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Attention Training
Hey everyone! Welcome to another blogpost. I'm so happy that we're able to get down to some great training habits for you and your puppy to start working on over the summer! Now many of you that have gotten a puppy from us already have gone over some of this basic training. However those of you have are still waiting for a puppy or haven't adopted a Golden specifically from us, this information is going to be a great set of skills for you to learn, so let's get started.So today we're going to be talking about the basics of Attention Training. Now despite the way that the name sounds and the results one often gets from employing this form of training. This type of training has very little to do with posture or form, and everything to do with the bond and priority of the puppy parent or family. "Attention Training?"If you're asking this question and are a little puzzled about what I'm talking about. That's okay, this attention at it's core is super simple and doesn't require you to have built up some other arsenal of tricks or behaviors. Although, Manding and Clicker Training a good foundation block to have already built. But if not? That's okay, you can take the principles you learn here and use them to even train a full grown dog. They're simple and quick, training sessions taking anywhere from five to ten minutes. So an important thing for a puppy is to know what it is that you want, the behavior that they need to display to have a harmonious life with you. Which in principle sounds super easy, which it is, but the way we humans communicate and puppies communicate are two totally different things! While deadlines, mistakes, and similar pressures are fantastic motivators for a lot of us humans. Puppies learn best by repetitive affirmative behavior. Which in summary means that you need to draw out good behavior and reward it frequently until it's natural for them to follow.So applying this principal, we're going to focus on teaching the puppy what to do in distracting environments.See what we're doing here? Distraction is the opposite of Attention, and we want to highlight the attention part. Now there's a few ways to bring out the attention part. The first part is to find out what motivates your dog the most. Some really love fetch, while others are foodies like myself, and the rest are probably just in love with you and want only a belly rub.Once we've gotten our motivator, we want to put them in circumstances where they'll look towards us to get this reward, and reward them. Then slowly, add more and more distractions, rewarding them when they ignore what's around them and look at us.How? Let's take fetch for example. Some dogs that are very dog motivated look at the ball with such intensity that you would think that this ball was all there was in the world for that dog. For us, we want the puppy to look at us the same way. Fortunately with some treats and some practice, we can replicate the same idea."The greatest give you can give anyone is undivided attention...Will SchwalbeAlright, it's time to get down to the meat of things on how to actual do the training. So first you want to find a relatively small distraction free zone. Let your puppy or dog mill around and do their thing, however everytime they look at you, give them a treat! If you have a clicker, use this to reinforce immediate behavior.Do this for about one, maybe two training sessions. One the next consecutive session, have someone else nearby bang something together. Maybe a pot and pan. And at a distance. Your dog or puppy will look away at first, that's okay. But as soon as they look back at you reinforce heavily with treats & praise! Doing this repeatedly with harder and harder distractions will help build an instinct in the dog to look to you for direction anytime something distracting and unknown pops up!Of course nothing beats real world training. So after a few more training session, move to a more busy area with real world circumstances. Say your backyard or frontyard. Have them on a leash and again allow them to mosey around for a bit especially if their young. Smelling new sounds is just as important! Anytime something happens, say a car drives by or something startles the puppy. Reward them instantly upon their gaze falling upon you.If you puppy is a little older, say 6 months or later and you've done a couple of training sessions. Feel free to take them to a park and implement this kind of training as well! This type of training pairs well with leash training, something we'll cover more in depth in the future.Well that’s all I’ve got for you for now! The next time we talk, we'll be talking about litter training and other fun dodo tips.
Jaimz Hodge
Aug 2, 2021
The Importance of Manding
Hi there! My name is Jaimz, I’m one of owners here at Grizzly Goldens, Golden Convert and self declared Golden Whisperer... ‘emphasis on the self declared.’ Anyways I wanted to take a second to talk to you guys about some of the practices that we follow here at Grizzly Kennels! I’m hoping that this information is be super helpful for you to read as your waiting for your puppy and help strengthen your knowledge and make you feel more prepared when it’s time for you to continue their training!What is manding?The first thing I want to talk about it Manding. Fun fact! Manding is the opposite of Demanding and isn’t Commanding. Manding is offering a positive behavior instead of demanding something. This is in essence what we want all of our puppies to have learned before they’ve left us. For us this is such a high priority that we’ll solely focus on this if a puppy is struggling picking it up. To us, sitting and lay down and other such commands aren’t nearly as important for a dog's long term social growth as Manding.So what is Manding? Well to explain manding we need to explain the difference between a command and a behavior. Behaviors are something that a dog does on it’s own to achieve or comply with something in a human’s everyday life. For instance, teaching your puppy to use the litter box, in a way is a sort of behavior that helps comply with human behavior of keeping clean and tidy. In this way Manding impacts your dogs daily interaction with you.For your puppy, the natural instinct to ask and to get attention is to jump up on you. This is a core and fundamental part of your puppy that he or she naturally learns interacting with it’s litter mates and mother. When they want to play with their siblings, they tussle each other’s fur and jump on each other. It’s natural and in itself is not wrong. This is communication at for them and we don’t want puppy’s to feel like they can’t communicate. So we have to show them how to communicate, because if we don't and simply suppress their one way of talking, this would inevitably lead to a very frustrated, reckless & wild dog.What we focus on then is changing the way the puppy asks for things by rewarding what we want and simply ignoring the bad behavior. Dogs are smart, particularly Goldens! So they have no trouble at all learning at a young age what behaviors you want to see in them.Let’s get specific though. The behavior that we look for in our puppies to display a quite posture while sitting and look at you. Each of these qualities are important and go a long way to improve the relationship between dog and