Well-Trained Dog Saves Home From Invader

[turbo]

Sunday, the wife of the guy that bought my old truck showed up to get the title-transfer paper. In her Jeep was a beautiful golden retriever. She and her husband both train service dogs. She trains assistance/companion dogs for people with disabilities and he trains police/military/rescue dogs. They wanted to keep this particular dog, so she trained him in her specialty and her husband trained him, as well. Last summer, she returned to their house only to find an unfamiliar vehicle in the drive. She entered the house to find the golden with his mouth clamped on the wrist of a stranger. That dog had been taught how to restrain a person without injuring them, and he allowed the stranger to enter the house without attacking him, but wouldn't allow him to leave. He grabbed the guy by the wrist, and only put on more pressure if the guy resisted. The lady told the dog to let him go, and the guy threatened to sue because the dog "attacked" him. She told him to go right ahead, because breaking and entering/home invasion wouldn't make his case too winnable, especially since the dog hadn't broken the skin on his wrist. A few bruises wouldn't make too much of a case.

They live on a really thinly-populated dead-end road a couple of miles from here, and the creep probably thought that he had found a great place to ransack for money and valuables. Good dog!

I'd like to teach Duke some advanced skills. He loves me right to death, but he knows that he can get away with a lot because I won't be harsh with him when he disobeys. I know that he was abused by previous owner(s), and I don't want him to associate me with that harsh treatment. I guess I'm the one who needs the advanced training, before I can pass it on to Duke.

 

[AlephZero]

I'd like to teach Duke some advanced skills. He loves me right to death, but he knows that he can get away with a lot because I won't be harsh with him when he disobeys. I know that he was abused by previous owner(s), and I don't want him to associate me with that harsh treatment. I guess I'm the one who needs the advanced training, before I can pass it on to Duke.

You need to start by teaching him that you are the alpha dog in your two-dog pack.

You don't need to do anything harsh. Just send out consistent messages that you only bother about him when you want, not when he wants. If you come home and he wants to be all over you, just ignore him till you are ready to play. When you have a meal, don't feed him till after you are finished eating. If he's smart, he will soon get the message.

 

[turbo]

You need to start by teaching him that you are the alpha dog in your two-dog pack.

You don't need to do anything harsh. Just send out consistent messages that you only bother about him when you want, not when he wants. If you come home and he wants to be all over you, just ignore him till you are ready to play. When you have a meal, don't feed him till after you are finished eating. If he's smart, he will soon get the message.

We already practice the food part. He rarely gets a snack from our food and then we make it apparent that it is a special occasion. He gets his own food and nutritional supplements every day. In fact, he searches out the fish oil caplet, garlic caplet, and brewer's yeast tablet in his food dish before even starting on his food.

I just don't want to resort to harshness or ignoring him to get the point across. He sticks to me like glue and he acts really sad when I ignore him.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I just don't want to resort to harshness or ignoring him to get the point across. He sticks to me like glue and he acts really sad when I ignore him.

I've got your back turbo-1. You go ahead and play with Duke. I'll ignore him.

 

[turbo]

I've got your back turbo-1. You go ahead and play with Duke. I'll ignore him.

Shall I tell him that you're ignoring him, or just let him figure it out? Presently, he thinks everybody want to interact with him, so he barks, wags his tail, and jumps up and down whenever anybody shows up here.

I guess you could be a "virtual" visitor...

 

[AlephZero]

Presently, he thinks everybody want to interact with him, so he barks, wags his tail, and jumps up and down whenever anybody shows up here.

You don't have to ignore him for a long time. Just try to get everybody who shows up to buy into the idea that he will only get some attention after he has stopped making a fuss. After that, they can give his as much TLC as they want.

 

[turbo]

You don't have to ignore him for a long time. Just try to get everybody who shows up to buy into the idea that he will only get some attention after he has stopped making a fuss. After that, they can give his as much TLC as they want.

