Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?

[wvvdiup1]

Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Posted on December 27, 2010 by pawsitivedawgs| Leave a comment

Original Posting: Friday, October 10, 2008
I love dogs and I particularly love the way that they develop new behaviours all the time – as soon as they figure out that something works for them, bingo we have a new behaviour! That’s why training dogs is so fast and so much fun – they are great learners.

However, sometimes a dog will learn a new behaviour that is not necessarily welcome. Even a well trained dog with a well trained owner may develop an undesireable behaviour that appears to work for him. This is an important lesson – dogs are being trained all the time, whether we are there with clicker, leash and treats or not!
Now, this post relates to a number of relevant issues: canine car behaviour, that dogs are being trained all the time and the reinforcement of incompatible behaviours. So I will try to cover all this so that it at least makes sense and hopefully helps!

When I work in the school, Rufus comes to with me most times. He enjoys all the extra attention he gets there but the biggest reward for him is going to St Anne’s Park on the way home. At the moment this is his favourite place because this is where squirrels live – the word ‘squirrel’ must be uttered carefully in our house in case it sets off great excitement and searching of high places!

At first, he would begin to get excited just as we parked in the car park of the park and as the days have gone by, this excitement has started earlier and earlier on our short trip to the park. Each point on the journey (which is about 10 minutes) has begun to predict the next, and that one predicts the next, and the next and finally it predicts the park.
To Rufus, whining, singing and jumping around gets him to the park – it works every time right?!

When I say Rufus gets excited this is what I mean. He begins to shift around in the car (at his size this causes the car to jump around!) and he vocalises. Rufus is not a barker and never has been but when excited or frustrated he does ‘sing’ loudly.
This carry on is irritating and distracting to say the least so there has to be some way of easing it – time for his dog trainer owner to put her thinking cap on.

It is the equivalent of kids in the back asking “are we there yet? are we there yet?” – I almost feel pressured to drive faster, speed over ramps and break red lights!

Stopping mid-journey until he calms is not an option as there are very few places that I can safely stop and wait for a calm dog – this might be the suggestion if we were dealing with disruptive kid passengers to whom this could be explained.
I have always used a variety routes to get there to avoid traffic so varying the route taken is not effective. Just driving in any area east of the school triggers this behaviour – even if we are going somewhere else.

So I had to work with other options and become a little more creative.
I don’t consider this behaviour particularly harmful or unhealthy for him – he is otherwise very well behaved and calm in the car and he is very well behaved in the park. He doesn’t carry on this way when going anywhere else, just for squirrel-world.

He already lies down on verbal cue while he is the boot and I am driving – me reversing is also a cue for him to lie down so that I can see out the back window.
I usually give him stuffed Kongs in the car and he happily digs in to pass the journey.
He will get a Kong on cue for me (to have something yummy put into it) if I ask him and he will take a toy in his mouth on cue if asked (for tug-of-war).
Other than that he is not into carrying things or fetching at all (Rufus says “if you want it that bad you go fetch!”).

So, with all of these factors I decided to “gag” Rufus in a sit or down stay while on the way to the park.

When we turn park-bound I ask him to “get his Kong”. He holds onto it in a sit or down stay and tries to cry while it is in his mouth. So now we get to the park in relative peace (muffled whining!) and a lot safer than before.

There was no need to shout at him or tell him off as this would cause him to become more wound up. There was no need to stop going to the park as I feel that the benefits from exercise there far outweighs the excitability.
He already has positive associations with lying or sitting in the car – we go to fun places. He already has positive associations with holding a Kong or toy – stuffed Kong=yummy, yummy and his toy=tug-of-war.

This is the beauty of positive training – we work with what we have and use alternative, incompatible behaviours to prevent the dog from carrying out undesired ones. And most of all the dog is happy all the time so is far more likely to keep this behaviour up for the rest of his life.

Rufus can’t sing while holding a heavy Kong in his mouth. He takes care not to move too much in case he drops it. He gets rewarded for this behaviour by going to his favourite place. I think the only ones to lose out are the squirrels!

The essence is to think what do you want the dog to do? Work on teaching that rather than concentrating too hard on what you would rather he didn’t do. Use skills that your dog already has and teach (or re-teach) them in this new and specific situation.

Behaviour in the car has a massive impact on safety for pets and people so is a priority when it comes to modification. Always make sure that your dog is adequately restrained while in the car. Teaching good car manners is up there with the really important manners exercises to teach pet dogs.

Happy driving!

[kimsta]

Hi, I have a dog that gets very excited when he knows he is going for a ride in the car, I have only recently started this as i am trying to get him used to traffic noise and people, we live in a very quiet area so he does not have opportunity to deal with these noisy and frightening things, so i have been taking him to an area that is not too noisy but enough to frighten him ( i dont think ) he is ok when he gets there, a little nervy but he settles down as i keep his attention on me by giving him treats when he is looking at me and not the traffic, there are not many people there as i dont want to bombard him with too many things at once, my issue is i am not sure if it is excitement cos we are going to this place or if it is nervous about what is about to happen, it is early days yet I have taken him twice not everyday, he is 6 years old and is 45kilos, we got him from a rescue when he was 5 months old and we were novices did not think about socialising him, generally he is obedient, i have another issue with him but i will save that for another subject