article.

This is the First Monday Positive Pet Training Blog Hop hosted by Cascadian Nomads, Dachshund Nola & Tenacious Little Terrier.