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In this issue: At Home Behavior Training Courses Coming Very Soon !! Over the past year I have been putting together different behavior courses for purchase. These courses will cost $115 each and be available to anyone, anywhere, to help them with canine behavior problems. Eight of these courses are now nearly ready. All I need to complete these courses are videos of proper techniques based on the reading materials in each course. Anyone wishing to be a part of one of these videos will receive their behavior training session(s) at 1/2 price. Just call me at 727-686-4246 or email me at packleader@seizethelease.com and let me know what problem you are having with your dog. All our courses have been used successfully in the real world with both group behavior classes and one-on-one behavior clients. All At Home Behavior Training Courses show you how you can transform your dog by yourself, from the comfort of your home. Each course offers step-by-step solutions with pictures of others doing each exercise. The courses cover barking, separation anxiety, potty problems, aggression management, problems with walking on a leash and phobias. The At Home Courses also cover all you need to know about dog psychology. Each course has 100 to 150 pages of written materials and four to ten pictures per "section". Each "section" corresponds to a week's worth of activities to do with your dog. Each course has eight weeks of training and activities. All courses are $115 except Canine Communication which includes a CD and is $125 to cover shipping and materials. The eight courses that are nearly ready are:
Once the above are done I will be doing more courses on:
If you wish to participate in a video, it can be for any of these 15 courses. Dogs live in the present moment. They interpret their reality according to the information given them, and their reactions are based on their understanding of what will keep them alive and safe. They do not plan for the future, and although their bodies can store memories of past experiences, particularly bad ones, that memory bank can often be overridden through good experiences. Normal approaches used to establish trust and communication in a relationship with a dog are eye contact, verbal priase, caresses, and food for rewards. Your attitudes and beliefs are energies that you project into everything you create in your life and into those things you attract to you. When you project feat or doubt, you attract similar energy. When you project an attitude of calm and energy that is positive, you attract more of that energy. Worry, fear, and doubts create tension, stress, and the feeling of being "down". The energy of those emotions can affect the people around you, and it can affect your dog. Because dogs are so sensitive, they can eaily perceive and respond to these contrasting states, and they will u sually reflect them right back to you. Energy flows both ways. Humans have the ability to create iwth their energy. We act on our thoughts and feelings by using the power of our will, which is what it means to be purposeful, or to have intention. We also make choices amoung those things tht we want to manifest. Some we accomplish with our hands, like the creation of a garden; some we create with our minds, like the solution to a math problem; and some we create with our emotions, like nurturing a child to develop confidence by giving her lots of love. Some things are never actualized in the physical, but fade away because there is not sufficient energy to bring them forth. On the other hand, simply maintaining a high level of purpose and a clear image in your mind of the objecf of your desire can bring that object into manifestation. "Behind the word is the thought; behind the thought in intent; and within the intent lies power" Your intention is your creative power. The relationship between your thought and your feelings is the essential dynamic in each creative act. By being objective, you are attempting to free your thoughts from the emotional energy of your feelings. If, on the other hand, you are subjective, you are allowing your feelings to be the guilding principle. Emotional energy is the most influential energy of all, which is why, if it is not controlled with purpose, it ends up controlling you. When you work with a dog, purposefully create a consistent and powerful positive energy in order to attract a positive response from him. Project your intent, create the space and possibility for change to occur. Working with energy is not about controlling others, it is about maintaining an energy to attract additional energy of a similar vibration, in order to create something new. Pay attention to what you are expecting, because your expectations are what you are attracting. Thought sets energy into motion. All words that we speak are a manifestation of our thoughts, which in turn, set energy flowing in a certain direction. The vocabulary you use with your dog represent your beliefs, and if you look objectively at those beliefs, you will see the kind of energy that you are attracting. Although you can consciously choose how you will let things affect you, it is important to realize that dogs cannot. The same openness that dogs bring to being unconditionally loving and forgiving also means that they absorb whatever we send in their direction. This is why it is critical that you make every possible effort to be aware of how your energy affects those who are naturally vulnerable. If family members say "NO! Bad dog! Look what you've done again! Don't jump! Don't chew! Don't steal food off the table!", and so forth, evertually everything that is said about the dog becomes an affirmation. You convince yourself that you have a horrible dog and that you need to get rid of it and get a new one. Create a clear thought of your intention. If you want to train your dog to sit, you will want to clarify all of the things you and your dog are going to do to bring this behavior about. You will do this through visualization. See your dog in front of you, listening to you and responding correctly to your desire that she sit. Avoid blocking your intention by creating doubts or lack of understanding of the steps involved. Increase the level of positive emotional energy around your visualized intent, which will provide impetus and uspport for both you and your dog. Visualization will help you claify what you are going to ask of your dog. If you can imagine what you need yourself to look and sound like in order to communicate effectively, and if you can imagine how you want your dog to respond, you will create the kind of energy that will support your training. When you consciously visualze your expectations to your dog, he can read your energy and your body language even better then when you give only a verbal direction or pull on his body for a response. Dogs are attuned to energy all the time, and I often observe some very sophisticated readings when the dogs are outside playing in the three fenced acres behind my house. |
Seize The Leash - Newsletter Vol. 2 Issue 5