That might be a usable idea. He loves the gas-man and the meter-man. He is over the moon about our rural mail carrier, who is my niece. We don't get a lot of visitors, but he is happy to see all of them. He barks and puts on his "tough dog" body language, but his tail is going 100 wags/minute and he leans into anybody willing to pay attention to him.

 

[AlephZero]

The jargon for one good animal training methods is called "patterning". You can even use it to train cats - dogs should be easier!

The basic idea is, you put the animal in a situation where one of its options is to do what what you want it do to. Then you keep giving it a command (sit, or whatever) and wait till it actually does what you want (which will be at random, the first time). Then you reward it. With a bit of luck, it soon figures out how to get the reward. It is also learning the idea that you are the boss in this relationship. After a while, you don't need the reward. It wlil obey the commands simply because it knows you have a higher status that it does.

So if Duke likes chasing balls, throw the ball, and when he comes back just keep saying "sit", until eventually he gets tired of jumping arond and barking, and sits down. THEN give him the reward of another ball to chase.

The hard part (for you) is not getting impatient, and being consistent (e.g. don't give the command in a different tone of voice when you get exasperated, which you will in the early stages!).

Of course you have the disadvantage that you are teaching and "old" dog. My grandfather used to keep working farm dogs and train them. He would start training pups as soon as their mother was OK about them being out of her sight for a while. In fact he used to train one pup at a time with its mother, so it learned quicker by copying what mum did. I wish I had some photos or videos of him with a litter of pups and their mother, all walking to heel (without any leads) like a brood of ducklings.

He always carried a ball of wool in his pocket, and if anybody insisted his dog should be on a lead, he just used to tie the wool to its collar and put the ball back in his pocket. He used to say, "A lead is no **** use to control a dog that's working half a mile away from you, and it's no use to control one two feet away from you either".

 

[dlgoff]

I'd like to teach Duke some advanced skills. He loves me right to death, but he knows that he can get away with a lot because I won't be harsh with him when he disobeys. I know that he was abused by previous owner(s), and I don't want him to associate me with that harsh treatment. I guess I'm the one who needs the advanced training, before I can pass it on to Duke.

I don't think you need to do anything turbo. This dog is not stupid and loves you to death. If you, your wife, or your home was being threatened, Duke would be the first to know and IMO would protect you at all cost. Surly you've seen his behavior when he is unsure of you or your wife's safety (things aren't quite normal for his liking).

Me for one wouldn't even consider approaching you with any malice knowing Duke was around. It's a natural trait for Duke protect you and your wife.

 

[turbo]

I don't think you need to do anything turbo. This dog is not stupid and loves you to death. If you, your wife, or your home was being threatened, Duke would be the first to know and IMO would protect you at all cost. Surly you've seen his behavior when he is unsure of you or your wife's safety (things aren't quite normal for his liking).

Me for one wouldn't even consider approaching you with any malice knowing Duke was around. It's a natural trait for Duke protect you and your wife.

The town's road commissioner and his main assistant showed up here this afternoon. He wanted to find out where I got the hilling/bedding attachment for my tractor. They had knocked on the front door and were unfamiliar with Duke. Duke was barking and sounding the alarm like crazy. He was wagging his tail, but also had his back up, from his tail to his ears, and was barking non-stop so that those two guys were pretty nervous at first. That's OK - if they talk to any other people in town, they will hear about how we have a pretty fearsome dog. The various neighbors' daughters and grand-daughters tackle him like he is a rag-doll and he loves it.

 

[dlgoff]

The town's road commissioner and his main assistant showed up here this afternoon. He wanted to find out where I got the hilling/bedding attachment for my tractor. They had knocked on the front door and were unfamiliar with Duke. Duke was barking and sounding the alarm like crazy. He was wagging his tail, but also had his back up, from his tail to his ears, and was barking non-stop so that those two guys were pretty nervous at first. That's OK - if they talk to any other people in town, they will hear about how we have a pretty fearsome dog. The various neighbors' daughters and grand-daughters tackle him like he is a rag-doll and he loves it.

