March 14th, 2005
In part one of Pit Bull Training – Myth vs. Reality we discussed finding your dogs motivation and using it to make training a positive and relaxing experience for both you and your dog.
In part two we’re going to take a look at how to start training specific behaviors using positive training methods and your dogs motivator.
If you haven’t found your dogs motivation yet, you will need to do so before using the information in this article.
Pit Bull Training 101 – Training the Sit Using Positive Methods
Teaching your dog how to sit has many advantages most dog owners simply don’t see or never even thought about.
For instance, if your dog likes to jump on people teaching them how to sit and wait for you or your guest to pet them goes a long way to stopping the annoying jumping behavior.
In order for a dog to learn the sit properly you must first:
1. Start in a quiet area without any distractions. The quieter the better.
2. Know your dogs motivator. If you don’t know this scroll down to part one to find out how to find it.
3. Stay relaxed and patient throughout the entire process.
Now that you are in a quiet area and you have your dogs attention by showing them their motivator you are going to lure them into the sit position.
You do this by:
1. Showing your dog the toy, ball, treat.
2. Lure them close to you with the motivator.
3. As they come in close lift the motivator up and move it slightly back.
4. The motivator (treat, ball, toy) should be directly over their head at this point with them looking up.
5. Now take one step forward while at the same time keeping your dogs head looking up.
6. They should scoot back and sit naturally at this point.
If they don’t sit try it again.
The goal is to have them tilt their head back far enough to cause their butt to go down to the floor. If you do this correctly they will sit without much fuss.
As soon as they sit reward them by dropping the toy, treat or ball so they can catch it. Then praise them with a gentle, “that’s good” or a “good boy/girl.” You can pet them if they like that better.
Rewarding them as soon as their bottom touches the ground is the most important part of this entire process.
Don’t get crazy and act like you won the lottery but don’t act like nothing happened either. The idea is to make it crystal clear to them that sitting means:
1. They get their motivator and…
2. They are praised and get your positive attention.
If they do not sit. Do nothing. Do not give them their reward and do not correct them either verbally or physically.
Some dogs will scoot back on their bottoms instead of sitting. Lure them back to you and repeat the steps above until they sit.
IMPORTANT – IMPORTANT
I can not stress enough how important it is for you to reward them as soon as their bottom hits the ground. Remember to reward them as quickly as possible when they give you the behavior you asked them for. This goes for all behaviors you will teach your dog.
Repeat this exercise for several days. Do not say “sit” at this point. Walk them through the steps and reward them. Then praise them for a job well done.
After they start offering you the behavior (which is the goal of this type of training) then you can put the word, “Sit” in there. Show them the toy and as they start to sit say the word, “Sit” then reward as soon as their bottom hits the ground.
As time passes start adding distractions. TV, another dog, kids, people, etc…
It’s very important you do not go to fast. Work up to high distractions slowly and always end each session on a positive note.
For instance, if you introduce a new distraction and they fail to sit every time. Remove the distraction ask them to sit and reward them.
Then stop the session and simply have fun!
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Have a great week!
Best Regards,
Jason Mann and the Terrible Two (Angel and Honey)
The Most Complete Pit Bull Informational Site Online
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March 8th, 2005
Today I would like to share with you what I have learned about Pit Bull training and why the books that have been written on the subject are mostly junk.
Pit Bulls are a hot topic these days. You’ll be hard pressed to find a nice article or story about them anywhere. Recently they were banned from Ontario (yes, another blunder in the world of common sense) and more areas are considering the same.
On that note, people are also coming along hoping to cash in on their popularity. Writing ebooks and crappy books that are so vague and general you could substitue Pit Bull or German Shepherd and the book would read the same.
In the end these books share general training information with a few (very few I might add) Pit Bull specific concepts in the mix to make it “appear” like a Pit Bull training manual.
STOP. Read this and then make up your own mind.
