Teaching Your Dog to Do Nothing

Dogs do all kinds of things you don't want them to do: jump up, counter surf, chase the cat, etc. Some of it is instinct, some of it is cute puppy behavior that turns into obnoxious adult behavior, and some of it is learned behavior. A lot of these behaviors can be avoided or trained away by training your dog to do...nothing. In other words, reward calm behavior regularly.

My latest project has been to train Hera to do nothing around goat kids, cats, and children. The first important part of this is that I always put her on leash around those three things, or behind a fence. I do not want to give her the opportunity to do anything with them if I'm not there to correct it. Otherwise unwanted behaviors will be reinforced and will be harder to break.

For training sessions I usually clip the leash to my belt buckle or belt loop so I can have both of my hands free. I keep a treat pouch around my waist (actually a pouch for rock climbing chalk) and a clicker around my right wrist. Now I simply go where the cats, children, or goat kids are and walk around. I click my clicker and give Hera a treat for just standing there, or sitting, or laying down, or averting her gaze, or interacting appropriately. Technically I am not rewarding her for doing nothing, but that can be what it looks like. I am simply rewarding her for appropriate behaviors.

Sometimes she will get excited and try to chase or jump. Sometimes her tail starts to wag, her ears perk up, and her eyes get sharp (this is mostly around the cats). I do not punish her for any of these things. I want her to like the training and I want her to like being in the presence of the other animals so I do not do anything to make it negative or scary. Instead I change directions which requires her to follow me, or I make a noise, or step on the leash, or otherwise distract her so she forgets or does not follow through with the behavior. If she is over threshold and won't listen or follow then I am too close to the other animals or my leash is too long and I step back until she can listen.

Sometimes she isn't sure what she needs to do or what I want her to do. It's okay to give her a hint. My goal with Hera is to have her behave like a typical livestock guardian dog (LGD): to lay there in a lazy one-eyed sleep, aroused only to chase off a threat. Zeus is excellent at this so he literally gets treats like crazy for just laying around doing nothing. Hera can see that is a behavior that get's rewarded.

But Hera is a teenager, she needs a little help, so I say, "Down, Hera". She sits and looks at me for a minute, hoping that is good enough. But LGDs don't usually sit, they lay so as to be very non-threatening to the livestock. She doesn't get a treat for sitting so down she goes. As soon as she is down I click with my clicker and give her a treat. Sometimes she gets back up to get the treat but that's okay. If she stays down the first treat is followed by a second treat. A better one. And then a third. If she continues to stay down I give her a treat every few seconds.* I give her a treat if a goat steps near or over her and she stays down. I give her a treat if I walk around her and she stays down.

A behavior she offers for the nanny goat regularly is showing her belly. This may not be something you want, because it may only happen if your dog is afraid of the goat and you do not want your LGD to have a fear response that could someday escalate to aggression. But this was a behavior Hera offered from the very first day she came to me without ever having been threatened by my goats. For her it was very automatic, so it's something I watch for and reward in her particularly. She has never shown this behavior toward the kids though, only play behavior.

I call Hera over to me and have her follow me. The kids follow me too hoping for a bite of grain (I carry a treat bag for them too). As soon as Hera goes down, I start the treat dispenser again. Sometimes one of the goat kids tries to challenge her. The goat turns and lowers her head and prepares to butt. Hera butts back, or tries to jump on its back. I hold the leash tight preventing her. I do not want her to defend herself in this situation. I want her to back off or show submission like she does for the mother. She isn't getting it so I say, "Hera, down." Down she goes. Good girl! Lots of treats!

If I was able to do this several times a day this would go really fast. Neither the goats or dogs want to work in the heat of the day and I'm busy with my human kids in the morning so training sessions can only be in the evenings. But they are still working. It's slow progress but the "downs" and the "stays" and the calmness improve every time. Even with the cats.

