Dog Training - Engagement Games With The Clicker

[@markbennison8642]

Great video, new clickers in order and I’ll give it a try following your advice 🤞🏻

[@BailyRoe]

Great videos; thank you. I've watched a few for some tips on basic training of a new (to me) headstrong, 22 month-old ESS with no early training. Fortunately, she's also bright and treat-motivated. I like your different forms of presenting treats, ie, spreading and tossing. Sofie won't be trained as a hunter/gun-dog, but will have other challenges living in a downtown urban environment. My clickers from Amazon are en route from China―I assume, as is a new shepherds whistle ...

[@hs_7889]

I like this one with the ball. Might try this as well rather than food at times. My springer will bolt as well. Find it hard to keep my 13 month springer close, anytime we’re not playing games/training he will do his own thing and not engage 🥺

[@MrDirkles]

Interesting video and i tried this with our little sprocker (14 months) but she is so obsessed with things blowing in the wind that any games or treats go out of the window. Literally nothing can get her attention. Inside she is great. On a non windy day not bad.

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

That is very common. It is so much easier to get success indoors as there are far less competing distractions. By the sounds of it if she is great inside, OK on a non-windy day and rubbish on a windy day then it sounds like you just need to keep at it. It sounds like she is starting to get it, you just need to focus on proofing the engagement games and behaviours to higher distraction levels. This is a gradual process that you should built up in little stages, so I would focus on getting to the point where she is great outdoors in low distraction enviroments first; maybe your garden, local green or courtyard and once you've cracked that you can start to up the distraction levels by trying in a low distraction enviroment on a windy day, or going to a more interesting enviroment on a calm day. Just remember that as you make the enviromental distractions more challenging to start with you should lower our criteria regarding what you are asking/expecting for from her, then gradually work the criteria back up again. Good luck!

[@MrDirkles]

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries thank you for a great reply. Your description of her ( good indoors, ok outdoors, mental in the find) is pretty much spot on. I'll try lowering the criteria in more exciting areas as you say and see how we go.

[@brendaswatman9221]

Great video, what make is your gilet please?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

It is a pinewood dog sports vest, this is the website for the manufacture www.pinewood.eu/en-en/dog-sports/women/jackets-and-vests/

[@butlersartworld]

Any suggestions for a spaniel that walks away when the lead comes out please?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

I would probably do some work conditioning a positive emotional response to the lead. So when the dog is close get the lead out and then regardless of what the dog does immediately feed them. Then put the lead away again. I would repeat this as much as possible until you can see that the dog is choosing to stick around when the lead comes out. The get the lead out and move it closer to the dog as if going to put it on and feed and then put the lead away again and just repeat this gradually building up to the point that you are able to get the lead out and put it on whilst your dog sticks around happy to have the lead put on because they have built up such a positive association with it. If this happens on walks it’s a good idea to get the lead out lots when your not intending to put it on the dog as often you can find the lead coming out is associated with the walk and fun coming to an end, which is why they avoid it. Therefore, if you are always getting the lead out feeding and then putting it away then you can change the dogs current association as they will realise that the lead coming out doesn’t mean it is the end of the walk. In the meantime as this practice may take a while, when you do need to put the lead on I would be using food to distract the dog whilst you get the lead out and put it on but hopefully you won’t need to do that for too long if you put the time in building the positive association. I hope that makes sense. 😊

[@butlersartworld]

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries great help. Thanks 😊

[@MentalAboutOutdoors]

Great video, clicker is now on order! I have a 9 month old sprocker and his recall has always been quite good but lately he just looks up at me and carries on sniffing about after I call him, he is very food orientated and I wondered what food treats you were using in this video?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

Oh I’m so glad you enjoyed it! I was using JR Pet Pate which is my go too favourite treat to use. I get the 400g multi packs and then chop them up into little cubes to use during training sessions. I also have recently filmed a recall games video which I am hoping to edit tomorrow so hopefully that will help as well!

[@hs_7889]

Another question, how many times would you do these games before not using the clicker or food?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

Hi there, with these games I might fade out the clicker once the dog is confident with the game but I wouldn’t ever fade out the reward. If I take away the rewards the the quality of the behaviours will also begin to fade way. And also I enjoy rewarding my dogs so have no desire not to use them. I might start to make the behaviours more challenging before they get reinforced to help develop them further but I would always use rewards as part of these games. I hope that makes sense. 😊

[@Viewsonic61]

Hi, I’m picking up my Springer Spaniel puppy in January and I’ve been watching loads of KZbin videos on all aspects of training and it’s a minefield of confusion! Everyone has their own style of training but I’ve found your videos to be very clear and concise. Do you have any tips for initial training and what aspects of training to focus on first. Like your dog in the video he won’t be a working dog but I want to train him to a high level if possible. Thanks.

