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Saturday, January 12, 2013 from 11:30 - 12:30 p.m.  

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Saturday, January 12, 2013 from 12:45 to 1:45 p.m. 

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Nose Work Classes

I have not met a dog yet that didn't have fun doing Nose Work. These dogs typically run into the building all excited every week. And it's easy and fun

In Nose Work Games the dog searches for a specific scent (beginning with a favorite treat or toy). And any dog can do it! No "formal obedience" needed! Big or little, rowdy or sedate, active or lazy - your dog will like Nose Work Games! It is a great class for dogs of all ages (12 weeks to senior), and all physical abilities.  

This class is for all Nose Work levels. The search challenges will be personalized for your dog's skill level. 

This is a great outlet for dog-reactive dogs. As long as the dog isn't aggressive toward humans (and not a resource guarder), he's probably a good candidate for Nose Work.      

Here's what a graduate had to say about the class:

"OMG my two dogs and I loved it!!A lot of my friends are doing it in CA and it sounded fun, but it was dazzling. Will definitely be getting into the next Odor class when it comes up."    

Important: Dogs are crated between turns so it's important that your dog is used to a crate and that you can bring one to class every week. This class is not for dogs aggressive toward people.   

Click here for more info     

Two upcoming classes:   

- -Nose Work Holiday Special mini class  REGISTER

Only 4-weeks long and only $80!    

Begins Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

(only one spot left)  

--Nose Work- 6 week class, all levels  REGISTER

 Begins Monday, January 7, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.  

Instructor: Cheryl Vanvoorhies

Check out a class in action in the video below. This video demonstrates two of the many types of searches that are done in class. 

Nose Work Games.m4v

Want to read more about Nose Work? Check out the article from  

Bark Magazine. 

Click Here for More Info 

• 1 1/2 lb ground turkey 
• 1/2 C Parmesan cheese 
• 1 C steamed and mashed sweet potatoes 
• 1 C quick oats 
• optional: pinch garlic powder, parsley  

"Bring your dog on an empty stomach" is advice commonly given by dog trainers. That may no longer be the best advice.   

Golfer Lee Trevino once said, "A hungry dog hunts best." Recent research suggests that hunger might actually not be the best way to improve a dog's performance. Holly Miller, PhD, a researcher from the University of Kentucky, designed a study with colleague Charlotte Bender to test how well dogs functioned when they were hungry versus when they had recently eaten. The study specifically focused on observing the dogs' search accuracy, memory, and self-control in different stages of hunger.

Miller said one of her main reasons for undertaking the study was to determine if food could be used to propel dogs to higher performance levels. 

Surprising results

According to researchers, dogs that had eaten 30 minutes before the search task were 73.3 percent correct in the search task, compared to 64.2 percent when they were in a fasted state. There wasn't a significant difference between the dogs that searched in a fasted state and 90 minutes after eating, with accuracy scores of 64.8 percent and 65.2 percent, respectively.

"I thought it was very interesting that dogs searched more accurately for food when they were less hungry. That seemed almost paradoxical on some levels," Miller said. 

Read more of this interesting article   

What implication will this information have for the dogs in our classes? Perhaps owners will need to experiment with feeding schedules to see what works best for their dog,  but evidently, hunger may not be the best solution to training performance.  

When I first adopted Maverick, my Labrador Retriever puppy, I star

Maverick

ted to bring him to work with me for lots of reasons. One of those reasons was so that he could learn certain valuable lessons:  

1. Dogs will bark at you.


2. You can stay safe.

These lessons are extremely important in this day and age when leash reactivity is an epidemic. I have a couple of theories as to why leash reactivity is spreading like wildfire in  the United States, which I won't cover here today, but one of the factors, in my opinion, is that nice pups like Maverick don't know what to do to stay safe when a dog barks at them. When they don't know what to do they may get neurochemically aroused (think fight or flight - adrenaline pumping) and they bark back or pull on the leash. If this happens enough - arousal with no way out - the sight of another dog, or another color or breed of dog, can elicit that emotional response.