human.Here, let me explain. We don't want them to be pawing and jumping, so instead we reward them when they are sitting. This helps counteract the puppy behavior of jumping on new people to get attention.We teach them to be quiet by default when asking for something because we want them to know that even when they get frustrated, barking is not an acceptable behavior. Having a dog that constantly barks is something that will try anyone's patience. So we don’t reward a puppy that is barking. Instead one must patiently wait for them to stop before giving them a treat or continuing training. Now while this may seem counter intuitive, especially for us humans, it’s important that as soon as a puppy displays a good behavior that you reward it! Unlike us, puppies think very much in the moment. So that moment they get that treat or hear the clicker, those actions are now reinforced the moment of action. Give or take a few seconds."The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said." - Peter DruckerLastly we want the dog to look at you. A Golden that looks into your eyes is forever in love. Or so we say. Making sure that your puppy knows that treats are coming from you and not your hand is a surprisingly big difference. We highly recommend for a greater connection to your fur-ever friend, to put the treat and clicker behind your back and wait for them to look into your eyes when Manding. Or for starters just the general area of your face. This helps build eye contact and will make it easier for you in the future to know that they are quietly saying to you, “Hey Humen, treatz plz!”On a last note. As you continue training your puppy in manding, start varying the time that the puppy has to wait. This will help them build up resistance to frustration as they can expect a variety of time that they must wait to receive a treat. The first few sessions, keep it simple with immediate clicks and immediate rewards. But as time goes on, give immediate clicks followed by a few second delay. Over the course of the next seven training sessions however, expand that to be variable between ten to two second, and if your puppy shows exceptional bravo, go for fifteen seconds! Just try to avoid frustrating your puppy to soon in this training as it might establish some back habits.Well that’s all I’ve got for you today on Manding! The next blogpost will be about Introducing your puppy to a new home and honing in on the next steps of litter training.
Jaimz Hodge
Aug 3, 2020
Training Session Basics
Okay, so you’ve got the jitters! You either have a puppy coming or it’s already home with you, and you have no idea where to start on training. There’s this feeling of not knowing what to do that we’ve all felt at some time in our life starting at your head and slowly working its way to your stomach. Doubts, concerns, to do lists, shopping lists.But fret not, for hopefully I have a cure to your worries. In this blogpost, and many to follow in each subsequent months, these little training excerpts will be posted here for you to read at your own leisure and time. Or even to reread if that suits your fancy. (Yes I’ve been reading a lot of old English Novels lately.) So read on!Alright, I think it’s important before we begin talking about training sessions that we cover first what a training session is and what is needed to carry one out. If you don’t have these already, add them to your grocery list now before you forget! The sooner you have these items, the better, there is nothing worse then forgetting to get these items and not being able to do a proper training session for two weeks. The time now is crucial for your puppy! Any missed training time can add a lot of extra work on your end later down the road, don’t miss this golden opportunity.Here’s what you’re going to need.- Treats! | Lots of them, get some that keep well if possible. Again you don’t want to have to miss a training session because you’ve run out. We recommend checking out Doggie Style Gourmet Treats- Clicker | These are really good for immediately reinforcing good to let the puppy know that a treat is on the way!- Training Area | You’re going to need a small area, either an empty spare bedroom, mudroom or a collapsible puppy pen that can fit you and your puppy. The idea is to create a distraction free zone to train in where it’ll be just you and the puppy.- Puppy Toys | You’ll want a couple of these to play with the puppy. More on that later.So let's defineA training by definition is all in all short and sweet. Before starting your training session make sure that you set up your training area making sure that it’s free of distractions. Puppies love seeing new things! Having a consistent training spot helps keep the puppies attention you and not those new objects and smells.Now let’s grab a handful of treats. Not a fistful, just a good handful. This is your timer for the training session. Once you run out of treats it’s time to end the training session. The reason for this, is that your puppies attention span isn’t very long yet and you want to gradually work your way up. Your training sessions are going to start around the five minute mark and pretty rapidly hit the ten minute mark. You can do multiple training sessions a day if you want. Just make sure the puppy has had a nap in between training sessions so that your puppies brain has a chance to store all of the useful information from the last session.Lastly grab your clicker. And you’re all set to go. You’ll use this to to reinforce good behavior on the spot. I’ll be talking about this in more detail in the next blog post.We won’t go into detail on training your puppy, there’s lots of videos on YouTube that go into the specifics with you and later blog posts will definitely touch on them. But to generalize, work with your puppy in the distraction free zone. In between bouts of training, grab the play toys and just play with your puppy for a short little spirt to help tire him or her out. Then continue training. There’s no rules against rewarding your puppy for showing good behavior while playing!."By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." - Benjamin FranklinNow before we part, I do want to part with one very important rule. Stick to one, and only one training behavior, command or trick per training session. DO NOT do reward multiple behaviors until the puppy is much older. You want the puppy to easily identify what you’re wanting with a specific command. It’s easy for it to get a little muddled if you are doing multiple one. Now there are exceptions to this, if you’re outside of the training zone and the puppy offers multiple behaviors feel free to treat outside of that zone. Or, if you’re attending a puppy class, don’t feel that the training is going to overly confuse the dog. The training is just as much there for you as it is for the puppy, so that you can go home and continue practicing one on one. And lastly, a disclaimer, always hold the advice of an in person trainer above what you read here. Because that trainer is in person, they are going to be able to give you much more specific information for your situation. Each situation is completely different, every puppy has different behaviors and intelligence levels, do what is best for you and you little furry family member.Next month’s blog post we’ll be going over Clickers and how to use them in conjunction with training!
