The Dog Blog

In the world of all things dog training, service dogs rank up there as the most of the most. The people that work with them are incredible and the amount of effort, time, and patience that goes into making a capable service dog is simply mind boggling to the average human.

With that high praise for service dogs and their trainers a given, I ran across an article in the New York Times today that illustrated some new “Jobs” for these service dogs that have previously not been publicized as much as they should. These dogs in the article are doing wonderful work for their humans and the organizations that train them deserve any spare donations that you could provide.

So without further delay, the article is HERE You may have to sign into the Times for a free logon but it’s worth it.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

Proof of the power of Place command

Well, this is proof of what can happen.

This puppy, a full bore border collie was chasing the poor cats around like crazy in the house before he learned the place command. The cats were getting a bit fed up, the people were getting a bit fed up and well, the puppy was just doing what puppies do…. which is wreak havoc.

After working on the command for about 30 minutes, this little bit of peaceful coexistence came about. Can you say happy dog/cat owner or what?!

And, just to toot my own horn a bit, here is the email I got from the owners a couple of days after the lesson.

—————
Steve,

Thank you SOOOO much!!!! I think Monty had a great time with the lessons (yay treats!). He is certainly having fun practicing with us!

We were so impressed with you that we are telling all of our friends who have dogs about you. Thank you for being so helpful and friendly…we are eternally grateful! We’ll keep you updated on his progress!

Brittany, Scott, and Monty

—————–

Once again, Place command saves the day!

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
www.fideliodogs.com

In the last few weeks I’ve had a number of emails from potential clients asking what “methods” I use for training. Well, I just responded to another one of those emails and thought it’s time to put my response in the blog.

So, here is the text of the email with just the name removed. I think it will clear things up for a lot of people on the “method” type of trainers and where we at Fidelio Dog Works fall in the continuum of dog trainers.

————

Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not a “method” trainer. I don’t subscribe to a single method or rigid dogma. I’ve found over my years of training, especially working with clients who came from other trainers, that the “only one way” trainers can help about 60% of their clients. The other 40% of time, their “method” doesn’t work either for the dog or for the owner.

What I try to do with Fidelio is to find out what goals you have for your dog and then work within a framework you are comfortable with to achieve those goals. As a couple of examples, I’ve had clients in the past have insisted on NEVER having a leash on their dog, and others insist on only positive methods, while still others who insist on using remote collars. All of these are valid methods and I’ve got no issue with any of them as long as the clients are willing to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each. Every owner needs to understand that some techniques take longer and require more practice and repetition than others. It’s just the nature of training. The thing that’s most important for us at Fidelio is to make sure that the relationship between you and your dog is strong.

With all that being said, I’m familiar with and implemented most of the major “Method training” and Techniques out there, and will be happy to work with you using any approach you would like to try. Or, if you need guidance, we can discuss things together and map out a strategy that works for everyone.

As a final note, dog training is an exercise in repetition. There is no way to get a well behaved dog without practice, patience, and lots and lots of repetition.
—————–

All my best,

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

Dog training is all about repetition. Simple enough right?? Well, not really. The problem is that hardly any of us with any semblance of a modern lifestyle have enough disposable hours to do the large numbers of repetitions needed to get the dogs up to speed quickly. Repetition, repetition, repetition is the key.

How many reps are we talking about: well, on average it takes around 2,000 repetitions for a dog to actually learn and process a behavior. 2,000!! Most clients melt when they hear that, but it’s not an impossible task, and there are lots of tricks to get to that number quickly. One shortcut is to use Fidelio’s Fast Track program jump start things. Fast Track is essentially a “doggie boot camp” for your pup without having to send him/her away. We show up at your home two or three times a week for a month, train with lots of repetitions in your neighborhood, and give your dog a fantastic grounding and excellent foundation for the obedient life.

Fast Track isn’t the only way to speed things along though. We have lots of tricks to help with getting those repetitions in even if you decide to train with us for just a few session.

If you need a jump start on getting Fido up to speed take a look at our Fast Track program and give us a shout if it looks like we could help.

Pats to your dog for us!

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

They are cute

Yeah, You’re right, they are cute but that’s only half the story. I’m going to preface the rest of this post with the full disclosure that I had a Yorkie for 18 years. It went to college with me, and one summer went to all my classes with me in my backpack. I loved that dog a lot but, I too was unprepared for the other side of the breed. You really do need to know what you are getting into when you bring a Yorkie home.

In dog training everything comes in cycles, and for some reason this month I’ve gotten a ton of calls from clients, and potential clients, that have a new Yorkie puppy, and the calls all go like this:

“when will it be potty trained? This is driving me nuts!”

“When will it quit biting and nipping at me? THIS is driving me nuts”

“When will it stop BARKING at me? THIS IS DRIVING ME NUTS”

It’s almost the same drill with every call.

