Category Archives: Elite Instinct Canine Training Tips

A collection of tips and tricks and best practices.

Pride, every dog owner and dog trainers downfall. Post #3

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Raina

Raina

This wonderful snowy Saturday brings us post number 3 in our series this week of Positive training, Pitbulls and Pride.

I chose pride for a few reasons, mostly because of my past experiences and observations of other trainers and handlers and after analyzing myself and the areas i could improve upon as a trainer, owner, and K9 handler.

The definition of pride is as follows

a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.

Don’t get me wrong, pride has a place everywhere in life, and defiantly in dog training. I hold tons of pride for my dogs and what they have achieved. The big difference is, i try not to be prideful. I try to accept what i know and can teach others, and always keep in mind that i can learn something from EVERYONE and from every interaction i have. I cannot tell you how many times my kids at Allynwood Academy have taught me something about my training, or my dogs even when they have only been in my class for a few days! I also make sure that i do not place pride into my interactions, that i deliver the information and the suggestions or advice i have in the most direct, emotionally free way i can as factual information based on what i have seen, done, or experienced.

You see pride tends to scope people into the I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG till death niche. What I mean is you become so prideful in what you just stated that you push it to the end extreme very frequently making a mountain out of a mole hill and causing undue stress on dog or worst yet if your a trainer a client, family, and dog! We have opposition reflex’s too!!

So in tying together positive training, pit bulls, and pride we see that the mountain that has been made about aggressive pit bulls and the rift between “positive only” and “bad negative trainers” is really a result of to much pride.

Meet my dogs and i for 15 minutes and ill spend 2 telling you about their and my accomplishments, and 13 about our faults, and for that I am becoming a better trainer, handler, and dog owner! 🙂

Terrific Tip Tuesday- How to train a solid sit

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Abby and I

Abby and I

A simple obedience exercise right? I mean every dog knows how to sit, all they do is put their butt on the ground…..right????

Well i guess it depends what type of sit you want, for my Fugly the pug all i wanted was him to sit when given a hand or voice command so that he could pass his CGC and Therapy certifications. Now the girls need to have fast sits, and from any distance away from me for safety reasons. Soren on the other hand has to have a perfect square sit, not rolled back onto his hips, not sloppy in any way, and it needs to be immediate and even while in motion.

So i guess the first step in a solid sit is to think about what we want, and have a plan.

One of the first questions i ask my clients is “what do you want to achieve?” For the sake of this post we will be going over how to train a reliable sit for a pet dog. Knowing this allows us to outline our plan, we want Fido to sit the first time, every time, in all situations we ask him like we want any dog to do so we can keep clear communication with him. We do not care if he rolls onto his hip or if he does it while we are walking or while out working, we just want a solid sit!

So know our thinking is out of the way we can continue with a small outline of a plan and then get started.

We will start with 4 short 5 minute sessions a day. With a bag full of hot dogs we will lure the nose up so the butt hits the ground, feeding as soon as its on the floor.

Once he has mastered this, and is offering it or performing it as soon as the cue (the hand getting the hot dog usually ends up being the cue) happens, we will  begin to pair the word “sit” with it while his butt is dropping to the ground

now depending on the dog, this will occur quickly or slower, dogs with a good reward system and moderate or high food drive will breeze through this.

Once he understands the new cue (the word sit) coincides with his butt hitting the ground, we will stop reaching for the food, give the command sit and mark (with a yes or a clicker) as soon as he sits, then reaching for the treat to reward. THIS IS THE HARDEST PART. Almost everyone inadvertently reaches for the food first or in the middle, instead of waiting till the behavior has occurred and you have marked it. This little mistake is HUGE in the learning of the dog.

If Fido doesn’t sit upon the first command, you ignore, move a few feet away re engage him and re command again in a new trial. This why he never learns to wait for your second, third or fourth command! He only gets his reward if he listens the FIRST time.

Once he is reliably performing the command in your training area you can take it on the road and add little distractions, and other environments so he can begin to generalize! (I see reliably as 4 out of 5 commands correct the first time, then i will begin to push forward, if i encounter a session where he does 1 or 2 out of 5 then i drop back again so he fully understands before challenging him to much)

And yes, all that work is just for one sit command. Training dogs is not simple and quick, it requires time, patience, and consistency!

Supply Sunday- The Kong Wobbler

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Today’s supply Sunday post is a the quick and easy way to wear your dog out and feed him dinner………..