He'll never let you down. He knows/senses, IMO, who you know and trust, and who is unfamiliar and a possible threat. GOOOD DOG.

 

[turbo]

He'll never let you down. He knows/senses, IMO, who you know and trust, and who is unfamiliar and a possible threat. GOOOD DOG.

I don't think that he would ever let us down. Duke is a good boy - alert and intelligent. A couple of hundred yards from here is our organic-farming neighbors' place, and he loves it when I walk him there when the grand-daughters are scheduled to arrive on the school-bus. Duke gets to meet the bus and get spoiled by the girls, and he also gets to visit with their mother and/or grandparents. He also gets to visit with his gay suitor, Max the wonder-dog. Max is devoted to Duke.

Closer to home, if we're walking near the house, we get to visit the bus as it discharges a 12-year-old girl that Duke loves. In the spring (mud season) the bus doesn't head up that muddy gravel road, and the girl has to walk 1/2 mile or so home. Duke loves her, too. All 3 of those girls light right up when they see him, and when they pile off the bus, they rush to him with big hugs. The lady who drives the bus is a big fan of his. When she drops the kids off, she's always grinning and waving like mad.

BTW, Duke knows what the school bus sounds like, even though there are two of them that generally get rotated through service on this route. Log trucks, delivery trucks (UPS, FedEx, etc) and others can pass with no notice, but when it gets close to 3:00 pm and he hears a school bus pass, he looks at me and cries/whines because he missed meeting any of the girls. That has been a frequent occurrence since I've been hobbled with a sprained ankle. My ankle is slowly mending, and I have to make sure to get him out for these little encounters, since he enjoys them so.

 

[BobG]

I'd like to teach Duke some advanced skills. He loves me right to death, but he knows that he can get away with a lot because I won't be harsh with him when he disobeys. I know that he was abused by previous owner(s), and I don't want him to associate me with that harsh treatment. I guess I'm the one who needs the advanced training, before I can pass it on to Duke.

PetSmart or local dog clubs usually have training classes. The styles can vary quite a bit to those that require a choker chain for the class to those that won't allow tools such as choker chains.

I like the PetSmart classes. They use rewards and clicker training. A lot of other dog clubs also use clicker training, but you can find PetSmarts pretty much nationwide.

The clicker part is because the dog won't associate the reward with the behavior if you can't provide the reward quick enough. The solution is to first associate the sound of the clicker with a reward. Every time the clicker sounds, the dog gets a reward. It doesn't take long for the clicker and the treat to become virtually the same thing to the dog, making it a lot easier to "reward" the dog instantaneously for the proper behavior by clicking the clicker.

The rest is patience. The simple things, such as "sit" are pretty easy. For the more complicated tasks, you have to build up to them by rewarding behavior that gets closer to the task you want them to complete and slowing narrowing the rewards so that only the specific behavior you want gets rewarded. For example, if you want the dog to lay on a mat on command, you'll need a hand signal meaning "go to your mat" and you'll have to start out rewarding the dog everytime it heads towards the mat, then only rewarding the dog when it actually touches the mat, then only when it's completely on the mat, and finally only when it lays down on the mat, and then only when it's laid down on the mat for a certain amount of time, until, finally, you get the dog to lay on the mat until you tell it's free, no matter how long that might be (a good command for when you have a lot of company and need your dog out of the way for awhile).

Works really well if you have a very social dog that likes puzzle games, where the learning part is as much fun for the dog as getting the treat, but getting treats makes even aloof dogs a lot more social, so it works pretty well on just about all dogs.

Dogs react to visual stimuli quicker than they do verbal commands, hence teaching the hand signals first and then extending that to a verbal command. The fact that there's a "hidden" silent signal that most people won't notice can create some entertainment, especially for kids. They're totally amazed that I can write a command on a piece of paper and hold it up for my dog to read and that my dog will actually read it and obey it. Or, that my dog will refuse to obey me when I want to take her home, and will stubbornly sit there resisting tugs on her collar, until I finally give in and tell her (and my grandchild) that we'll go over to my grandchild's house, instead.