This is called classical conditioning. This is the same type of conditioning that is at play when you see a jar of pickles and start salivating. At least that is what I do when I see a jar of pickles.

The first step is to teach the puppy that when you have the leash or are even present, you will protect him. I used to tell Peanut, my Rottie who was fearfully aggressive toward people and dogs, that I would throw my body down in front of her before I let someone pet her or let a dog approach her, and I meant it. She was scared, I knew it, and it was my job to protect her. By putting her in situations that she wasn't prepared to handle without any coping skills, she would only learn that I was not trustworthy and would act without any forethought as to how she should conduct herself.

Peanut, as is the case with most fearful dogs, was a really poor decision maker. So, I wanted her to look to me for her guidance. She did trust me and the tools that I had taught her. When I was with her, she was always under good control.

That leads me to step two. Teaching the pup how to stay safe. Peanut learned to trust "leave it" and "watch" as her safety cues. Maverick is learning those lessons now. It will take many months before he really trusts in those cues, especially because he is under the impression that all dogs and people love him. His drive to get near them no matter what they are doing is fairly strong. He has to learn to respond to the "leave it" and "watch" cues no matter what is going on.

I am seeing a little bit of headway lately. We are in a Puppy Play and Learn class at Lucky Dog Sports Club. In this class, the dogs are allowed to play with each other and then we practice control techniques like attention, name recognition, and down stays to interrupt play. Generally, once Maverick is playing, it is a challenge to get him to respond to his name. Recently, when a dog growled at him and corrected him, he turned to me and made eye contact. I saw a light go off in his head! When I am in trouble, try to make eye contact with my mom!! I called his name and he came in to me to get a treat.

Step three can only take place when your pup trusts in you and in the behaviors that you have taught him. If your pup doesn't trust in those cues and they are not very well conditioned, you run the risk of sensitizing your pup and causing him to be reactive. If you have already lost your pup's trust, you have to earn that back first before going on to step three.

Now, I am not implying that you should expose your dog to aggressive dogs and hope for the best. For example, if Maverick and I are walking in the neighborhood and there is a dog behind the fence barking, we stop and work on our safety behaviors. We stay across the road on the sidewalk and work until Maverick's arousal level is low, then we proceed on.

If I continue to promise him safety, reward his safety behaviors, and make responsible choices for exposure, I will eventually have a dog who can be calm regardless of who is barking at him.

I want to dispel a few myths about positive reinforcement training methods.  There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to what positive reinforcement really is and about which dogs and behaviors it is useful for.  For example, I have heard people say that positive reinforcement trainers only deal with obedience training, but when it comes to severe behavioral issues such as aggression, dominance training methods are the only ones that really work because they are more in tune with a dog's basic psychology.  Nothing could be further from the truth so I thought it was time to lay out the facts about positive training and explain why dominance theorists and practitioners have it so wrong.

Myth:  Positive reinforcement trainers only use food as rewards, which is a form of bribery.  A dog should never be bribed into doing something for food but sho

Rewards motivate a dog to learn.

uld obey their owners because they want to make their owners happy.

Fact:  This is something that I hear often but comes from those who do not understand how    powerful positive training is.  Food is used as a reward especially for a dog that is food motivated, but rewards such as toys, praise and play can be just as powerful if a dog happens to be motivated by them.  The bottom line here is that a reward that motivates a dog to learn is a great training tool because learning not only makes a dog more confident and able to live successfully in a domestic environment, it also encourages mutual understanding that increases the human/animal bond.  That is not bribery.  If a dog sees that there are pleasurable consequences for a behavior then he is more likely to repeat the behavior because doing so makes him feel good.  When a person is attached to that good feeling there is more likelihood of the dog listening and responding to whatever that person asks of him.  That is why I have never understood why people choose to train their dogs using force and punishment.  The dog might behave and do what the human asks but only because he has learned that not behaving will cause a negative reaction in his human and that needs to be avoided at all costs.  Not a good place to be!

