Essential Exercises for Cerrazzzy Canines: Good Things Come

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Essential Exercises for Cerraazzzy Canines: Good Things Come to Calm Canines
Posted on December 27, 2010 by pawsitivedawgs| Leave a comment

Original posting April 17, 2010

Strictly speaking, all training exercises when taught properly act as self/impulse control exercises but today we will talk about some that are directly related to teaching your dog that good things come to calm dogs.

We have already introduced some great impulse control exercises that really help such as Jazz up & Settle down and Premack-ing for calm.

Even asking your dog to sit to get his leash on or having him wait before going through a door are important for teaching your dog that being calm means good things are coming.

If you have trouble with any of the following exercises, try using lower value food items (such as kibble) as the ‘leave it’ item and a higher value reward (such as hotdog) to reinforce the leaving of the other one. You can up the value of the items as your dog begins to get the game.
Impulse Control 101: “leave it”

‘Leave it’ is the foundation impulse control exercise and can then be made more and more challenging to reflect real life situations in which we might need our dogs to ‘leave it’.

One hand or two?

To start with the ‘leave it’ exercise we play the one-handed game or the two-handed game.

If you have a gentle, slower moving, more laid back dog you can play one handed. But if your dog is pretty enthusiastic, lively and large you might be best with the two handed approach.

One hand:

* take some really yummy treats cut up into teeny tiny pieces
* put about ten in your hand
* show them to your dog
* if he moves toward your hand immediately close your fist
* don’t let him get those treats no matter what he tries
* if he looks away from your closed fist, even a glance, open your hand
* as soon as comes for the treats again, close your hand
* he will soon stop trying to get the treats in your fist
* if he stays off long enough open your hand and feed him a treat with your other hand; before handing him each treat say ‘take it’
* feed him while he stays off your hand
* if he moves toward your hand again, close your fist

Repeat until all the treats are gone and have another session later on.

Check out this vid from Dr Dunbar teaching ‘leave it’ with one hand.

Two-hands:

* take some really yummy treats cut up into teeny tiny pieces
* put about ten in one hand and a couple in the other hand
* put the full hand behind your back – this is the hand that you will feed from
* show the dog the couple of treats in your other hand
* if he moves toward your hand, close your fist; if he is particularly enthusiastic withdraw your hand out of his reach – if required, have him on leash with the leash under your foot so he can’t jump on you
* if he stays off the treat, if only for a beat, feed him a treat from the hand behind your back saying ‘take it’
* repeat and you will soon find that not only does your dog stay off the open hand but also watches for the arrival of your other hand from behind your back

Here’s a lovely video showing a demo of the 2-handed ‘leave it’ exercise.

Adding a cue:

Once you can introduce your treat-containing-hand without your dog diving on it, you can begin to name the behaviour.

Say ‘leave it’ after revealing your treat laden hand.

Up the challenge:

Get a little bit fussier and up your criteria – instead of just leaving the treat for a beat make sure that your dog also gives you eye contact while he waits. You are teaching the dog that calm and attentiveness gets him yummies.

Now that you have begun to add a cue word you can begin to gradually build time.

Start by just expecting your dog to ‘leave it’ for 1 second, then 3 seconds, then 5 seconds and so on.

Check out this lovely video of some doggie zen.
Leave it & The Art of Doggie Zen

Now that your dog is able to leave a treat right in front of him in your hand for several seconds to cue (wohoo!) we can take the next step.

This exercise is also great for proofing stays in sit or down positions too so is win-win.

To start with you don’t need to have your dog in a sit or a down just work on getting started.

Prepare as you have before with about 10 teeny tiny treats.

* place one treat on the floor so your dog can see it
* if he approaches it cover it with your hand
* if he moves away lift your hand but cover it if he approaches again
* if he stays off it long enough, pick up the treat, say ‘take it’ and offer it to your dog

If your dog has real trouble with this one you can work a little more gradually by continuing with leave it 101 and hold your hand with treat close to the floor. Work gradually so that you can eventually get the treat on the floor.

Once your dog is leaving the treat on the floor add the ‘leave it’ cue after you place the treat on the floor.

