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TRAINING

• Bring/Drop
• Food Bowl
• Recall

I chose these three behaviors as the final ones to cover in this course because they help people and dogs live more safely together. Resource guarding often shows up in young puppies. Guarding an object from people is the easiest type of aggression to rehabilitate, and yet many dogs are given up or euthanized because of it, so I wanted to be sure to go over two easy tips to help prevent it in your puppy.

If you feel that there is any risk to you during these exercises, trust your instinct and contact a trainer to work with you in person.

Bring/Drop. If your puppy will bring you anything and drop it, guarding of objects pretty much disappears. The Food Bowl exercise that is next will cover the times when your puppy can’t actually bring the thing it is guarding, so we have all aspects covered.

My favorite way to teach drop is to start with an object that the puppy is interested in enough to carry, but is not totally crazy about. I’ll call it a “toy,” but it could be your shoe, a crumpled piece of paper, or even a frozen hot dog (but that is advanced). For this method to work, your puppy should be able to grab something and move with it in her mouth. She must also recognize that the sound of a clicker means that a treat is coming.

Start in a hallway or narrow piece of land outside, like a beach. Toss the toy or get someone to give it to her. As she grabs the toy, encourage her to run toward you by moving away from her down the hallway. She is not bringing you the toy at this point, she is trying to run past you. At about 3 feet (1 meter) before she gets to you, click.

• If she drops the toy, feed her some treats and then let her see you toss a few more treats about another meter or two away. Very casually grab the toy. If she turns back to you, feed her some more or toss the toy again.
• If she doesn’t drop the toy, move away from her, probably back the way she came from. When she is about to zoom past you again, click again and toss a treat. Repeat until she drops the toy.
• If she never drops the toy, then your treats are not yummy enough or the toy was too exciting, and you need to practice with a more boring toy. Get some better treats and do a little bribing trade, presenting the treats near the corner of her mouth.

Very soon, she will be running to you on purpose. Keep clicking just before she gets there. When she is reliably bringing it to you, wait to click until after she has dropped the toy. Do that for a while and then you can start to say “Bring It” as she is running for the toy and “Drop” just before she drops the toy anyway.

Continue clicking and treating for Drop a bit longer and then you can start to just have the toy toss itself be the reinforcement for dropping the toy. If she brings you something that’s not really a toy, reinforce by tossing a toy instead.

Tip: If you have a Building Blocks membership, check out the video on Drop. Look for “Drop It! How to Train a Fast, Reliable Drop.”

Variations:

• Instead of tossing the item, have her wait as you go set it down somewhere. Release her to go get it. Be sure that has picked it up before you give the Bring It cue. When this becomes reliable, start to hide the object, telling her to Find It after her release cue.
• Get her to bring you an empty food puzzle. When she drops it, praise her and show her that you are filling up the puzzle. Give it back to her as soon as possible.
• Practice in other locations, not just your hallway.
• Practice with many different objects, including food puzzles that still have treats inside, raw meaty bones (if you feed them), and frozen meat. Work your way up to a hot dog. Use reinforcers of equal or greater value than the item the dog is bringing. Do not punish your dog if he happens to eat any of these food items or chews on your stuff. Just change what YOU do and work up to it more slowly: for example, put the food in a container that the dog cannot access and have her bring that.

Note: In terms of over-excitement, searching for a toy is a much better way to exercise your dog than tossing the toy over and over. They evolved to search for a long period of time, but how often do you think they were supposed to sprint and catch prey, like rabbits?

Drop It can also be taught using a classical association, pairing the word “Drop” with treats, so that your dog can’t help but drop whatever he has to make room for your goodies. Here’s a video of Chirag Patel teaching Drop that way:

Every dog is different, so it’s good to know at least two ways to teach Drop. This is also covered in the Ahimsa Dog Training Manual.

Food Bowl. I like to teach puppies that when they see human feet approaching while they are eating from a food bowl or puzzle, they should look up because good stuff is probably coming. Just as with the rest of this course, I prefer to empower the dog: give your dog a behavior that has an effect on her environment rather than just dropping food into her bowl.

While it’s useful to drop high value treats into a dog’s bowl while she’s eating, it’s even more powerful to give her a chance to feel like she has some control over the appearance of those treats.

For the trainers among us, doing this in an operant way allows us to have a variable rate of reinforcement and persistent behavior. Classical counterconditioning then comes along for the ride.