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

How exciting that you have a new puppy coming! You're so right, training can be such a minefield, every does things differently and a lot of the time what one trainer say contradicts what another trainer says. Sometimes it's just very different approaches and sometimes it because what works for one dog doesn't work for another. Because I have qualified and developed a decent understanding of learning theory I like to listen to a range and then pick what I feel make the most sense for me and my dogs. So that is a difficult question to give an answer too as it is very personal to you and your dog and what your end goals are. However, I won't completely cop out of answering, so I'll take you thought what I did for Ivy, as it might provide some inspiration. So my main focus between 8 - 20 weeks was socialisation. By this I mean taking her out into the world and exposing her to as much as possible. I focus on taking her to busy very man made places like town centers and building sites, so she was exposed to busy, noisey places. She also came to the pub with us quite a lot, all in the name of training of course! I also took her to different very quite places woods, open fields, beaches etc. I got her to experience seeing lots of different animals; horses, sheep, cows, other dogs and I got her seeing lots of different people. The key to socialisation for me is that I didn't want her to associate seeing another dog or person as something exciting so I didn't actually want her to be having lots of play sessions with other dogs and I didn't want every person she met to give her a massive fuss. For me socialisation was about exposing her to all those different things and teaching her that it was basically a none event. So now if she sees another dog or person she's not fused and still remains very focused on me. Whereas you can meet dogs that were socialised to associate other doogs and people with play and that can often result in them being the dog that sprints across the park to try and play with everyone and then gets themselves in trouble because not everyone wants to play with them. And then between 8 weeks - 6 months my main focus was on developing our relationship. One thing I did that I think really helped with this is that I used at least one of her meals every day for short little training games session, so she got her food through fun interactions with me. In this time period I was focusing our training on general manners; so starting foundation work for builing self control, learning to chill out in the home and outside, doorway manners, food manners, learning that when the lead is taken off she gets good stuff from me so the lead coming off is now a cue to focus on me (not to just buggar off), rewarding sticking with me, following me and focusing on when outside off lead. I did include some foundation training that was a bit more focused on future formal training but not a lot in her first few months. I tendend to just focus on learning her name, the recall cue, sit stay, fun puppy retrieves with all sorts of random items (with no formality just encourageing run out pick and then come back to with it for cuddles whilst she held the item) and fun very basic hunting of finding things close to me when she was out and then having a bit party. As I said, it is very personal to you and your dog, and I don't think their is a right or wrong order or timeframe. Just think about what your end goal as that will help you build a bit of a plan. Pay attention to the pups maturity levels to make sure you work that their pace and just enjoy the process! :)

[@Viewsonic61]

@@SpanielTrainingDiaries Hi, and thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to reply. That’s interesting what you say about socialising your dog and is probably the key along with the relationship between you and your dog as to how your dogs behaviour to training will develop in the future. Wish me luck and thanks again for the top tips. 👍

[@thedoglog4503]

Love it. Have you got a facebook page to follow?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

I don’t have a Facebook page unfortunately, but I’m so glad you enjoyed this video! 😊

[@thedoglog4503]

Fair enough. You are giving me confidence to start publishing my training videos. I have a few more of your vids to catch up on now though.

[@nathanmayhew1177]

Hi, this video is amazing very helpful too! I have a 7 month old border collie who randomly will just run off when we are playing fetch she’s mainly looking for squirrels but does seem to just like going for a run before coming back. Do you have any tips? We’ve used a long line but find we can’t play fetch very well and she will still run once she’s realised she’s slightly too far for us to stand on the line. She doesn’t go for long maybe a few mins and is then back playing. Any help would be really appreciated as we feel like we’ve tried everything. Thanks

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

Hi Nathan, I'm glad you found it helpful! So it's hard to advise online not knowing the full picture, but I would firstly question how much fetch you are playing with her? Ball games are great fun but doing too much fetch came be detrimental both physically and mentally. Physically because of the high speed impact it creates. Mentally because it releases adrenaline which inturn causes an increase in cortison. These are OK in short bursts, occasionally but repeated "throw it, chase it, catch it" behaviours results in our dogs being flooded with too much adrenaline which can lead to frantic behaviours and a reduction in impulse control. And over a long term period they can result in problematic behaviours such as lack of self control, difficulting switching off and general erratic behaviour. You may find that she is running off because she is struggling to cope with the increase in ardenaline in her body and is running to give herself a bit of a release as a coping mechanism. This is something Tia does if is is struggling to cope or if things have got too much. Particularly being a collie, I have read something previously that being a herding breed collies can find repetative fetch a littel more stressful than other breeds and you have to be careful to monitor for OCD behaviours. Longlines are great management tools to help whilst you are trying to teach new behaviours and develop new habits but they won't fix the issue. I would probably advise that you try and keep her engaged by playing a mix of games with her; maybe go and hide the balls for her to search out and find rather than throwing them or experiement with different tug toys. Collie often love the whip it game as they get to re-enact some of their natural herding behaviours by stalking the item. You can check out a link for whip it games here kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5O6d4mtp7xsp9k As well as that you more training games and activities when you are out as this will help you to keep her engaged with you and keep her using her brain which will be super important for a collie. I hope that helps slightly! :)

[@nathanmayhew1177]

Hi, thank you so much for replying! Yea we do play too much by the sound of it. We’ve been going to training classes but COVID has put a stop to that haha. Was playing so much fetch in the hopes of making her not interested in chasing the squirrels! I will definitely try those games/ exercises you suggested, I can see that helping! Thank you again!

[@jamiehancock3140]

Very impressed with your approach. Do you by any chance have a schedule that you work to? More than happy to pay for some advise if that's an option?

[@SpanielTrainingDiaries]

Thank you! I have a loose schedule that I work to as detailed planning doesn’t really suit my style. I have a whiteboard at home for all my dog related notes, so at the start of every month I map out a max of 6 key training focuses for each dog, then before we go out I look at the board to give me some inspiration for that session. After each session I put a mark next to the topics we’ve covered and that way I make sure that throughout the month I cover everything in a reasonably balanced manner. So at the moment Ivy has hunting, stop whistle, heelwork and directions as her main focuses for this month. If you are a detailed planner then Jo Lauren has a workbook that she has designed specifically with helping plan training sessions which accompanies her book. Here is a link to the workbook if you’re interested The Workbook: Force-Free Gundog Training: The Fundamentals For Success www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1527280047/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_W2EH3SZTZK9VBWQQMV3R I hope that helps.