Training Page 2

He followed, and I threw the teddy upon the floor, 4+ ft. away from me. He looked once at me, then walked straight for the teddy and picked it up in his mouth. I treated. After we repeated this 4 times (to assure him that the same rules applied (walk where teddy is, pick him up, hear the click, drop teddy, and come get the treat), I changed it again (poor Wolfie.) This time I would only click and treat for things that brought the teddy closer to me. If he just picked it up and dropped it, no treat. Picking it up and carrying it away from was met with no treat. At first he seemed confused, almost as if to say 'hey, I was 'sposed to get a treat for that'. I ignored the look.

By doing Jackpot!'s with his picking up teddy and moving it towards me, even if they were tiny, I was able to get very close to the final behavior: He picked teddy up, shook him (normal in his play with teddy ONLY) and let go of him. Teddy flew and landed in my lap (after smacking me in the face with dog saliva!). What could I do, it was so close to what I wanted, I had to treat it (no Jackpot! though) and he attempted this again, this time smacking the Christmas tree.

As I spoke of before, I had believed the lie that the only way to control a 'dangerous' dog, was to physically intimidate him. This only led to a large working dog that was terrified of his owner, and very likely to bite out of fear (and not aggression as I was afraid of.) Up until we had changed the way we treat our dog (about 2 months ago), he would have run from the room terrified of me or my wife and our anger. Not this time. I did not click and treat him for this behavior BUT I DID NOT YELL, NOR DID I PUNISH him. Literally I walked to the 'treeified' teddy, picked it out, and handed it to him telling him that it was now ok, and I was not angry. He did this once more, and again I did not click and treat him, but before I could get up to get teddy, he went and picked teddy out of the tree HIMSELF.

Now I could tell that our new method and attitude were changing his behavior. While I had been intimidating him, he would never have gone even near the tree or a place where such a noise had emanated. Now he was going voluntarily, and even wanted to play.