3 Indoor Exercises That TRANSFORM Your Outdoor Dog Training
Why are new dog owners always so eager
to take their dogs for long walks before the training or getting them off leash
at the park before they're ready for it? Why is that the immediate goal? What if I told you that you're actually
setting your dog back and creating worse behaviors by going
outside? In today's video, I'm going to show you three skills that
you can work on and master inside so that you can take your dog outside
and transform your training. I'm Ken Steepe and welcome
back to McCann Dogs. The first skill you're going
to learn is called targeting. Targeting is having your dog choose to
focus their attention both mentally and physically on something that you
choose in the face of distraction. Now, this can be a really useful skill to
teach when you're outside and a skateboard goes by or there's a
squirrel up in a tree, or you just simply need your dog to
check back in and leave all of the other distractions behind.
Instructor Kayl is going to show you how
to break down this skill and teach it to your dog with her puppy five alive. Now, there are a couple different
ways that you can teach this, but I'm going to show you guys
a really simple and fast way, especially if you have a really
keen dog that likes the food. Now, I have a bunch of small
treats in one hand here. I'm going to take one and I'm just going
to pinch it between two fingers so that my hand can be flat because this is
going to be the hand cue I'm going to use later.
Now, I'm not going to
worry about saying any words. I'm literally going to
present my hand to five, and naturally he's going to smell the
treat in my hand and when he touches my hand yes, to get the treat from it,
I'm going to mark that with a yes. I'll show you again, simply putting
it in front of his face. Yes, good boy and letting him steal the food.
And you're going to repeat this step? Yes.
Good boy. Many times I'm
guessing, as soon as I feel him, yes, make contact with my hand. So once I've done a bunch of repetitions
of offering my hand with the food in it, the next step is teaching him to do
this a little bit more independently. Now he's going to assume there's
going to be treat in my hand, except this time I'm going to pull a
fast one on him and I'm not going to put any food there. However, I need to be ready to quickly reward him
before he has a chance to think about other things.
So if he touches
his nose to my hand on this one, I'm going to say yes, and I'm
going to quickly deliver the food. I know you're excited. I'm going to quickly deliver the food
to my tap hand to make sure the value stays here.
So I know I'm holding food in this hand, but I don't want him to do an exercise
with this hand and then me feed him with the opposite hand. It's going to make him think
about paying attention over here. So it's going to look something
like this. Yes. Good boy. Yes. Good boy. Yes. Good. So do you see how I mark the
moment I feel him touch my hand? I say yes and then reward.
Now I have
done this a little bit with five before, so he is touching pretty easily. But there are some dogs that
you might present your hand. They'll smell your hand from a distance
and say, I don't see any treat there. I don't smell any treat there. So you might have to do more repetitions
of going back to putting the food in your hand. So if you
try this and your yes, good boy and your puppy or your dog
doesn't touch your hand immediately, don't worry about it. It just means you
need to put a little bit more money in the bank. You need to go back fewer repetitions
of actually putting a physical piece of food. Yes, good boy in your to
build a little bit more value. But the name of the game here
is You touched me. Yes. My hand, I'm going to give you a reward. Five is starting to get the idea that
he should tap his nose to my hand, which is great, but there's two progressions I want to
make before I can start to utilize this in situations where it's going
to be helpful.
Number one, I need to put it on a cue, so some
type of command. And number two, I need to make sure that he can touch
my hand regardless of where I put it so that I can use it in different
circumstances to either
refocus him or to get him a little bit closer to me. I'm going to start off by just offering
my hand in a few different places and see if he can seek it out. Again. I'm
not going to add a word quite yet. I'm just going to do one step
at a time. Yes, good boy. I might try it over here.
Yes. Good. Oops. Freebie. Yes. Good boy. Yes. Good. Yes. Good boy. Here's a hard
one. Yes. Oh, good. Okay, so he didn't offer, so I'm going
to try it again. Yes. Yay. Good boy. Very good. So try practicing in different positions
to ensure that your dog understands that the behavior is going to earn
a reward. And then once you do that, you're ready to add a command. Adding a
cue to this exercise is extremely easy, provided your dog is offering the
behavior very quickly and reliably.