The response patterns and intellect of a dog is very different from that of humans, although we do share some common traits. Even though it may seem as though your dog is creating habitual responses, these are not habits as we know them. Dogs live in the present moment. They interpret their reality according to the information given them, and their reactions are based on their understanding of what will keep them alive and safe. They do not plan for the future, and although their bodies can store memories of past experiences, particularly bad ones, that memory bank can often be overridden through good experiences. Obedience training could be considered creating habits in your dog. You give it a word/command and it responds predictably based on what it was taught. However, you can teach a dog to sit next to your favorite chair in the living room, but that does not mean he will sit when you are standing next to the refrigerator. In the business, we call this proofing a dog. We teach a dog to "sit" in every conceivable situation so that they will reliably sit. At what point is responding predictably to a command considered a habit? Who is forming the habit, the dog or the human? A habit is defined as: Left to themselves, the habits that dogs would probably acquire would be when to get up in the morning so that food gathering is advantageous or where to eliminate so as not to attract other predators. Habit generally applies to a behavior or practice so ingrained that it is often done without conscious thought. Instincts are defined as: An instinct is behavior that is not learned but passed between generations by heredity. Under which definition do behavior problems fall? Are they habits or misplaced instincts? If you take a look at the most common behavior problems - biting, chewing, jumping, barking, chasing things and digging - you can find a canine instinct to explain each one. Biting of course is the natural defense and offense of a dog. Puppies practice this, often on your hands and toes. Puppies teethe just like human babies and chewing eases the pain and discomfort of new teeth coming in. Puppies jump up at the adult members of the pack for attention and as a means of telling the adult that he is hungry and please regurgitate some food. Barking is a form of communication. Chasing and digging are both forms of finding food. If your adult dog is still doing most of these activities, then most likely it stems from no discipline as a puppy. Eventually, in the pack, puppies are deterred from biting the adults in play, jumping up and barking unnecessarily. As an adult in the pack, chasing and digging are only done to acquire food and digging is also for burying food for later use. These instinctual behaviors are regulated by the rest of the pack for the survival of the pack. In a human pack, it's the human's job to teach a puppy how to live in a human world. This means disciplining the puppy when he is exhibiting instinctive behaviors inappropriately. You can never fully get rid of instincts, but you can regulate them. What behaviors are habits and not instincts and how do they become habits? Let's look at obedience training again as a habit forming activity. The trainer, or owner, teaches the dog to respond in a certain way when he (the dog) hears a certain sound or sees specific body language from the human. Eventually, this creates a habit of putting the bottom on the ground for "sit". The human taught the dog the habit by having the dog sit every time, no matter what the circumstances or environment. Behavior problems, that are not instincts, are created in EXACTLY the same way. Your dog doesn't bite the postman because it's the instinvtive thing to do, or because he hates the postman, or because the postman is wearing a uniform, or because he (the dog) is mad at you about something - you and the postman taught your dog to bite. Here's how it works. In the pack, it is the job of every single dog to protect the pack - t's especially the job of the pack leader. Under most circumstances in the wild, a soft growl and a hard look are enough to deter any strange animal from entering the pack's territory. In the human world, that soft growl and hard look don't always work. So the dog escalates to a louder growl and maybe showing a bit of teeth. If that doesn't work, the dog starts barking and snarling with a lot of teeth showing. Lastly, the dog will bite if all the previous methods did not keep the intruder from the premises. In regards to the postman, he comes to the door every day and shoves paper thought the slot. The paper coming through the slot scares the dog and he knows that the presence of the human outside the door is causing it. Since it's a scary thing, the dog instinctively wants to protect the pack's territory from this scary thing. Eventually the protection behavior escalates until the dog is franctically trying to get through the door to do some damage on the perpetrator. If the door is every opened, the dog will be out in a split second and the postman bitten. The second part of this is the the dog has learned that eventually the postman does leave and the dog thinks it's because of his actions. What the dog doesn't understand is why the postman comes back to try again every single day. This creates the "habit" of reacting to the postman, and eventually to anyone that comes to the door. Like any human habit, especially those dealing with drugs, the habit escalates to dangerous proportions. Why is it the human's fault In the dog pack, the puppy is taught, through discipline, what is right and wrong - similar to raising human children. The puppies in the pack are also shown what to do in any circumstance and who is to do those things at any given time. Generally, the pack leader decides or does it himself. The rest of the pack is backup to the pack leaders actions. Somewhat like a football team. The quarter back makes the decisions about the plays the team will perform, but once the ball is in motion, the quarter back with either allow the other players to carry out the actions or will do it himself. If in puppyhood, the human pack leader softly growled at the puppy when it jumped up looking for attention or food, the puppy would eventually stopped jumping up all together. If the human, after correcting the puppy for jumping, then showed it where the food bowl is kept or directed the puppy to a treat, the process of extinguishing the jumping behavior would speed up considerably. This applies to our postman biting dog as well. Had the human pack leader corrected the dog the first time it growled at the postman, the bite would never happen and the habit would never be formed. Even the postman could have averted the bite by getting the human to introduce the dog to the postman when it was still a puppy. All three of my dogs look forward to greeting the UPS guys and the postman because I took the time to make the introductions. How do I fix "habits"? Any behavior that has escalated into a habit will resolve with the same correction and redirection process that you would use on a puppy. Even though the dog's habit is now to try to bite the postman, he still goes through all the warning signs first. It may happen very fast, but he still does them as that is the instinct part. Catch your dog at the start of the warnings with a quick touch to inform him that it is no longer his job to protect the door and to redirect his attention and you are on your way to "breaking" the habit. After you have his attention, send him 10 or so feet back from the door and the "claim" the door by standing in front of it with confidence. Stay calm and redirect the dog every time he tries to reclaim his "job" at the door. It's too bad the human habit of smoking can't be cured as easily as a dog biting the postman !