Food also has the power to help a fearful or anxious dog overcome his fears.  When food is presented to a fearful dog in the presence of a stimulus that causes that fear or anxiety, the smell and taste of the food bypasses all other parts of the brain and goes straight to the brain's emotional center, the amygdala.  Instead of feeling fear, the brain begins to be overcome with not just the pleasurable feelings that food gives but also allows the dog to focus more on the good sensation and less on the negative emotion.  Food is incompatible with fear and is therefore a valuable tool in modifying a dog's fear, anxiety and stress.

Myth:  A dog will only respond to food rewards and will ignore you if you don't have food in your hand.

Fact:  Any reward that is used to motivate the dog to learn has to be of high value until the dog is responding reliably.  When this has been achieved the high reward, such as food, should be used intermittently.  That means the dog doesn't get rewarded with the food every time he responds to a cue, but the next time he responds he might just get it.  Then the next couple of times he responds, a lower-value reward such as praise will be used, but the dog continues to respond.  In fact intermittent reinforcement like this actually makes a dog respond faster and more reliably because it is based on the same theory that makes a slot machine in a casino so addictive.  It would be wonderful if a slot machine gave out money every time you played it but unfortunately that doesn't happen.  The promise, however, that you could win the jackpot the next time you play makes you want to play even more until the slot machine pays out.  This is how dogs really learn so even if you don't give a food reward every time, the possibility of the potential of one in the future makes a dog work much harder.

Myth:  Positive trainers do not use discipline.

Fact:  Positive does not mean permissive.  Discipline is an important part of the learning process, but the form of discipline used in positive training differs greatly from the type of discipline used in dominance training.  Such dominance-based discipline uses force and hard punishment such as 'alpha rolls (when a dog is forcibly laid on its back and side and held down until it 'submits'), 'biting' (where a person uses the tips of  their fingers bunched together that are poked into a dog's side in order to simulate a 'bite' that a dog would use to reprimand another dog), foot pushes (where a person uses the side of their foot or heel to prod or kick a dog when it is misbehaving), hanging (where a dog is hung

Severe punishment is cruel and can damage the trust between the dog and the human.

by his collar until his air supply is cut off),  and shock collars that deliver an electric shock when the dog misbehaves.   

Positive training uses constructive discipline to guide the dog into making better choices rather than scaring or inflicting pain.  Hard punishments used by dominance trainers are not only cruel but are also potentially dangerous and damage the trust between dog and human. Again, dominance trainers will argue that these are effective methods of punishment because they stop dogs from repeating negative behavior, and they are right to a point.  The punishment is most likely to work there and then, but the experience of the punishment can make dogs feel more insecure and wary of their owners and it is common for dogs that are punished in this manner to keep re-offending because they haven't been shown that there is another way to behave.

The only thing harsh punishment does achieve is to make the person feel better because they have gained control even if it meant dominating the dog into submission. That might be fine for some people, and unfortunately there are those that actually don't mind using hard punishment.  I not only feel sorry for the dogs that such people come into contact with but also sorry for those people for being so misguided.  I have said in previous articles that I believe people who train their dogs using dominance techniques show a great weakness within themselves.  Anyone can get a dog to behave using punitive training but it takes a real understanding of dog psychology to use discipline effectively without inflicting pain or fear and to guide a dog into not repeating negative behavior while maintaining trust between dog and person.

I believe that dogs should learn just as much from constructive discipline as they do from reward.  Disciplinary techniques such as removal, time outs, taking something of value away, ignoring behavior and interrupting negative behavior with a vocal interrupter can be extremely effective, and I use these techniques on all kinds of dogs with all kinds of issues.  It is so much better to be able to influence an animal's behavior without using force, which is why positive reinforcement methods really do offer a better alternative to outdated and abusive dominance theory.

Victoria Stilwell is the talented host of the hit TV show "It's Me or the Dog".

A: Find the class you want on the Schedule page. For events, go to the Events page.
Click the Register button or link and fill out the secure online registration form.  Or you can call 561-427-6700 and I will sign you up over the phone.