The Kong Wobbler

The Wobbler

The Wobbler

The beauty of this $16 toy is that you can easy dump your dogs breakfast and dinner (if kibble fed) into it and Voila you have a mind amusement for 20 minutes. If they are anything like my dogs, after a few weeks it widdles down to 5 minutes but still a wonderful way to amuse them.

It also simulates the “hunt” for food which any dog enjoys.

Dishwasher safe!!!

The only slight downfall is after about a year of use the place where the toy meets can get worn down (it has threads) and may need to be replaced.

You can buy it online, at petsmart, or most any local pet store. I suggest all owners start to feed their dogs in this as part of my training program.

4.5 paws out of 5

Pit Bulls- Post number 2 on our P’s

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Olive, Snoopy and Me

Olive, Snoopy and Me

After our widely successful post on positive dog training we move on to our second P- Pit Bulls.

Now i can speak on this subject mostly because of a story about the first dog i ever owned named Olive. I don’t like to think of myself as an “expert” because frankly i do not think anyone is an expert at anything, we can always learn if we keep our ears open and our pride down. However i do owe most of my knowledge and relationship with dogs to my pit bull Olive.

To keep a long story short Olive was 8 months old, and living at the local humane society after being picked up from a dog fighting operation. I was 18 years old, in love, and we wanted our first dog. I did what most responsible semi-knowledgeable albeit young people do and ventured to the local pound with my boyfriend to pick out our first puppy. Having been bit by plenty of dalmatians and dachshunds in my life i steered away from them, and towards what was the vast majority of dogs impounded in concrete run after concrete run. I found a wonderful 2 year old brown and white pitty, and the boyfriend fell in the love with the unsure, scared black and white young pit  from the dog fighting bust. He won, and we brought her home the next day after being spayed.

According to the shelter she was sweet, a  bit shy, and loved everything. Well she was fear aggressive, guarded whatever she had within 5 feet of her, and wanted to kill every dog she saw. I chalked it up to the fact that most pounds cannot really distinguish a dogs personality without allowing it to live in a home and bond, hence why there was a very high failure rate. That would be addressed in the coming year when I founded and incorporated Life Long Tails a 501(c)3 not for profit foster based rescue for dogs, cats, and small animals.

But anyway, i digress, after adopting Olive i not only found my love for teaching and training dogs for fun (competing in obedience and agility with my troubled girl), but also how to rehab extreme aggression issues and really try to understand how the canine mind works. This brought me years of traveling all over the USA taking classes, learning how to run an effective rescue, certifying as an animal rescue technician, and assisting at large scale disasters both natural and man made. It also led to me a large amount of work with bully breeds, and other high drive, high strung, misunderstood dogs.

Each animal species i work with comes with its own set of assumptions or automatic conclusions. Cats like to sleep, dogs like to play, horses enjoy grazing, and cows give us little affection but good milk. That being said  each breed of dog also gives us natural tendencies which have been manipulated over the generations by humans breeding without discretion or knowledge, and further more, each dog within its breed has a unique set of characteristics that make him or her form an identity. We all know that Pit’s have been the “fad for discrimination” now for a few years, and the breed holds its place after Rottweilers, German Shepherds, and Dobermans to name a few.  What i think has forced this breed to hold the spot for not only a lengthy amount of time but also with severe consequences is humans. The general lack of understanding of the breed, its purpose, and it’s identity as a canine has caused humans to place it in less then optimal conditions resulting in the severe consequences both behaviorally and genetically. In order to work with a dog you must first understand him as a breed, and then him as an individual. All breeds, and all dogs have limitations and as humans have indiscriminately bred dogs they have altered many of these negatively. Combine this with the breeds popularity, the fact that we are really dealing with 5 plus “breeds” that are considered pit bulls, the media and celebrity ownership, and the status that has come with owning them and a recipe for disaster was imminent. There is no quick fix (which i swear is what almost everyone who contacts me about dog training wants) or answer to this problem. We need to educate, train, cease breeding indiscriminately, and correctly read and interpret their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations.

Olive is still alive, and on her way to almost 13 years old. She doesn’t live with me anymore, and i miss her like crazy but in the settlement after divorce it was agreed that she needed to live out her last years in the home she was used to and happy in. That girl is responsible for pushing me to become a better dog owner, and in turn a dog trainer, canine behavior consultant, and many other paths in my canine-human relationship over the last decade. She is proof that dogs can change, and you should never judge a book by its cover, or a dog by its breed.

Positive training- can we un-bury our heads please????