All you're going to do is just before
they're about to touch your hand, you're going to throw in the command
that you're looking for to play a little word association. So I'm pretty
confident that when I flash my hand, he's going to touch it. So watch the
timing of when I give my cue. Tap. Yes. Good boy. Tap. Yes. Good boy. Do you see how I throw it in there
just before he does the behavior tap? Yes.
Good boy, tap. Yes, good boy. So my timing of the yes is still the
same. Once I've done that a few times, then I can put it all
together. Tap. Yes. Good boy. Now I just did something wrong. Maybe I shouldn't tell you what it is. Maybe you should go back and try and
figure out what it is and post in the comments below.
I don't even want
to give it away. You tell me what? I just messed up. Now I'm going to do
it. Correct. Tap. Yes. Good boy. This. Next skill is really helpful for teaching
your dog a little bit of listening and control exercises, and it's actually
something that we call the game of tug. Now, you may have heard all kinds of
things about playing tug with your dog, and I'll tell you probably most of those
things aren't true. In this next clip, we're going to show you how to make
your game of tug a little bit better. With this high energy lab named Kelani. I'm going to have her choose to
hold a sit before she gets the toy.
You can see she likes this toy and
she's also very typical Labrador, jumpy, bouncy, super friendly and outgoing.
But when I ask that toy back, if she doesn't give it to me,
we are going to have her sit. So I'm going to do a little food trade
for this. Good girly. Good job. Hooray. Good, good, good.
Sit.
Good girl. Good job. Yes. Good. Sit. Good. Now. She's
making a great choice right now. She is nice and stable in this.
So how am I going to this? I'm going to give her this toy back.
Okay. Get it. Good girl. Get it, get it, get it, get it, get it. Good girl.
Get it. Get it. Get it out.
Sit. Good. Sit. Good girl. Good.
Yes. Get it. Good girl. Good. So first time she saw it, she was quite
stable. So I upped my game a little bit. I made the toy a little bit
more interesting out. Sit. Sit. Good. Sit. Good job miss. Very nice. I'm going to make it
a little harder. Good. Sit. Good. Yes. Get it. Good girl. Get it,
get it, get it, get it, get it. Now I want her to actually commit the sit.
I don't want her vibrating and half
jumping. I want her sitting solidly out. Sit. Yes. Good girl. Good. Sit. What a good girl you are. Good job. Yes. Okay, get it. Good girl. Yay.
Good girl. Her what a good girl. Excellent job. Good. Hooray. You
are so exciting. Good. Okay. Out. That's it. Oh, we got tangled up in
the leash. Good girl. Good job. Now, I took a long dramatic pause there, but
I wanted to see what Kelani would do. I was waiting to see if she would look
away from that toy and look at me, and her eyes came up to me.
That's the moment I said yes, and that's the moment she was
allowed to have the toy back. So she's starting to pair together to
look at me to get the reward.
Good girl. Miss. If you're still working on having your
dog give up a toy or still hold a sit in the face of it, then I would make this easier. I would
work on the tugging out separate with the toy, and I would also work on sit. Sit means sit for my dogs
or any dog I work with, and it means sit until I ask
you to do something else. If they happen to get up out of the
sit, I'm going to place them back in. But if my dog can't hold a sit
in the face of the distraction, I need to work on the sit first, which is another skill you
can do that helps with focus.
When it comes to the idea
of rewarding these choices, it's imperative that the thing that you're
going to reward with is more valuable than the thing that they
are trying to get to. We want dogs to understand
where the value is, and that means being able to overcome
value elsewhere and make sure that you're the most important thing. Now, the other thing to keep in
mind is all of you is a reward. You'll notice when I was tugging with
her, I was exciting, I was engaging, I was talking to her in a nice
way. I was really exciting. But the moment I want to have a
little bit more calm from her, I calm myself down. So it's not just
the food, it's not just the toy, but it's all those things, including you. If you're interested in
getting a fuzzy ball tug, like the one we just
used in the last clip, make sure you check out McCann Dogs store.