Seize The Leash Services Group Behavior Training We will again be having a Tuesday class starting May 18th at 6pm. Tiny Tyrants Behavior Class - Thursday evenings at 6pm at Ft Lowell Park starting May 20th Our Tiny Tyrants Behavior Training Class addresses the specific needs of the small and toy dogs. All exercises are designed for the success of your dog. Training exercises are divided into a variety of categories to help you build a strong relationship with your dog while helping your pet develop a broad base of life skills and the ability to cope with their old fears and easily handle new things and new environments. Monthly Walking Clinic
Changing Fear To Joy - Putting It All Together There are 8 important areas for you to learn and practice the skills needed to modify and hopefully change how your dog sees and reacts to the world:
Your goal will be to build a strong relationship with your dog while always maintaining your role as the calm leader. You will be training yourself as well as your dog. You will need to learn to read your dog’s body language – what happens to his ears, tail, and back line when threatened? Because if you can “read” that your dog is becoming stimulated, you can change the environment and therefore his response before he is reactive (emotionally charged). You will do this by creating distance from the stimulus and reinforcing calm using desensitization to change your dog’s emotional response towards the scary things. You will reinforce for giving his attention to you and ignoring the stimulus. This will (over time) change your dog’s emotional response to the trigger. You will be the calm leader letting your dog know that he does not have to do something to fix this danger and that together you will both be just fine. That the world is GOOD! How can you tell if you or something in the environment stresses your dog? Watch his body and it will tell you how he is feeling. When dogs are stressed, they go through a series of easily observed behaviors. First, he will usually try to avoid the situation. If that does not work, then he will try to escape. If he cannot escape, then he might just freeze. If you are watching, you can relieve the pressure (BACK OFF!) and then he will not have to growl, bark or bite. Dogs that are aggressive have learned that people do not listen (watch) until the dog is threatening. Of course, we like to say “he was being unpredictable,” when in reality, he was showing us by his behavior that he was under pressure.
There is another important natural behavior of nearly all dogs that gets humans and dogs in trouble. This is the dog’s natural predatory behavior. To survive, dogs used to be hunters. They are still hardwired to chase things that move. We have to understand this behavior and anticipate how it can cause problems. Running after something that moves and nipping at it looks like aggression, but it is not. Because people get bitten because of predatory behavior, we have to know what triggers it. We have to know what signals the dog gives before it is actually chasing something or someone. Watch your dog and he will show you how he thinks. Is he scenting or hearing something to chase? Is he beginning to stalk? Is his body alert, anticipatory? What happens when he hears joggers, or skateboarders? If you learn how your dog moves, then you know what your dog is feeling and thinking. Only then can you intervene – to distract back to you for good treats or a great game of retrieve or tug. Chasing stuff is really fun for the dog. You have to get out in front of the chase and make the food or game you have to offer a better distraction. If you are not better than the distraction (the jogger, biker, dog across the street), then do not let those distractions happen without being prepared. And if the distraction happens, you need to make yourself a better distraction with food or silly running/playing behavior to distract from the fun biker. You must make yourself into the best game in town for your dog! Dogs are not complicated. They are dogs. They want to get and to keep good-things-for-dogs and they have nothing to do all day except figure out what works to do this. They believe that "what's mine is mine," but of an even higher order is their drive to make sure that "what's yours is mine." This makes training easy - not hard. Your job is to manage your dog's world so that you get what you want and then your dog gets what he wants.
Please feel free to contact us at any time for more information, class schedules or just questions about your dog. We can be reached via email at packleader@seizetheeleash.com or by phone at 727-686-4246 or 520-751-7772 (message only). |