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Ripley with Raina at 5 days old

Ripley with Raina at 5 days old

So in my attempt to tackle what i believe is an insanely prideful, pointless battle between “trainers” on the topic of positive only training I will  outline below what is actually the most accurate method of training that curtails to both “positive only” and “must keep negative and punishment” trainers. I do not believe that people are actually arguing the correct point, see it is not about being “positive only” or not, there are four quadrants of operant conditioning for a reason, we need to utilize them all while training, but the fact is that trainers pride and emotion have taken the correct utilization of positive punishment, and negative reinforcement and developed them to be incorrect and ineffective on a canine, but yet completely self fulfilling for them!! See, self centered humans with heads in asses!!!!!!

Ok so to be a bit more clear in my above point. Physical punishment is not necessary to train the dog, but a corrective action is. Dogs DO need to be told what is wrong sometimes, as well as what is right, but in a correct balanced proportion so that the brain can function unstressed and learn more successfully. So is positive punishment or negative reinforcement wrong to use??? NO not if used correctly, for the benefit of the canine and how he learns, instead of correctly for the prideful emotional, egotistical dog trainer!!!!!!!

So try this on for size………instead of trying to eliminate half of the methods of operant conditioning, why instead can we not fix where the errors lie in the methods of applying it?? With most dogs i train, 9 times out of 10 if the behavior i ask for is not executed correctly it is because

A. The behavior has not generalized, or is not fully known (this process takes MUCH longer then most impatient people are willing to commit)

B. The distractions are to high and the behavior is not proofed yet.

C. You have set criteria that is well beyond what the dog can achieve, so instead of dropping back you punish because your own human emotions come through and you feel better leash jerking the dog.

So i reset my trial in a more appropriate setting and continue to proof. Occasionally with a behavior i know the dog fully understands, is proofed, and is now variably rewarded, and the dog blows me off a corrective action is needed, and no it isn’t stringing the dog up, or kicking it but a corrective action that shows the dog he can control his environment and what he wants can be taken away when he makes a mistake. (and what is that called kids??????) Viola! I have utilized more then just positive methods “technically” and haven’t inflicted any physical harm or pain on my dog!

Why is it that we have just assumed negative reinforcement, negative punishment and positive punishment always inflict pain and harm, and thus jumped to eliminating them all together scoping our operant conditioning to 1 out of 4 ways to teach our dogs??

Let us then look at our training methods as individual trainers. What i find most often in working with other trainers and K9 handlers is that they are not ever clear in the communication aspect with their dogs, nor do they really even understand how they are training the dog. Sure they have watched a few videos and can repeat what they see and get results, but unfortunately inappropriate negative reinforcement and positive punishment frequently yield faster results with undue stress on the dog that leads to a break down in the trained behaviors later on down the road. But of course in the moment they look great and feel good too!

It can be said that communication gives confidence, and while positive communication is significantly better for the learning process of canines, you cannot achieve everything with positive only communication, however you do not need to physically punish nor abuse training methods to utilize the other quadrants of operant conditioning.

So it is not that we need to turn “purely positive” in our training methods, it is that we need to become educated on, and remember how to humanly and appropriately use the other tools in our operant conditioning toolbox without the humane propensity to inflict pain and harm!

Positive training, pit bulls, and pride

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Emeline

Emeline

The 3 P’s here bring up some very interesting controversy which i plan to cover over the next week. Probably one of the most controversial “dog topics” today is the battle of purely positive dog trainers with the rest of the world. What i think people don’t get is that everyone is really arguing the same point, but both have their heads stuck into their asses so far they cannot see it!

And as far as pit bulls go, well we know their heads have been buried in asses for years so honestly we can only chip away a little at a time!

Well pride made my list mainly because it was a P word……..no but really i see pride as one of the biggest faults in most dog trainers and one that definitely causes both the above P issues. A serious fault that leads to extremists on certain topics because the pride battle that is going on inside of them actually changes their focus and pushes it further and further to what they had started to believe was right. It’s like taking a ham sandwich and me saying, well it would taste better if it was ham and cheese, and you adamantly stating the only way to eat a ham sandwich is with ham, and while arguing with me adding on so much ham that the sandwich becomes a foot tall, and your pig supply has diminished just to overly prove your point that you are correct beyond measure and I am wrong.      *******But honestly did you believe in the first place the only way to eat a ham sandwich was with a foot of ham, or did your pride just push you to standing behind what you have already stood up for that you had to push it to extremes that didn’t make sense??? Hum sound familiar????

