Luring a dog behaviour
Luring a dog behaviour is a dog training technique to get your pet to do something, without having to push him around or use a lead. This method is highly effective to teach dogs basic commands in just a few minutes. Luring a dog behaviour is the best technique for beginners because your pet will happily follow you. It doesn’t require a lot of skill, although some practice will improve your efficiency. This method was popularized by renowned dog trainer Dr. Ian Dunbar and is one of the best positive techniques to train a family pet dog. It is even easy enough for most kids to try with their canine friend. Once you become comfortable using this dog training method move on to something more advance, like Capturing and Shaping. These will give your more flexibility to train advance behaviours. |
Shaping
When you’re luring, make sure that you click the appropriate muscle movements! Don’t click when the dog is standing still. If you are teaching your puppy to sit, click as his legs fold. If you are working on “Spin,” click as your puppy takes steps in the turn, not when your puppy has stopped spinning and is standing stationary in front of you.
Shaping dog behaviour is a training technique that builds on Capturing.
It is an advanced method because it requires the trainer to pay attention to the dog’s movements and have excellent timing when rewarding him. It is also a higher-level training system because the result is a complex dog command. The nice thing about it is that it breaks down the complex behaviour in smaller, easily achievable parts for the dog/trainer team to succeed.
Capturing
Capturing a dog behaviour is the best training method to use with your pet. It requires the animal to “think” about the situation and it uses only behaviours freely offered by your canine friend. It also
depends upon your patience and skill…
This method is based on the concept of operant conditioning, is how animals make an association between their own behaviour and a consequence. In this case the consequence will be a reward.
For this technique, you wait for your hound to do the desired
behaviour and then instantly reward it. The key is to have great
timing, be very consistent and repeat until your dog starts doing the behaviour as soon as he sees you.
Capturing a dog behaviour is how most people, without realizing it, tech their pets to sit for them to place the food bowl on the floor. They wait until the dog is sitting, and only then they lower the food bowl for the dog to it.
Linking exercises
It is vitally important that you teach yourself to link things together and to look at thinks from a dog’s point of view. By breaking exercises into segments for training we are making sure that the dog understands every set part of the end exercise.
If the exercises are to be performed with enthusiasm and to maintain the want, the dog needs to see each section as a stepping stone leading to the conditioned response of the next step that we need. The ability to link without causing anticipation is the sign of a good dog trainer. Toys, play and the techniques that we have dealt with to achieve ‘the want’ will help you to learn how to link.
Keeping the enthusiasm bubbling and the dog’s full attention on you will help to make sure that the dog puts things together in the way that you want him to. If you do not maintain full attention, then the dog will miss the next signal and therefore the link. If you wish to keep your dog’s full attention you must learn to give yours to the dog. This is often difficult if you are receiving instructions, but if you watch the best handlers, they never ignore their dogs at any point, even at the end of an exercise. If they are demonstrating with a dog, they will give him a release word before turning to the audience.
Therefore, the dog learns unless told to finish, there is always something interesting about to happen and he is motivated to keep his attention on the handler.
If you are distracted it is not unreasonable to expect the dog to be distracted to. The more this can happen, the less likely you can maintain a link between exercises or even segments of an exercise.
Overall, linking is also about joining parts of exercises and incorporating static basic routines into on the move action. For example, take a static taught left turn and put it into fluid heel work in such a way that the dog can understand, then execute the turn with precision and confidence. This again can be taught with your training aids, guiding and linking each part together over-emphasising moves to make it obvious to the dog. Always leaving the dog wanting more, not switched off or lethargic with boredom or confusion.
