Just One Touch

As we have said before, when our mom attends a dog training seminar, she always comes back with lots of new ideas that she wants to try on us. Any good trainer should do this, and when looking for a dog trainer, you should ask about their continuing education. However, as a dog trainer's dog, it's pretty annoying.

Mom just got back from the Association of Pet Dog Trainers annual dog conference (and received a new certification, yea!) with lots of new ideas for her classes and working with reactive dogs, which was the focus of this year's conference. Guess who's reactive in this house -- yup, me.

Kathy Sdao gave a talk about teaching dogs with a fear of people to become more comfortable approaching strangers. It begins with teaching "touch." This is a really good skill for reactive dogs because it gives us something to do instead of stare at the thing we are afraid of. My mom loves to teach focus, which means look at me instead of the scary thing, but touch is a more active reaction, and some dogs respond to it much better.

To teach "touch," you just put out your hand in front of your dog's nose. If your dog touches it, say "good" and give a treat. Repeat this til your dog is seeking out your hand all the time. This should be taught in a quiet environment that isn't stressful for your dog.

When he's doing that well, you start doing it in more distracting environments. Then, when your dog sees something scary and you say "touch," he knows to turn away from the scary thing and touch your hand. He gets rewarded and is happy. This begins to create a positive association. (You should never have your dog touch someone else. That will just increase his fright. The touch should always be you.)

My mom has never taught me this because she has taught me lots of other things instead, but since learning about this new "transfer touch" technique, she has decided to renew her interest in touch. So I'm practicing that now. I'm really smart so I learn new behaviors fast. When she starts teaching me the "transfer touch" stuff, I will tell you what it's like.

I hope it's not too scary! Love, Muggsy