 

[drizzle]

He'll never let you down. He knows/senses, IMO, who you know and trust, and who is unfamiliar and a possible threat. GOOOD DOG.

Yep, I believe Duke won't disappoint turbo at all.

 

[turbo]

Dogs react to visual stimuli quicker than they do verbal commands, hence teaching the hand signals first and then extending that to a verbal command.

We've already gotten some of those down. If I move my hands toward my chest palms in, he comes to me. Index finger moving downward means sit. Hand palm-down toward the floor means lie down, and hand extended palm toward him means stay. He'll do all that with no verbal input or reward, though when he's stayed in one place long enough and I motion for him to come to me, he'll get an ear-rub and maybe a dog cookie.

If I ask him where his ball is, he'll hunt around and find a tennis ball to bring to me. If I tell him to bring me a rope, he'll grab one of his rope-toys and be rewarded with a game of tug-of-war. We're doing OK - I just want to make him more attentive and obedient when he is off-lead. It's for his own safety because although this road is rural, there is a lot of heavy truck traffic, and loaded log trucks can't stop on a dime if Duke gets it in his head to run across the road to chase a squirrel.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I knew a dog that would go to his bed to sleep every night at 9:00 pm sharp. He wasn't trained, it was just his habit. If there was company, then when the dog got up to go to bed, the master would take out his watch and show it to the dog and say "Look what time it is, you should be in bed." The dog would look at the watch, which of course meant nothing to him, and then go to bed. Nice trick and no work to it.

 

[dlgoff]

Dogs react to visual stimuli quicker than they do verbal commands, hence teaching the hand signals first and then extending that to a verbal command.

I agree about the visual stimuli when training, but from my experience, dogs can learn many spoken words. I raised a lab from 5 weeks (also named Duke) and spoke to him like I would anyone else (with hand motions as necessary). I was amazed when he grew up. He seemed to understand sentences. e.g. Is there someone coming? -Duke goes to window, pushes the curtains back, looks out the window, and barks if yes. or Track that deer. -Duke follows correctly. or Don't get in the water. I'm fishing. -Duke looks disappointed but obeys. or Okay, now you can get in. -Duke grins and instantly jumps in the water.

 

[BobG]

I agree about the visual stimuli when training, but from my experience, dogs can learn many spoken words.

Yes, they do, but I wonder how much of that is the actual words and how much is what they pick up in non-verbal communication, such as the tone of your voice, expression, etc.

I'd bet he wouldn't respond to a command given over the phone. Of course, that would be kind of unfair, since phones are designed to reproduce sounds for human ears; not dog ears. A dog hears frequencies in your voice that a human can't hear and those frequencies not hearable by humans aren't going to be reproduced in a phone, or a video, etc. Your dog would have a hard time even recognizing your voice over a phone. (Running to the door when a doorbell sounds on TV doesn't count unless your doorbell uses some kind of actual bell instead of just electronically putting out certain tones.)

On a side note, I intentionally chose an obnoxious "Eeeahnyt!" sound for "no" so my dog wouldn't misinterpret if I told my grandson or someone "No!" The problem is - I've inadvertantly taken to using that same sound to make my grandson stop doing something I don't want him to do.

 

[turbo]

You're right about the phone, Bob. A few times, my wife has called from work on her lunch break and has said "Let me talk to Duke." I'd hold the phone near his ear, and when she talked to him he'd cock his head off to one side, giving me that quizzical "what are you doing" look. TV and stereo on the other hand are more up his alley. There's a howling wolf sound at the beginning of "Hush" by Deep Purple, and he always reacts to it, usually with a bark. If there are dogs featured on TV he shows interest in those, too. Not in the images so much, but on the sound-track. Still, it's odd to see him looking intently at the TV when there are dog-sounds coming from the speakers.