Welcome. To dog agility training exercises, to do practically anything. In this articel series I'm going to show you a few training techniques and once you understand how to use these techniques you'll be able to teach your dog to do pretty much any trick or obedience command you want and not only that but you'll also learn how to avoid common problems like the classic. My dog only listens when I have a treat in my hand. These methods work for all breeds and all ages of dog. You can even use them on your cat, bird killer way a horse or house me. The training methods we're going to go over in the next couple of videos are lower reward and shaping. Lure reward or just alluring is where you take a treat stick it from the dog's nose and lure them into the position you want. It’s really simple and easy and that's the method I recommend for most dog training beginners. Shaping is where you wait for the dog to perform a tiny tiny step in the right direction and you reward each tiny step until eventually the dog is performing the desired trick.
Dog Agility Training Equipment
You can think of shaping as a guessing game where the dog is guessing what you want him to do. Shaping can be a little bit tougher to get used to than whirring but it has two benefits. Number one, that's how you get really cool impressive tricks and two, once they understand the game most dogs really love shaping. Unlike with a lot of other methods they're not being pushed or prompted to do something they're using their own brains to come up with their own ideas. dog agility training tips This results in an engaged enthusiastic dog shaping is really good for stubborn dogs who are harder to train with other methods. You’re gonna need a way to tell the dog the exact moment he does the thing you want. Especially if you're using shaping you need to be able to tell the dog exactly which of his guesses was correct. To do that you need a marker which is a quick distinct sound that tells the dog yes I like what you did your reward is coming. You can use a marker word like yes, or good, or you can use a clicker. I'm not gonna click this right now because my dog is watching and he'll freak out.
Why bother with a marker at all. Why not just hand the dog the treat when he does what you want. Clarity of communication my friends. Dogs can do a lot of behaviors in the space of like two seconds. By the time you have handed the treat to the dog for say touching a target with his nose he could have also looked away lift the paw backed up started barking. How does he know exactly which one of his behaviors earned the reward. With a marker to bridge the gap between the behavior and the reward the dog learns quicker doesn't get as frustrated and therefore you succeed faster. Now sure technically for you know the basic lure reward stuff you don't need a marker. You can teach your dog stuff like sit, stay, lie down, spin in a circle without a marker. I mean, I'd still use one especially if you eventually want to work on cooler tricks or more advanced obedience but hey it's your life do what you want.How long do I have to use the clicker forever. No common misconception actually the marker is just for the teaching phase of a new behavior. You use it just long enough for the dog to understand how the behavior works.
Once he knows the trick you don't have to use a clicker anymore. So no, you don't have to walk around with a clicker in your pocket for the rest of your life. I pretty much do like that's just me. So what is it about the sound of the marker with the clicker let the dogs like so much. Well nothing, there's nothing inherently special about the sound of this thing. So you got to take about five minutes to do what we in the business call charging the marker. This means teaching your dog that the sound of marker means that a reward is coming. First pick your marker, either an actual clicker or a word I use yes. But you can pick whatever you want as long as it's short. Get your dog in a quiet room with no distractions get a container of about 30 really small like pea sized treats. Click the clicker or so your market word and then immediately put a treat in the dog's face. You’re not waiting for any particular behavior at this point you're just creating the association between clicker and food.
Dog Agility Training Exercises
Use up all 30 treats and you have the basics of a charge marker and you're ready to start training. When you're in the beginning stages of teaching a new behavior, we'll use a lot of food rewards. Why food? because food is fast and easy to dish out, most dogs working thews ask me for it and you can get a lot of repetitions in in a row and therefore make fast progress. What foods should you use? whatever is going to keep your dog's interest. Some dogs especially puppies will work just fine for pieces of kibble, but most dogs will want something more interesting. Your best bet is something soft and chewy and whatever you use you should break into really small pieces. Your dog needs to be able to eat it in one bite and then quickly move on to the next repetition.Start in an environment with as few distractions. As possible somewhere that your dog won't have a hard time focusing.Over time and as your dog's understanding of the behavior develops you can start adding in more distractions like you start in your house and then you go in your back yard and then your street and in the park and then the dog bark it has to be a gradual shift in difficulty so like don't go straight from your living room to the dog park.
Keep training sessions short, if you're working with a puppy or maybe an adult dog who hasn't had much training and seems to get frustrated quickly. Keep your training sessions to two minutes tops with other dogs. You can try for five to ten minutes, always try to stop before the dog or you gets bored. You can do as many training sessions per day as you want three, five, ten, whatever just make sure you give your dog enough of a break in between each one. The number one rule of the marker. One mark or one click equals one reward in order for it to maintain its effectiveness ,the marker has to be followed by a treat every single time. So even if you make a mistake and you click at the wrong time you still have to give the dog the treats alright so that does it for our introduction. I hope you have found how to get started dog with training in this articel, and you can make starting fast.
