Though Robbie & I have only been together for a little over a year, we have accomplished so much together. We embarked on this adventure with only horse training knowledge on my part and my fiance's complete lack of animal training experience, but working with Robbie turned both of us into competent dog trainers. We still have a lot to learn, and I am currently in the process of learning how to work through a training plateau with Robbie, but we have a great teacher. Most people think that the best way to learn how to train is to have another trainer teach you, and while working with a professional can do wonders, I've found that the best teachers are the animals themselves. In this post, I'll cover 10 things that Robbie has taught me, so far. #1 - Not to Let Fear of Pain Keep Me From Doing Things
Robbie has helped me cope with that fear of increased pain, and even work past it in some situations. I learned early on that in order to train Robbie with the right amount of strength and confidence, I had to figure out how to just push through & do things with him, instead of half-heartedly giving corrections or doing exercises in order to spare myself. Behaving that way made me an easy target for a stubborn breed who loved to challenge my authority. Standing up to his adolescent challenges and doing exercises with him worked more effectively when I pushed my fear aside, stopped worrying, and just did it. There were plenty of days when he would accidentally hurt me, either by body slamming me or suddenly bolting after a rabbit, but with every blow I got stronger. The pain became even more of an accepted fact, and Robbie's stubbornness taught me that extra pain wouldn't break me. As I got stronger too, he accepted my authority and slowly challenged me less and less. #2 - Increased PatienceI have gotten frustrated with Robbie on numerous occasions and lost it, either using a stronger vocal or leash correction than I needed. Each time I do, I stop, take a breather, and go at our issue in a calmer manner. It's extremely difficult to be level-headed all the time, but Robbie encourages me to do so. I was very patient with the horses I trained, but the beauty of that relationship was that if one of us had a bad day, I could do something short, then put the horse away and come back on a new day. Robbie is always with me, which challenges me to be a better trainer, but is also trying at times. He is a sensitive dog, and has taught me that the best way to teach him things is to remain incredibly patient, go through things slowly, and learn when to take a break versus when to push ahead. Today, I am a more patient trainer than I was a few years ago. I still get frustrated some days, but on those days I find it helps to switch gears for a bit, then resume what we were doing. Usually, giving him a respite often improves his performance in other areas. It's hard to be patient when you desperately need the aid of a fully trained service dog, but losing your patience during a training session won't get you there any faster. Part of owner-training is realizing that your training schedule will depend entirely on your dog and how they learn. You can't have a deadline long term or short term, because that will only cause you to rush training and create mistakes. Service dog books may lay out a ideal timeline for training milestones, but it's better to think of that as a map rather than a rigid set of deadlines. Patience is hard some days, but it is vital when training any animal. #3 - Disabled Doesn't Have to Mean IncapableOne phrase I am beyond tired of hearing is, "I don't know if I could live like you... never leaving the house, never able to do fun things. How do you do it? I'd rather kill myself than just sit in a chair unable to live." That phrase has many variations, but the same general idea. Before Robbie, I did spend a lot of time looking out the window and wishing for my past life. Figuring out how to train Robbie, and seeing how he can help me live and have fun in spite of being disabled has changed my view. I still miss my old life, but working with Robbie has taught me that there are plenty of things I can do and am good at, like working with him. I love playing with him in the yard, running with him at an off-leash heel, and going on long walks together. I love the face he makes when something clicks in his head & he learns something new. Being able to teach him lets me use the training knowledge I spent years learning. When I work with Robbie, go on walks with Robbie, and go out in public with Robbie, I don't feel as disabled. #4 - Never Underestimate a Dog's IntelligencePeople always say that dogs are dumb. Our trainer used to say that there are no dumb dogs, just dumb owners. Robbie has shown us that the trainer's statement is the truer one. Some commands have taken a long time for him to learn, but most of them he picked up fairly quickly. All it takes is time, commitment, and consistency. Before I worked with Robbie, I knew about the types of things a service dog can do but never really thought about how they were trained. The average dog owner would find it outstanding that a dog can be taught to open a door, drag things, pull carts, be taught the names of items & bring them to you, find help (like Lassie), alert to oncoming seizures, and many more "magical" feats that service dogs perform. Even seeing Robbie in action, opening a door or target touching something with his nose or paw, I am amazed at his intelligence. Yes, I taught him those things, but the fact that he is able to be taught complex maneuvers and hold on to knowledge is very impressive. There may be dogs that learn more slowly or their owners are not consistent with their training, and so the dog is assumed to be dumb, but chances are that with a little time anything is possible. #5 - How to Read Dog Body LanguageDog body language can be complex, confusing, and extremely subtle. I read several books, looked at images, online, and spent days just observing Robbie in my attempt to learn how to read his body cues, as well as those of other dogs. Understanding body language cues is very important in knowing how to handle your dog in any given situation, and predicting what a strange dog might do. Different cues may have similar meanings, or completely different meanings depending on the situation and context clues.