Okay with that said let’s get started…
Pit Bull Training 101
The thing about Pit Bulls is, they are smart. Some are extremely smart, but as whole the breed was blessed with intelligence. Once you think about it, they were bred to fight and if you’ve done your homework they didn’t just run out and try and kill another dog.
No, a lot of them wrestle and have moves they put on their opponents. They use their brains and learn from experience how to fight. While I hate dog fighting with a passion, I am glad this has rubbed off into modern dogs. Giving them the ability to use their noodles and make decisions based on experiences.
Which leads me to the most important thing you will ever read, hear, or be told about Pit Bull training…
…find what motivates your dog and make every training session a positive experience and you will have a highly trained Pit Bull.
I can not over emphasize those two points enough. Once you find out what gets your dog super excited you will get their attention easily. This makes training fun for both you and your dog.
You must make every single training experience positive or you risk ruining your dog. It’s really that simple.
Always allow them to do something right before stopping. Do not correct them and quit. They will remember the correction not the behavior they did right before the correction. They think in the moment and bad experiences stick with them like super glue to your fingers.
I’d like to share with you a personal story. A story that I am in no way proud of, it’s not horrible, but it could have been.
When Angel (my oldest at 4 years of age now) was 4 months old I hired a private trainer to help me learn how to train her.
He was a very nice man, preacher, drove a school bus, and was knowledgable about dog training. The first day he pulled out a prong collar, explained it, and told me we would be using it. I was naive and frankly she was kind of out of control so I agreed.
He showed me how to put it on correctly then he attached the leash and demonstrated a correction while teaching Angel to focus on him.
He corrected her so hard she yelped!
I was not happy and made it very clear to him that would not happen again or I’d do more than give him grief.
He apologized but something very important happened that moment.
From that moment on every time he would pull intot he drive Angel would run and hide.
One harsh correction sent my dog into panic mode and damaged her chances of training success.
Thankfully over time we corrected that but it still lingered with Angel. She wasn’t excited to be training she did it because she had to.
That went on for four weeks until the contract ran out. During that time I was experimenting with different training methods. I was mostly trying positive training or what they call “marker training.”
Then one day I took Angels favorite toy (a baseball, any ball worked but she LOVES baseballs) and asked her to sit. She sat down instantly.
I asked her to down, again, down in seconds.
I asked her to sit again, up into the sit in record time.
Then I tossed her the ball.
Eureka!
From that moment on the collar and the leash were never used again for training. I re-trained the sit, down, come, and heel using a tennis ball.
Her heel is more solid, her sit is unshakable, her down is super strong, and her recall is 95% reliable. Which is better than most dogs for sure.
I have since found Honey’s motivator (a tug rope) and trained her to sit, down, come, and heel as well. Her recall is 98% reliable and the rest are great, except the heel. She still has trouble but hey, no one’s perfect! :o)
The moral of this story should be clear, one bad day nearly ruined Angel for good. It took months of work to re-build our bond and trust. I let it happen and she knew that.
I might sound crazy, but unless you were there you have no idea how badly that messed her up. I was sure training would be hard and it was until I found out how to use what motivated her to make training fun and positive.
Would you like to see the girls in living color?
Here are some vids I shot last summer of the girls working the spring pole, playing at the park and one of Angel’s off-lead heel in the front yard (pay attention at the end, you’ll see where I hide the ball to get her attention.)
To view the video’s visit: http://imageevent.com/jmann4/angel
Watch Angel do a solid off-lead heel by going to:
http://imageevent.com/jmann4/training
Note: I apologize in advance for the bad narration and poor camera work. :o)
I can not cover this topic in one sitting so this will subject be broken up into several installments.
So keep your eyes peeled for the next installment of Pit Bull Training – Myth vs. Reality coming soon.
Best Regards,
Jason Mann & The Gruesome Twosome (Angel and Honey)
Pit Bull Lovers – The Most Complete Pit Bull Site Online
Categories: Pit Bull Blog |
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