Check out Dr Dunbar and Hugo working on this exercise.

Up the challenge:

Once you get this exercise on cue, you can begin to build time and proximity.

Start by moving the treats gradually closer to the dog and have him leave it for just a beat.

When building time, move the treat a little further away and as he gets better you can move it closer. Each time you move it closer go back to 1 second and build again.

These exercises are covered in Sue Ailsby’s Doggie Zen game which is an excellent leave it and impulse control game.

Here is Rufus doing Zen for the camera; he is giving me eye contact off camera because he reeeeeeallly wants the hotdog!
The Art of Doggie Zen

You can really up the challenge with this game; check out Susan Garrett’s It’s Yer Choice games clip for ideas and inspiration!
Leaving a tempting dropped treat

This next exercise reflects a real life situation in which ‘leave it’ will come in handy.

Prepare some teeny yummy treats and keep all but one of them in your pocket.

Show that one to your dog and then toss it onto the floor out to your side and a little behind you.

As soon as your dog moves to grab it, step in front of the treat and body block it. If your dog is really enthusiastic, step lightly on the treat – make sure you are wearing solid shoes; no flip-flops!

If your dog stands off the treat, just for a beat, bend down to pick up the treat. If he moves again toward it, stand up straight and block it again.

Once he stays off the treat long enough for you to pick it up, say ‘take it’ and hand him one from your pocket.

Repeat over a few sessions. Once your dog is no longer diving on the treat as soon as its dropped you can begin to add a cue. Drop the treat and then say ‘leave it’.

Once on cue start requiring that you dog gives you eye contact as well as leaving the treat.

Why a different treat?

Well there will be times when you drop something that you don’t want your dog to have so we are preparing for that right now. He gets a really yummy treat for leaving something that falls onto the floor – you get to recover the dropped item and your dog gets a treat: win-win!

Check out this lovely video of Patricia McConnell working with shelter dog Ellie on stays and body blocking.
Leave it & LLW

No training exercise should be trained in isolation because it is very rare that you ever need one training exercise on its own.

So as soon as your dog has got the jist of an exercise begin to apply it to all sorts of real life situations combined with other useful exercises.

Here we can use leave it training with loose leash walking practice and some leash pressure work that we began earlier this week.

If you have been doing some leash pressure and ‘this way’ work this exercise will probably move along quickly but this is an excellent way of proofing it.

Have your dog on leash and work in a low distraction area. Start working with treats but later vary the rewards/distractions used.

Show your dog a treat and then toss it forward so its out of reach. Your dog will probably pull toward the treat – don’t be tempted to jerk or pull on the leash. If your dog is a puller and especially for this exercise, practice on a harness so there is no pressure on his neck.

As soon as he releases the tension this might be a glance up at you, he might move away from the treat or he may move toward you to reduce the tension on the leash – give him a treat from your hand and then bound forward to let him get the treat on the floor.

Repeat about ten times per session. It’s a good idea to practice just before walkies and carry this idea while out on walks – if he pulls toward something, wait until he releases the pressure and reward him by allowing him to go toward it.

At the beginning don’t be too fussy – any release of the tension on the leash can be rewarded. But once he gets the game start upping the challenge.

Require that the dog releases the tension and makes eye contact with you so effectively you are teaching check-ins at the same time too!

When you get to a point that he is giving eye contact to you in this situation, take one step toward the prize and reward him with a treat for keeping the leash loose and then let him have the tossed treat too.

If he doesn’t keep the leash loose, begin again waiting for that check in.

Soon you will be able to build up the number of steps that you take toward the tossed treat. This is the secret to teaching a nice loose leash walking position even amid distractions.

At this level, begin to vary the item tossed – you might like to toss his favourite toy or different treats.

Here are a couple of great clips showing leave it exercises; a more basic one first here and one from Dr Yin showing advanced progress here. In this clip Dr Yin shows a couple of different methods for teaching leave it covering ones that we have discussed today.

Check out Dee Ganley’s Lowering Arousal and Suzanne Clothier’s Guidelines for Teaching Self Control for more on teaching impulse control.