Well, Yorkies have a few bad traits to go along with their cuteness.

First, the majority of them take FOREVER to potty train. I’ve got some clients that have been working on this for 2 years diligently and still are not there. You’re going to need to be very patient and understand housebreaking is not generally going to happen like other breeds of dogs. These guys take longer…..a lot longer to come around to the idea of going outside.

Second, they mouth and nip a lot. Part of this is their energy level. Pound for pound Yorkies are some of the most energetic pups out there. In a lot of cases they are sort of like an amphetamine enhanced hairy bouncy ball but with really sharp teeth. Starting to work early with them to show them biting isn’t a good idea is essential. And, while I would love to give you a quick one off on how to fix this, the truth is that every puppy is different and we’ll need to approach the nipping issue individually according to each dogs personality.

So, once again, Get used to it. They are going to nip at you and the best we can hope to do is curb it somewhat.

Third, they bark. A lot. Enough said.
If you can’t handle this then you probably shouldn’t be thinking about a Yorkie.

Now, that was a downer kind of a post, and I’m sorry about that, but WAY to many people go out and grab one of these dogs thinking they are the perfect size and they are SO CUTE. But be ready for the other side of the coin, they are a ton of work. It’s not a bad idea to get your dog trainer lined up before you bring the puppy home as well. They can help you get a good start on all the work you’ll have to do to make these little guys a good household citizen.

all my best,

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

We work with kids all the time around here at Fidleio Dog Works. Almost every family wants their children to be involved in working with the dog and that’s a great thing. The more the kids work with puppies and older dogs, the more the relationship becomes cemented and the stronger the bonds become.

There is a downside though. Kids have short attention spans, and puppies have shorter attention spans. Sometimes this can cause a bit of friction in the house. When working with your kids, remember to keep the sessions very short, usually 2-3 minutes works great for this. These short sessions are fantastic for the dogs as well.

With puppies, it’s always better to train more times per day for shorter segments. We would much rather have you do 10 sessions of 2 minutes than to sit there and try to get the puppy to work with you for 20 straight minutes. It’s just to much for their little minds to take in most cases.

Along these lines, I’m posting a link to a video of my daughter and me working with a schnauzer pup on the “Place” command.

You’ll notice that the puppy and the daughter have roughly the same attention span on this. Still, I’m proud of both of them. The puppy learned the place command perfectly and my Daughter isn’t bad on the command either! Now, if she’ll just do that when she turns 16…..

All my best,

Steve Haynes
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

THIS is why you need a dog trainer!

This past week I had a client meeting that shocked me.  When I arrived at the client I was told that she had never been able to get her dog into her car.  NEVER in 12 YEARS.  When she moved to Austin she had to sedate her dog to the point of comatose for the ride and that was the ONLY time it had ever ridden in a car in it’s adult life.  Things were starting to get a bit dire because the dog was starting to have some health issues and needed to go to the vet on a regular basis.

A situation like that one is really sad to me.  That dog had never been able to enjoy a dog park, go for a walk outside it’s neighborhood or even have the convenience of  being able to take it to the vet.  That is so upsetting to me.

It turns out she had used 6 other trainers in the last 12 years to try to rectify the situation and none of them had been successful,  which is also a sad state.  Now, I don’t want to brag or seem like Supertrainer, but this is a pretty simple thing, and suffice it to say that within 10 minutes of my arriving we had the dog in the car and were headed for the local dog park for a walk.  All went well at the park and the dog jumped in the car for the ride home with no issues at all. 

A few days later, I got an email from the client:

"Just some positive feedback. My dog, Belle, is now a ‘car dog.’ She may hesitate and get balky when asked to get in the car, but it never takes more than a minute and a little gentle coaxing to get her in. What a difference! Thanks so much."

Now THAT is why you need a dog trainer.  If your dog is doing something that has been hampering your life, you should do something about it.  It will improve your quality of life as well as your dogs.

Steve Haynes

Austin Dog Trainer

Fidelio Dog Works

www.fideliodogs.com

Well, I’ve worked with quite a number of upcoming and new parents over the years but this week I had a wonderful experience of working with a client that is having twins AT ANY MOMENT.

 This family was a bit nervous about getting their dog ready as he’d had a history of "being loud" and chasing after moving kids.  The long and the short of it was that we worked on three different things that all dogs need to learn with babies in the house.

 But, I’ll leave it to you to read in her own words.  Here is her Blog Post! 

 Steve Haynes

 Austin Dog Trainer

 Fidelio Dog Works

 www.fideliodogs.com

Working on the place command

This has been a puppy month at Fidelio Dog Works.

I’ve got a number of clients that have gotten new pups in the last few weeks some of them brought from as far away as northern Canada. Getting these little guys shipped is no small task and we had a number of days where we were wondering if we would ever manage to get the the little guys and gals to their new homes. But, by this past week all were here and settling in nicely and it was time to start training.

