too many no's - not enough yes'

Remember when you were a kid learning stuff and people would always say, "No, not like that - NO!" ...and when you finally did it the right way you didn't get that big "YES!" that you thought you deserved. Well, dog training is sort of like that for your dog.

The most important thing in dog training, as I wrote in a previous blog post, is to keep it short and keep it positive. Always end on a good note and make it a positive experience for your dog. In this post I'd like to point out that when your dog is learning something you need to focus on the Yes' over the No's.

The easiest way to do that is to make sure your dog doesn't fail, and if he's about to fail - don't let him. A great example of this occurred the other day when I was working with a dog in a program that I work with called k9 Connection. There was this dog that just couldn't sit without falling down. Every time people would tell her to sit, she would fall over and want belly rubs. When she did this people laughed and that energy reinforced the behavior. I do this, and I'm getting you to laugh... that's all positive, that must be what you want.... Then, at one point it was time to "get serious." Now every time they said SIT and the dog didn't sit they would say NO. At one point someone came over and tried pushing the dogs butt down. After a bit of force the dog did it and received a YES, but then she fell down and was reprimanded with a NO.

Needless to say this dog was confused. The problem is they were giving the dog the opportunity to fail. And every time she failed, she heard NO. Her head must have been spinning. I must say that for the most part I am not a big fan of pushing a dog's butt down to get them to sit. There are other ways, but I'm not discussing that technique here. What I would like to address is the behavior and the reinforcement. The dog had probably heard 10 NO's to one YES. Not good odds if you're trying to make the training experience a positive one.

I devised a simple solution that would prohibit her from failing. I simply straddled her, keeping my legs snug against her back legs. Now she could not go side to side, and with my hand on her collar (facing the same direction as her) I was able to guide her into position quite simply. When she did it the first time she heard a resounding YES! We repeated and again YES! once again - YES! Each YES was met with a treat. The dog could not fail because I would not let her. All of these positive reinforcements set a deep imprint on her mind.

Keeping a dog from failing is one of the most positive ways to train behaviors that are causing confusion in a dog's mind. Some people refer to this as blocking. The important thing to bear in mind is that the dog is "made to succeed." By doing this in a "non-forceful" way is the key. Yanking a dog into a position makes them respond in a cowering way. Yes, the dog will sit when you say SIT. But the manner in which the dog sits will be quite evident that he was trained in a "less than positive" method.

It is my goal to make all training experiences positive ones for the dog (and the human too). It is important to be able to take apart a technique and figure out how to get the dog to understand it. The dog must hear a majority of positive affirmations during training. If there are too many No's, the dog will begin to resent training and the results will show.

If the dog doesn't do the technique right after a second time, chances are he's confused. It's your job to guide him to success. This can be done through taking the time to understand what is confusing him and guiding him toward what it is you want. When he does the command correctly he should feel your excitement. When you say NO, its not an end of the world NO.. it should just be a NOPE... that's not what I was looking for. On the other-hand, the YES, should be an exuberant YES!

If you make training fun for your dog, you'll have a much better trained dog and one that looks forward to training. There's nothing my dog would rather do than train. The reason for that is because I always keep it short, keep him wanting more and I always focus on making it a positive experience and he sees me excited when he does things correctly.