• Start out with an empty bowl. Show it to your puppy. When she sniffs, she will look up after realizing it’s empty. Mark and reinforce by feeding in the bowl. I use a clicker as the marker, but it’s sometimes in the way, so you might want to use a word, like Yes. If you do use a clicker, be sure to click away from the dog, not right in her face.
• Gradually change what the puppy has to look away from to make it more realistic. Never make it harder than she can do. Set her up to be successful all the way, for error-free learning. Your puppy may need more steps than what I have given below or you may be able to skip some steps. Watch her carefully to learn how much you can change the situation at each step. If you change one thing to make something harder for her, then either change nothing else, or change something to make it easier for her to handle the first change successfully. If you see any freezing (even a tiny freeze) you have pushed too quickly.
• Start to lower the bowl to the floor (repeat until the bowl is all the way at the floor).
• Have a couple of pieces of kibble (dog food) in the bowl, so she may be eating longer before she looks up. Mark and reinforce by feeding her a treat, then lift up the bowl to above her head and put another couple of pieces in the bowl. We feed to the mouth so that human hands near the food are a good thing. Make it easier by starting higher up, gradually having the bowl lower and lower and eventually on the floor. If you feed raw, use some kibble for this anyway, so the food is relatively easy to look away from. If you have to bend over to get the bowl, it may help to squat down so that your chest is vertical, rather than bending at the waist.
• Repeat the exercise above with gradually more dog food in it, starting again with it up higher and working toward the ground. Ideally, she should be able to look away from a bowl that still has food in it.
• Repeat the exercise above with better and better food in the bowl, until she is looking away from very tasty food and getting even better food from your fingers. Make sure your treats are very high value to the dog, like canned food or cooked meat.
• Start at the top of the list again with one piece of kibble in a bowl on the floor. Now we will make it harder by adding movement of feet toward her bowl. Step back and then approach. As you approach, she will have finished the food and will be looking up. Mark the looking up and reinforce with a good treat to her mouth and drop a kibble in the bowl. Repeat, gradually working up to dropping really great food in the bowl, delivering even better food directly to her mouth.
• Repeat the previous exercise but pick up her bowl to put the food into it, still feeding her the first fabulous treat directly.
• Repeat the previous exercise but add more food so that you can walk farther away before returning.
• If you have a helper, have him/her set down the food and then you can approach after the dog has eaten some of the food. Mark and reinforce her for looking up.

Only work on the exercises above for a few minutes at a time. She should be able to eat her food in peace most of the time. 🙂 Take your time to work through the list.

Keep this behavior strong throughout her life. Occasionally (like once a month when she is young and once every several months when she is over 3 years old) walk near her while she is eating or chewing on a bone and then mark and reinforce looking up by feeding her a really fabulous treat. Then walk away.

Here’s an example of some of the steps above with a puppy at a shelter. She was going to be put to sleep for resource guarding and the staff of course did not want to do that. I was able to volunteer some time to help her with this issue. The training helped the staff see progress so that she was able to be put up for adoption.

She found a new home shortly thereafter. I made this (very long) video to share with family and they continued the training. You don’t have to watch the whole thing. 🙂 Note that I did not follow the steps above as carefully as I could have, so keep that in mind as you watch. There are some times during this that she stiffens and that means I went too quickly for her.

[vc_video link=”https://vimeo.com/135899579″]

Tip: If you have a Building Blocks membership, check out the video on Resource Guarding. Look for “Possession Aggression: How to Encourage Sharing with People.” Also look for the video on the Recall, called “Come Back! Teaching a Reliable Recall.”

Recall. We have already covered Touch (nose to hand targeting). The Touch cue is a great way to call your puppy. She can’t touch your hand without coming to you, so it’s automatically a recall. You can make this more official by adding a cue for the recall first, and then saying Touch to sort of translate what you mean and motivate the puppy to come your way. So you’d do this:

1. Say your puppy’s name to get her attention
2. If she didn’t give you attention, do something to get it, like go closer and make a kissing sound
3. Once you have your puppy’s attention, say your cue, like “Here” in an inviting way
4. Say Touch
5. Hold out your target hand
6. Click/treat for Touch

Another type of recall is the emergency recall. I use the cue Treat Party for this. I use the goofy cue of Treat Party because I want you to keep the parties coming, so that that cue stays strong, even if all else fails.

At least three times a day, take a full 30 seconds to reward your puppy for coming to you. Start in a quiet place where you have no treats on you, but they are available (in a cupboard, etc.). Out of the blue, say “Treat Party” and then run to the cupboard, and start the party. Some of the time the treats can be on you, but make sure that treats aren’t always present before the party begins. You can also use toys or chase games as part of your party, but aim for 30 seconds of fun. You should be a bit out of breath by the end!

Continue rehearsing treat party at least a few times a day for a long time, at least a few months and then from time to time throughout your dog’s life. As you feed or play with toys, say the cue/phrase over and over, like Treat Party, the whole time I’m tossing out treats on the floor. Be sure to cue Treat Party before she knows that you have treats, so the phrase predicts the party. Otherwise, the treats become the cue, not the Treat Party phrase that you are trying to teach.

Say the Treat Party cue only when your dog is definitely coming to you, and then repeat the cue during before each treat during the feeding (or playing) process. You can also say your regular recall cue, Here, first, and then when she is on her way, call out Treat Party and celebrate when she gets there. This helps strengthen your Here cue.

Make sure you also can remember to say the emergency cue in a real emergency. Practice in many different locations, but be sure it’s the right level of distraction. Set it up so that your dog will definitely come to you when you say Treat Party.

This socialization clip shows a Treat Party near the end:

Also check out the blog article on coming when called.

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