It all depends on the dog and the situation. Dog fights don't start with zero warning, people merely miss the subtle body cues that provoke it. A dog bite may occur if someone ignores or misses cues of uncertainty, for example. People may misconstrue a dog running up to them as aggression, when the dog is actually running up to say hi. Body cues are everything, and while reading books can teach you some, the best way to learn is to study real dogs. Even better is to study a dog you know really well and then study dogs belonging to others so you can compare the actions that are the same, as well as how your personal dog reacts to certain stimuli. #6 - How to Read a Silent Dog's Body LanguageRobbie is a silent dog. He very rarely barks. He never howls. Whining is rare, but happens on some occasions. Growling happens only in dreams. He either shows us stress signs or just stares at us when he needs something. When we first adopted him, we had a problem with him peeing in the house. He was house-trained, but we kept waiting for him to whine when he needed to go out or to go to the door and bark or something. It wasn't until one day at our trainer's house that I realized that his cue for "I need to go out" is him staring at us for a bit or yawning & licking his lips. Yawning and licking are both stress signs, but for Robbie they are also alerting cues to tell us something such as:
#7 - How to Problem Solve in TrainingProblem Solving in training is huge. It can be broken down into two parts - your job of figuring out how to teach your dog a complex concept and teaching your dog how to find their own solutions to complete different goals. A great trainer is able to break down a problem, and study all the components of why something isn't working or to think of every step in a dog's learning process in order to teach them something effectively. Using treats may get you pretty far in training, but if you have no clue how to work your way up through the levels of teaching a complex exercise, no amount of treats will fix the issue. When I taught Robbie how to put his paws on things, I had to first figure out how to get him to put one paw on something and build upon it from there. Tapping an object would get him to look at it, then paw at it. I'd praise for the pawing first, then selectively only praise for gently putting his paw on something. Over time, he learned what I wanted because we worked through each phase of teaching it, instead of immediately jumping to the end goal. With simple commands such as sit or down, you typically can jump to the end goal of having their butt or belly on the floor. Both are exercises the dog does already, they merely need a name. More complex commands might be something a dog doesn't do on its own, and therefore are harder to teach. The more complex a command or exercise is, the more steps it may require in order to successfully teach it to your dog. Shaping Robbie's own approach to problem solving also helped me learn how to teach him to work through more difficult things. For instance, once he learned to put his paws up on a table's edge in order to reach a toy, he immediately goes to that approach first when he can't get to something. Today, when a toy was on top of a box on top of his table, he first tried to do paws up but couldn't reach it. He bounced on his hind feet for a bit trying to decide if he should jump on the table or not, then ran up the table's ramp to reach his toy before bounding back to me. He used to just whine then give up. #8 - My Horse Training Experience Can Be Applied to DogsHorses are prey animals, which means that their psychology when it comes to training is very different form that of a dog's. However, many of the training methods I learned and developed while training horses can be applied to dogs because they don't necessarily apply solely to prey animals. A few examples are below:
#9 - How to Trust HimMy childhood dog was not well-trained, and as much as I loved her, I never could fully trust her. The few times we let her off-leash to play in a park, I was always on edge about her bolting. One day our yard gate got opened and she ran away. We found her within an hour, and she was okay, but I wish I had spent more time training her to know she'd always stay near the house and could have trusted her off-leash. When we began Robbie's training and our trainer guaranteed us that Robbie would be safe and reliable off-leash by the time we finished the training class, it seemed like some fantastical dream. The first few times I let him off-leash to play in our yard, I would have mini anxiety issues about him running away. Now, however, I trust him. Working with him extensively both on and off leash built up our bond and mutual trust in each other. He listens to vocal cues as our boundary warnings, and often comes looking for us if he temporarily goes out of sight. Working on off-leash heeling and calling him to me, have worked wonders as far as trust goes. He learned quickly that if he doesn't come within the first 2 calls, the privilege of off-leash play goes away. The next time he gets let off leash, he does much better. A few months ago, we went on our first off-leash, no hell walk through a cow pasture, and he never got farther than 50-70 feet away from us. Each time he got too far, all it would take was a normal tone correction noise and he'd immediately turn back towards us. Also, we have learned that even when he plays with other dogs, he will constantly look up to make eye contact with me or come over to me as if checking that I'm okay. If I'm on the ground, he'll come back to get me up. He is not yet 100% reliable at the off-leash heel, but we are getting there each time we work on it. #10 - Setbacks Do Not Mean Outright FailureRight now, Robbie is going through a plateau in training. He knows about 40 commands and can do the majority of them at scores of 8/10 - 10/10 most days. However, due to considerable stress and fluctuating consistency in his training the last few months, his level of respect for me and performance in basic exercises has taken a hit. He knows the command down really well, for example, but seems to short-circuit if I ask him to do 5 sits, 5 downs, and 5 stands in a row. Something like that should be very easy for a service dog, yet he is struggling. He knows also where he needs to be at a heel, and that he is to move with me and watch my legs as we move forward, and yet he has started having issues with forging ahead or pulling outwards again. This feels like a major setback for us, and one that dictates he needs a break from public access for a bit. It's hard to not feel like this is a failure, but Robbie has had days like this before - all dogs go through periods like this. I know that Robbie & I will get back to before, but it will take a lot of hard work. Hopefully it will only take a month or two of doing a refreshing course. Based on his performance with upper level commands and exercises, I know that he is not completely lost as a working dog, I think the last few months just overloaded his brain. Together we will work on this as slow as it takes, and build back up. We have had many setbacks in his training as he matures and have worked through various medical setbacks for myself. Each time, it feels like I failed, but once we tackle the problem, it gets resolved and Robbie proves to me once more that setbacks do not mean failure. Instead, they are a call to slow down, listen to each other better, and focus more on team performance rather than command drill work. As long as I continue to believe in us, I know that together we can do anything.
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My Name is Sally...I have a condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. This blog is about my journey training Robbie, a dog who helped me regain independence, confidence, and achieve the impossible in the face of my disability. It continues on with the training of Austin, Robbie's successor. Check Out... - "More than a Dog" was published on a site called The Mighty Categories
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