If you’ve read any of this blog you know that I’m a HUGE believer in getting puppies into training early. I really like to start with them at eight or nine weeks old as they are generally really receptive to the training we do at that time and we’ll get roughly eight weeks of training during their imprinting phase which is enormously important.

Sammy, one of the lab puppies I’ve been working with for five lessons now just graduated to walking with me off leash yesterday. He’s 12 weeks old and already has his place command, come, sit, heel, finish (come around to the heel position when you come to me). This is pretty impressive even for a 12 week old dog. Needless to say, is owners have been putting in a LOT of work with him but it just goes to show you what can be done if you start training early and do it the right way.

Hannah is a little Golden puppy that we’ve done just two sessions with at this point but she already has her sit, walk on the correct side, sit when the handler stops moving and come commands down quite well. I had worked with Hannah’s owners before with another of their dogs but they are completely amazed and how quickly little Hannah is picking up on the training we’re working on. I fully anticipate Hannah will be off leash trained by the time she’s 16 weeks old at the rate she’s going.

So, if you are thinking about getting a puppy in the next few months book your trainer now (doesn’t have to be me but book someone) so that you get the amazing benefits of working with the pups when they are young. You won’t be sorry and you and the pup will have a much happier life together.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

Here are the basics:

 One nine month old daughter that started walking two weeks ago.

One Welsh Springer spaniel that needs MORE JOBS!

One very tired dog trainer daddy that spends all day standing around with dogs.

What’s a dog trainer to do?

When you add all of these things together there’s just one answer that makes sense.  Teach to spaniel to go get my daughter when she ventures to far away or, as is more often the case, ventures toward the "danger zone" of whatever it is on the playground, house, yard, or deck.

We started off getting Gwennie, the spaniel, to go over and touch Iris when I asked "where’s Iris".  After I startd this I though it would be a good idea to break it into two commands.  "Where’s Iris" means just take me to her.  Then I started adding "Get Iris" which means that I want Gwennie to go find Iris (usually not to terribly far away) and to gently "herd" her back in my direction.  We’re still working on the "herding" part but things are going well and I should have it in another week or two.

Now, with all that being said another though has popped into my mind, and that is my daughter will have wonderful stories to tell her therapist when she older about how her dad trained the family dog to "fetch" her.

Like I said, I’m a lazy guy so…..

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com 

I had a great time watching MythBusters tonight on the Discovery Channel. They did a whole show on dog myths, everything from getting away from tracking dogs to teaching old dogs new tricks. It was a wonderful example of what training can do for fantastic dogs.

For those of you who have access to the Discovery Channel, I really recommend you watch this episode. The MythBusters team did a whole series of tests using guard dogs and tracking dogs to see if, the common myths everyone has heard of are true. My favorite segment was the one where Adam tried to defeat the tracking dog. No matter what he did, running through streams, using pepper, climbing trees, nothing worked. The dog found him every time.

Another section of this show dealt with old dogs new tricks. They picked brother and sister dogs that were seven years old and started to teach the new tricks. I get the old dog new tricks question all the time from clients and you can absolutely positively teach older dogs new skills. I was thrilled to see what both dogs were trained using different techniques and the with the outcome being virtually identical. The dogs were given a test at the end of the show to prove that they had learned their basic commands
sit, down, heel, stay, and shaking of the paw. These old dogs learned all the techniques within a week which proves how rapidly you can teach older pets valuable skills. Both of the guys on the show used professional trainers during the week but that shouldn’t diminish the fact that these older pups learned everything very quickly.

So, as a professional dog trainer I was just thrilled to see such a fair treatment of training and see fantastic results from the training they put the dogs through. So if you get the chance tune into the Discovery Channel and take a look at the MythBusters show on dog myths. They will make you smile and it’s a great hour to spend on the couch with your pup.

Steve Haynes

Austin Dog Trainer

Fideliodogs.com

Baby is coming…what do you do with the dog

or

Getting your dog ready for the Baby’s arrival.

I’ve had a number of calls lately from people wanting help getting their dogs ready for a new baby in the house. Now I’m all for getting a baby instead of a puppy but there are a few things you should know. Dogs and babies can be a natural mix, I mean, you should see my spaniel push my newborn in her baby swing when she’s crying, but you do need to do a bit of work pre baby if you want things to go smoothly.

To give you an idea of what some of these future parents have asked for in the past year

Having the dog not bolt out the door as soon as it is opened (helpful when the UPS driver comes to deliver all those baby gifts),
teaching dogs not to jump when strangers come in the house,

All manner of walking related activities for parents with full hands (strollers, diaper bags, hats, coats, booties……).

These things above are pretty specific to any individual situation but, you may ask, What are the absolutely necessary things you need your pup to do once the baby arrives? Well, here are my picks in order of importance according to a dog trainer.