Something that dog trainers do with
their puppies that a lot of average dog owners wouldn't know to do
is something called shaping. Essentially shaping is having
the dog choose a behavior, and then we're rewarding them
for making the right choice. This is a great way to teach your dog
to problem solve. And down the road, this is going to be a very useful
skill for your dog to have. Check out this next clip where Kayl
works with a mixed breed dog named Lucy, and she shapes Lucy to get all
four paws into a cardboard box. I have a box here, and my goal is that
I can train Lucy to get inside the box. So I'm going to start off by just having
a couple pieces of food ready here, which she can see she's super excited
about.
I'm going to have my box nearby. Yes, good girl. And then anything
that Lucy has to do with the box. Yes. Good girl. I'm going to yes.
And reward her for sniffing. Yes. Putting her head close to the box.
Putting a paw in. Yes. Oh yes. Good girl. Now, every time she
gets closer to my final goal, I'm going to increase the
grade reward. Yes. Good. Girls, we got two little pauses
there. Yes. Good girl. Now, what's super important for this one? Okay, just going to have a reset for
a second. Come here with this. What's really important for this
one is when you say the word yes, you need to make sure that
when you yes, when you say yes, it's exactly the point that you're
trying to reinforce. Good girl. Yes. Now she's starting to offer
two paws pretty easily. So I'm going to go for the gusto here, and I'm going to wait for her to do a
little bit more before she gets any more rewards. Try again. So isn't this interesting? I'm getting a few different behaviors.
She's actually offering to bow now, so I'm going to reward her
for that because I don't
want her to get frustrated.
And what I'm going to do now is help
her out a little bit. Two feet. Good. I'm just going to lure
her so that, yes, yes. Oh, we got back feet and the front
feet came out. Yay. Good girl. But this is sort of the
fun thing about shaping. You don't have to get the dog to climb
the mountain in order to get the reward. I'm just going to reward all the
little increments along the way. Yes. Good girl. Yes. Yes. There we go. Good. And now I'm going to use the food to try
and get these back feet in. Yes. Good. Yes. Good girl. Yes. Three for
four in about a couple minutes.
That's pretty good, Lulu.
Okay, let's try one more. Yes. Good girl. Do you see how she's offering to go in
the box without me even asking dogs going through positive reinforcement. So
if they get reinforced for something, they're much more likely to
offer it again. Yes. Good girl. Let's try and get that third
foot again. Yes. Oh my goodness. Jackpot. And once you get that final goal, what a good girl you want to
really reward generously. Wow, Luc, that was so good. Now let's talk about a few challenges
that you might have while you're training this exercise. Now, number one, sometimes if you just put a box
down and just stand there, girl Luc, a lot of dogs. And initially what she
would've done is just stood there and stared at the box. And you don't just want to be having a
staring contest for too long with your dog. Shaping is about creativity
and offering behavior. So make sure that you help your dog
to do a little bit more guessing.
When I first brought
the box into the room, Lucy was a little bit unsure about it, so I actually started off by just throwing
a couple treats into the box just to get her to investigate,
to sniff it a little bit, just to build her confidence about it. But don't let your dog stall out for
too long without offering something. Step in and make it a little bit easier
so you can keep the pace moving along with your dog.
It is so funny. The other thing that's important to note
too is what you use for your shaping exercise. I picked a box that
is Lucy size. Hey, Missy. It's big enough that she can easily
get inside. It's not too high, it's not too intimidating. Yes.
Good girl, you're so funny. Now that she knows it's good,
she just wants to keep doing it. So you want to use a box that's properly
sized for your dog to make sure it's really easy to get into, make sure it's stable and it's not going
to tip around or slide on practicing on a carpet to give it a
little bit more friction. And those are things that are just
going to help your training session go a little bit more smoothly so you're
spending more time rewarding your dog and building their. Confidence. Now that you can see the
value of training your dog indoors, check out this video that talks about
three exercises that tire your dog out without walking.
On that
note, happy training..