Just this morning the kittens followed me out to the pasture. Hera perked up and prepared for the chase. The morning routine is to take Hera out of the large pasture and put her in a smaller paddock for the day so she can't chase the goat kids. She knows the routine well and runs to her paddock without a leash and without turning to the side. But with the kittens there I did not dare let her run off leash so I attached a leash before I approached the gate. With her on one side and two kittens on the other I said, "down". And down she went. I gave her a treat. Her perked ears and focused eyes relaxed. I gave her another treat. She looked away from the kittens. I gave her another treat. I opened the gate expecting to need to steer her away from the kittens. But she made a beeline for her paddock as usual and completely ignored the kittens. I let go of the leash and she kept going and waited patiently for me to set the bowl down, detach the leash, and lock the gate. Good girl! By next summer she will be a model LGD!

*It is important to use small treats so you can give lots of them. The smallest treat the dog will work for. This is so they stay motivated longer and also so you do not over feed them. I use soft cat treats because they are small, easy, smelly, and tasty. Sometimes I break up small Milk Bones or other dog treats, but cat treats are so much easier. I also keep cut up duck or chicken jerky for higher reward, and a few large or extra  yummy treats for exceptional behavior. I keep track of how much I give and give that much less food at dinner time. 

Video training session July 24, 2017: This isn't the best example but it's hard to get video so I'm rolling with it. This was Hera's first time with an extended leash so the goats and her kept getting tangled up. (A friend suggested I just let the leash drag and pick it up if needed). My husband was also away so there were extra distractions of my children coming and going and shouting. Ideally you would not increase distractions and leash length at the same time.

In this video at first Hera was slow to respond to the "down" cue, and once she did it she was quick to get right back up. The first time she went down without a cue I gave her a click and a treat, and since she stayed down I gave her another treat so she would learn that staying down was more rewarding than getting back up. Next she tried to paw a goat and I got sidetracked by a goat. I made the mistake of rewarding her for just calm after I had given the cue "down". It happens, and when it does, just keep going. After a bit she went down again and was rewarded. Then she started to get up and instead just scooted and stayed down so I rewarded her for that.

At this point it's obvious that my goat needs a little training. (She is actually jumping up on me because a few days before I had trained her to get up and walk on two feet, but haven't proofed it yet--making sure she only offers the behavior with a cue. This is why her climbing on me is a bit excessive). Then we have a little distraction where everyone goes off camera and the goats try to pester my other dog who growls at them for interrupting his dinner (the camera is on top of his crate).

Hera follows with a very nice "down". Then Hera tries to run after the goats and my daughter who distracted them. I stepped on the leash in order to prevent her from being able to chase them, because the chase behavior is fun and self-rewarding. Next Hera goes down again and I stop to reward the goats for calm behavior. Hera stays with me as the goats run off. I probably should have rewarded her for this. (And then we have another interruption by Zeus growling the goats away from his crate. He is a resource guarder and had his dinner bowl so he didn't want them close).

Toward the end Hera is staying down very nicely despite many distractions so I reward her periodically. You can see the difference between the beginning and the end of the training session. She is doing great! 

Nail Trimming

I am not a pro at nail trimming by any means, but I have had a lot of friends mention troubles trying to trim their dogs' nails so I thought it would be a good thing to address.

My first Dog, Daizy's nails got really overgrown. I hate to admit it, but I didn't realize nail trimming was a thing. I've only had cats who tend to take care of their own nails. I only read about it after she had gone through the winter without a trim. I found that the Millers Forge nail clippers were highly recommended so I ordered a pair. I went to trim Daizy's nails and learned that she really hated anyone touching her paws.

I really liked this video on the Kikopup YouTube channel explaining how to help your dog relax for nail trimming. I did this with Daizy. It was a slow process and for awhile I could only trim one nail a day. But that way at least they were getting trimmed once every 10 days.

Essentially you make good things happen every time the dog sees the nail clippers--lots of praises and treats. Do it in a calm, comfortable place. Then step-by-step work on making the process comfortable and not scary: touch the paws without clippers, put clippers near the paws but not touching, clip the air nearby, touching the paws with the clippers without clipping, etc. Eventually you work up to just one clip. Then add more. Each step is followed by praises and treats. Don't move on to a new one until they are comfortable with the previous one. If the dog starts to get uncomfortable take a step back or end the session. You don't want any bad memories associated with the process.