First and arguably most important will be our purely positive training dilemma. Stay tuned!!!

Welcome to EIK9

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Elite Instinct Canine Training Logo - Revision 222

*ANNOUCEMENT AREA*

Please check out vom Kugelblitz Kennels page for our planned upcoming “A” litter with Raina and Soren.

Welcome to EIK9, home of the Canine Copilot pack and vom Kugelblitz Kennels.

We are located in upstate NY and offer a variety of training including basic and advanced obedience, behavior modification, agility and other fun sports, detection and protection with a focus on canine Search and Rescue. We occasionally have adult green or trained dogs for sale, as well as litters of pups raised for working detection or protection homes. We stress quality not quantity. When you train with EIK9 you have a partner and friend for life.

Jenn currently handles numerous certified SAR K9’s in every discipline possible, and has trained dogs for detection in everything from tracking and trailing to narcotics, bed bugs, explosives and more. Her life is all about dogs, but it is not how she makes a living as it is instead her passion. She has been told by many other handlers, clients, and trainers that she has a gift with dogs and it is her intention to share that gift with all who wish to receive it.  Holding certificates from Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers (CCPDT) International Associations of Canine Professionals (IACP), and American Kennel Club as a certified trainer, behaviorist, and Canine Good Citizen evaluator, Jenn shares almost as many accolades as her canine partners. Currently a member and K9 Handler with International Police Working Dog Assosciation (IPWDA) as well as secretary of the New York State Federation of Search and Rescue teams. Holding a degree in Accounting and currently finishing up her AAS in Veterinary Technology so that she may add License Veterinary Technician to her ever growing resume.

You will not find a more knowledgeable active handler/trainer in the area. Whether you have an out of control pet dog, need to learn how to have a better relationship with your companion for you and your family, or wish to add a new working dog to your home we do it all with care and compassion.

Our training philosophy 

Our main goal is to ensure you have a successful, fulfilling life with your K9 partner. We believe that having a solid foundation with your pup will lead to that  ultimate K9 relationship. Training every dog is different and we do not have any set method or curriculum. Everything is tailored to each individual dog or pack and its needs.

We do maintain a philosophy throughout working with canines, this has come after years of experience working with thousands of dogs, studying body language and canine communication. You must have a FOUNDATION laid so your dog understands what you want, you must COMMUNICATE effectively to your dog and keep it CONSISTENT. You must RESPECT your dog and you must require the same RESPECT.

We will teach you how to read your dog, how to communicate effectively and consistently with your dog, and how to use everyday life as a training session. Dogs do not put training life “on paws” and only pay attention and learn when you want them to, everything you do, everything yous aw, and EVERYTHING you reinforce every minute is you training your dog. Behavior is not static- it is always changing and evolving.

We rely on the basic reinforces in dog life, food, water, social interaction, and exercise and will teach you many other secondary reinforces that you can use with YOUR dog. We primarily train by direction, not correction and we hold true to our statement that there are no disobedient dogs, only unclear human communication. Remember dogs see the world differently than us, the past is over for them, and the future is inconceivable, they only live in the moment.

Our German Shepherd Breeding Program

At vom Kugelblitz German Shepherds we have one main goal, and that is to breed the TOTAL German Shepherd Dog as Max Emil Friedrich von Stephanitz envisioned and spoke of years ago.

“The most striking feature of the correctly bred German Shepherd are firmness of nerves, attentiveness, unshockability, tractability, watchfulness, reliability and incorruptibility together with courage, fighting  tenacity, and hardness.”

We are not a kennel, and we only have a litter once every few years. Our foundation dogs are health tested, hips and elbows xrayed, are either certified search dogs, IPO titled, herding titled or a mix of all of the above. Our dogs do it all, they are working, biting powerhouses with insane drive but great control, who can be found in a room full of kids providing canine therapy in their off time at a therapeutic boarding school. They are family members and live in the home as we do not believe in keeping kennel dogs. Please check out the canine copilot tab for more information on Raina and Soren our current foundation female and male. Both dogs have great drive, but there ability to think while working in real life situations is what makes them exceptional shepherds.

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The rat

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Shaping is an amazing tool in any dog trainers tool box.  But what exactly are you doing when you shape? The  possibilities are endless and only limited by your knowledge. Take a few classes and learn how to shape from those with experience not only shaping but teaching humans how to teach dogs using shaping.  Remember the rat is not stupid, but the student who failed to train him is.

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