Necessary commands with a new baby in the house:

Down-stay– and I mean down and stay there until I say it’s ok to get up, not just put your belly on the ground for three seconds then hop up and jump around.

Walk on a loose leash– an ABSOLUTE imperative when you are trying to walk around with a baby in your arms and get the dog a tiny bit of far to infrequent exercise. To a dog trainer this means NO PULLING YOU EVER.

Heel– walking right next to you and staying there. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to try to walk a dog in combination with a stroller if the dog won’t stay right beside you? You’re going to be walking that baby all the time anyway, wouldn’t it be great if you could exercise the dog while you’re doing it? I mean Fido is going to be suffering from lack of attention anyway when the baby gets here so do yourself and the dog a favor and get this one worked out.

Sit when you stop moving– Just sit there once you stop moving. Trust me, you’re going to be fussing with the stroller, baby, neighbors, mailbox, pacifiers, hats……and everything else and you don’t need your dog pulling you over backwards to run over and sniff that pile of deer poo in the next yard while your cleaning off the pacifier after it hits the sidewalk for the fourth third time in twenty minutes.

To me these are the bare minimum toolbox of dog commands you’re going to need if you are expecting a baby. And I mean bare minimum. This will keep you sane and probably save your dog from lots of yelling.

Now for the hard part. Don’t wait until you are eight months along before you start working on this stuff. Dogs need lots of practice and repetition before they master commands, so if you know a little one’s coming make the commitment to get your dog in shape BEFORE arrival. After that baby gets here you just aren’t going to have the bandwidth to deal with training a dog so do it now! Trust me, I’ve got a new little one in my house and if my dog’s weren’t reliable with their commands things would be total CHAOS.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

Technorati Tags: Babies and Dogs, dog training

It’s been a while since we discussed the deaf dog training but it looks as though i’ve somehow become some sort of an expert on it.  I’ve gotten calls and emails from all over the country from people that want help working with these dogs and I’ve done my best to steer them in the right direction.

This week though I have an old dog trainer friend coming to town to learn some of the finer details of training these hearing impaired dogs.  She’s got a client that has never been able to work with her dog and we think this type of training will help.

I’ll keep everyone posted on the progress.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com 

A couple of months ago I got a call to work with a client that had a particular dilemma. He is a hunter and last year a deer that he had wounded managed to escape and he wasn’t able to find it. Now for hunters this is a VERY bad thing. It’s not managing the wildlife correctly and it’s wasteful.

So, Ken, being the good, responsible hunter that he is decided that he would never let that happen again so he wanted to train his new Patterdale Terrier pup to track wounded deer so that he would never loose another one.

I won’t go into detail of how we did all this tracking work (lots of time out in the cactus studded woods gives you some idea) but this little dog was a natural born tracker.

Zada, the pup, has the true traits of all great Patterdales, she is VERY TENACIOUS. That means that if the trail of the deer went over a cactus, so did Zada. It just didn’t matter what she had to go through to find the deer, she would do it!

Imagine my surprise last night when Ken sent me some pictures of little Miss Zada tracking a Squirrel. Well, now, I’ve never exactly taught a dog to track squirrels but it looks like Ken’s been working on this and, as expected, Zada is doing her dogged best to find whatever she’s told to look for.

So, take a look at the pictures below of Zada tracking her quarry and know that she is only the second dog I’ve ever seen that can literally climb trees!

And, by the way, Zada doesn’t need the fire department to come help her down from 20 feet up in the trees.

Enjoy!

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works
www.fideliodogs.com

Technorati Tags: puppy, Tracking dog

This post is a little delayed but I had so much fun at this lesson I just had to get it in here.

Last week I was working with a fantastic client who has a six month old Great Dane named Lola. Lola is a wonderful 106 pound puppy that is very well trained and walks around Town Lake with her owner off leash.

The thing is, the owner wanted Lola to tell her when she wanted to go out. So, off we went to dog training work. Lola had a small bell like the kind you see in movies on the hotel counter. The kind you slam down and the little bellhop jumps up from behind the desk. We though we would do the same thing with Lola and her owner.

Initially, I started teaching Lola to touch the little ringer with the tip of her nose, and while she was doing very well at that she had other more efficient ideas. Very soon (within about 15 minutes of working) Lola figured out that she could hit that bell A LOT harder using her foot, and once she really put together that ringing the bell with her foot got more treats and tons more excited laughter out of myself and her owner she started doing it repeatedly. Over and over and over and over again. Montana, the owner and I were just laying on the floor rolling in laughter and Lola’s new found skill and understanding of what we were asking us to do. At one point neither of us could talk we were laughing so hard while the bell went DING, DING, DING.

Loads of fun and a new skill for Lola the very large puppy.

Steve Haynes
Austin Dog Trainer
Fidelio Dog Works