If you keep trimming overgrown nails back regularly the quick (which is where the blood flow enters the nail) begins to recede so they can get shorter over time. That cute clicking of nails on the hard floor isn't supposed to happen, so you want to make the quick recede until the dog can walk without the nail putting pressure on the floor. That pressure can cause pain for the dog, which can then cause other problems. A great resource for proper nail trimming is the Nail Maintenance for Dogs Facebook Group.

The trimming experience will be different with each dog. I got my pup, Hera, at five months old and I don't think she'd ever had her nails trimmed, so she didn't like her paws being touched either. With her, I actually taught the "shake" cue first, and used it to get her used to her paws being touched and squeezed. Now I can ask for a shake and then quickly trim her nails before I let go of her paw. To do the back legs I just rub her belly and then she rolls onto her back. I got her used to me touching and squeezing her back feet and then started trimming. Her back feet are still hard because she wants me to stop and rub her belly, but if I get one of my kids to give the belly rub it's a cinch.

Zeus likes to keep his feet on the ground so I usually trim his while he is standing or sitting. It's a little awkward but it works. I tried using "shake"  on him as well, but he still prefers me to trim with his feet on the ground so that's what we usually do.

Trimming Zeus' nails. 

Unwanted Jumping: put it on cue and stop giving the cue

Photo by Dycie Jo Photography

It's really easy to accidentally teach your dog to jump up on people, or rather to reinforce them for doing it. Puppies do it very naturally and it's so cute and tempting to respond to when they are puppies. But when those puppies become adults it can become a real problem. And this was a problem with Hera.

I started with some training videos on the Kikopup Youtube Channel. The basic idea was 1. think about what you do want them to do and teach them to do that (it's hard for an animal to understand a negative and you have no control over what they do instead). and 2. don't reinforce jumping ("be a tree", don't give any attention, even yelling, for the jumping behavior )

First I dealt with Hera jumping on the gate when I approach the pasture. Zeus is always there with her but he is really calm so if she looked like she wanted to jump I first praised Zeus and gave him treats for being calm. She figured that out quickly and sat down; then she would get her treat. I also would not even touch the gate latch unless both dogs had four feet on the ground. The gate opening is reinforcing to her, so treats are not even necessary for the use of gate-jumping. I just like using Zeus as an example because sometimes it makes things move a little faster

When the gate was not involved I always tried the "be a tree", but I also tried to tell her to sit before she reached me so she would have an alternative behavior. The sit wasn't really working very well though. I got her when she was 5 months old so she's really just been a puppy all this time and puppies have SO much energy. I felt like I needed to channel it and give her an out somehow.

I remembered reading in Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor that she got dolphins to stop obnoxious behavior by putting it on cue, and then quit giving the cue. I decided to try that instead.

It was extremely easy to put it on cue. I used the cue "hug". I still told her to sit first, but once she did that I rewarded her with the cue for "hug" (this is using a behavior chain which I'll write about elsewhere). This way her jumping was controlled but she still got to relieve her excitement. I later changed it to "jump up" and instead of putting her paws on me I'd have her jump straight in the air. (I started this in the spring because I wasn't wearing snow gear anymore and muddy paws are no fun). The "jump up" was even better because my kids could use it and not worry about her knocking them over.

Cue for "jump up".

This approach worked really well for me. She quit jumping up on me almost entirely. However, she was still jumping up on new people and sometimes my kids because they aren't as precise with cues and training. I brought up the question with a dog training group and some of them told me that giving the cue to jump was a bad idea because it's still rewarding the behavior, even though it's more controlled.

I was hesitant to drop it because it worked with me, and I liked that she could still get her energy out. But even the book I read said to stop giving the cue once the behavior was reliably on cue. So I stopped giving the cue, even though it was fun. It really has made a difference and her jumping is getting rarer and rarer. And when I started teaching a right/left shake I realized why.

Many trained animals will start offering every behavior they have ever been rewarded for when they are seeking a reward. With Hera, jumping was one of those behaviors, and a favorite so she was more likely to choose it over others. After I started working on a right/left shake frequently it became her new "go to" behavior and now instead of jumping to try and gets treats she starts offering her paw. Much more desirable than jumping! (Except the time her paw landed on my baby's head).

So, lesson learned. Put the undesirable behavior on cue, then stop giving the cue. What a great tool!