Jaimz Hodge
Jul 3, 2020
Clicker Training Basics
Welcome to another training blog post.Today, we’re going to talk about clicker training. A common question when it comes time for puppy pick up. So without further adieu, let’s begin. So clicker training isn’t very complicated. You could think of it like a metaphorical high five. Telling your puppy when and where they did something right, even when at a distance. Let’s say for example that you are on the living room couch, just lounging, and you notice your dog sit down and look at you with those big puppy eyes asking for you to give him or her a treat. Well, you can use the clicker to let him know that he’s done something right and a treat is on its way. *Click* Then as you walk over to the cupboard to grab that treat, you haven't lost that moment to reinforce when he did something right.More than just a picture So this is a nice picture and all, but how do we get there? How do we start to give our puppies this concept? Well, we have to start with the basics. To get started, you'll need the following; - Clicker & Treats (Clicker & Treats included in our Goodie Bag for new Golden Owners.) - Distraction-Free Zone Alright, it’s time to begin. Now, when you pick your puppy after seven weeks, we’ve already begun this training extensively with your puppy. But it might be important to start with the basics with your little puppy afresh as they get used to working with you. To start your not looking for any kind of behavior, you just want to establish that you’ve got treats and that they are from you, heralded by the glorious clicker. With the first session, simply hold the puppy on your lap, again nothing specific is required for them to get a treat. Just anything good and that you want to encourage. Often when relaxed on your lap, receiving lovings, not much is vying for their attention. To begin, click that clicker, followed immediately with a treat. Do this until the end of the session.Alright, session two now. We want to start working on lengthening out that distance from click to treat. So from time to time, click and then give a treat. Create random intervals in between the clicker and the dishing out of treats. I would vary anywhere between zero to ten seconds. Afterward in the third session, you can push your way out a little further.With two sessions done, it would be good to let your puppy offer good behavior again in return for treats. Generally, this is in the form of manding, which we’ll cover in more detail in our next blog post. Just look for good behavior to reinforce by clicking, effectively capturing that moment of good behavior and reinforcing it with a treat.How does this work?But there’s more happening than what meets the eye. You see, what you’ve effectively done is taught your puppy to be trained to make your future sessions easier. Think of it as the catalyst to your proteins.How? You might ask. Well once you’ve trained your puppy to hear the clicker and accept a treat. The proverbial double whammy has arrived. First, the more you train with your puppy, the more you generate something like clout, you could say. It gives you more sway with them and makes your bond stronger. They’ll realize there's a high chance of getting something yummy when listening to you, and will therefore have a higher chance of hearkening. Even in distracting circumstances. (We’ll have a blogpost about distraction training down the road.) But beyond that, you working on patience training. By changing the duration between the clicker and receiving a treat, we're letting their patience grow. Like humans, dogs can get frustrated rather easily if we don’t work with them. It can be the cause of why a dog whines and barks a lot. Signifying that something is frustrating them. You might even notice this during the training, they might hear the click and when they don’t get a treat right away they might start to whine or twirl in a circle before sitting back down again. While this can be cute, it’s probably not something you want to encourage since when they get bigger it might not be so cute. So make sure not to give them a treat when they’re offering these behaviors. NOTE, if your puppy doesn’t seem to be understanding the time intervals and beginning to act frustrated. STOP the training session. Let them play for a while, get outside to use the restroom, and or take a nap. You don’t want to frustrate them. Some puppies might take a session or more to figure it out. Well, I think that will wrap up this here training post. Again if you have any questions, feel free to email us at info@grizzlygoldens.com. Disclaimer, if you’re working with a puppy trainer, take their advice over ours. They are working with you and your puppy in person and understand your situation better than we do.Next week we’ll be talking about manding.
Jaimz Hodge
Jun 3, 2020
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