Training Our Old English Sheepdogs.

Our Theory.

HOW DOGS LEARN.

Dogs learn by repeating behaviour which THEY find rewarding.
This includes bad habits!
'Reward' to a dog doesn't necessarily mean food!

EXAMPLE
Our puppy steals the clothes from the washing line.  His reward comes when we appear to retrieve the washing.  He thinks this is a great game, to run around picking up washing and ends up with a game of chase, as we dash around the garden.
The puppy has learned that when he wants us to go out into the garden for a game of chase he need only steal some washing and we appear.  Our recall is great, he thinks, he is training us well!

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Dogs learn in 'situ'.
They associate a particular event (good or bad) or command with that place.

Our Method.

We try to make training fun for our dogs.
We encourage and reward them for good behaviour,
so that they want to repeat it.
We appreciate that each dog is different, we find out what 'motivates' them and use this to reward good behaviour.
Our reward must be instant so there can be no confusion as to which action is being rewarded.

EXAMPLE
When our dogs have to wear the dreaded e-collar we make sure that it is a good experience for them, so that they want to put it on.
People are so surprised to see our dogs put one on by themselves!
Even puppy Lukass liked to wear one, (after an operation)
the only thing he couldn't manage was to fasten the clip!

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We don't allow commands to be ignored.  If a dog starts to do this then it becomes hit and miss if THEY feel like responding.
They have been allowed to decide!
This is unreliable and unpredictable, so we go back to basic training for that command.

We ignore bad behaviour, as far as possible!  (Sometimes a little distraction does the trick.)
We do not use choke chains, slip leads or any other type of collar that may
tighten around the neck.
  We do not smack or hit, or use any other type of violence.

Correcting Bad Habits.

Once a bad habit has been learned it is difficult to 'undo' the behaviour.

OUR METHOD

To stop the bad habit from happening, HA HA!
It is difficult for a while but it can be done.
The next stage is to introduce something more rewarding to retrain into a good habit!
Training to stop bad habits takes a lot of extra time and patience but the investment does pay off!

EXAMPLE
Oscar, our young male dog, decided that when he went out into the garden last thing at night he would no longer come in to bed.  Why should he when there were so many better things to do, after all the rabbits and hedgehog were out playing!
We allowed this to happen for far too long.
Firstly, we had to stop the bad habit from happening.
At bedtime Oscar went round the garden on the lead, he was therefore not able to ignore the command to come in.
Before we went out each night we hid a treat in his bed (Oscar is very food motivated!).  The treat was always something special which he doesn't normally get, like a small piece of roast beef or cheese or liver.
The treat was his reward for coming in.
It wasn't too long before Oscar was able to go out without the lead at night!

Teaching New Commands

We always teach the action first.
Without any contact with the dog.
Once they can do the action we introduce the command for it as they actually do the action.
It's no good asking a dog to sit when he doesn't know what the word means!

EXAMPLE
A dog who has been taught to sit by pushing or tapping his backside down, will always wait for a tap on the backside before he sits.
 The command for 'sit' has inadvertently become a tap on the backside and not the word 'sit'.

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Once our dog understands a command we then use it in as many different locations as we can.  Otherwise they will only associate that command with that particular place.
Likewise, if we have just taught a new command in one place we do not then teach another (different) command in the same place.  It would only confuse them.

Hands

Our hands are very important to our dogs and it is very easy to accidentally get things wrong.
Our hands must be our dogs "friends". They must not fear our hands.
If they fear our hands it may make them unapproachable and therefore unpredictable.  
A dog who has had what HE SEES as threatening behaviour from our hands will back off ..... so when we use our hands to beckon him, groom him, or examine him, it will confuse, he won't know what to expect.  
Also, a nervous dog in this situation may bite if he is afraid and is feeling trapped.
Threatening behaviour to a dog could be a tap on the nose, a holding of the muzzle ..... who knows ? !!

For this reason we prefer to teach all our commands using the hands off approach. They then learn to respect our hands and trust them.  
We can now use our hands for signals and commands, (especially important for Lukass our deaf puppy). And they will watch us more carefully paying greater attention.

So, our hands our our dogs friend, they won't bite them !!
Our hands control the food, the leader of the pack controls the food !
The leader will provide the food and give the pack food .....when he is ready.
Finally, we have respect on all fronts, as leaders of our pack.
(See also our page on feedtime.)

  

The "No" Word !

How many times a day do we use the word "No", and what does it mean ?
What does it mean to a dog ?
Did we teach them the "No" command ?
We've maybe caught them doing something they shouldn't be, and used their name and then a No on the end.
If they have learned their name, they may turn and look at us, so now we have their attention.  And then we use the word No !!
.....what does this word mean ???

A neighbour once commented that our dog must think his name is "Barney NO" !!  How many times a day did we use it.... out of exasperation, and why wasn't our dog learning ? !!!

The answer is simple, we spend hours training and teaching basic commands, and then we don't use them and we expect our dogs to understand everything we say.  All our dogs see is an angry face and that "no" word again, they say oh heck ..... I'm off !!
If they happen to have something in their mouth, (possibly something dangerous, or our prized possession !), they will take it with them.

We try our best not to use the NO word, instead we go back to basics.
If we feel the need for the NO word, we must look at the situation and think how best to get the dog to do what WE want him to do, in as short a time possible.
Depending on the situation and the commands the dog has already learned we are left with various options .....

• use his name for attention, then a command, such as...come, or sit (the off or leave command and 'back' are particularly useful for our dogs to know). If we think he will ignore the command .... we don't use it !

• use a command which we would normally use under different circumstances, one where the dog is having fun, so will want to obey. For example an agility command of "this way", will always work for Barney !

• ignore the situation totally

• "pretend" to ignore the situation, but really use the "distraction" technique.

The distraction technique

This really depends on the individual dog, as to what will and won't work, so it always needs a bit of quick thinking.
Sometimes it's enough to walk away from the situation, and the dog will follow, a pack leader would do this.
Other times we need to be more inventive ......

Do something out of the ordinary, unexpected, something which will make the dog curious enough to come and want to investigate !

.....bend down, pretend we've found something on the ground,
....... run into the house, using a door which we don't normally use,
.......get out a ball and start playing with it by ourselves,

Whatever we do, we don't look at the dog, and we do it moving in the opposite direction to the dog ....... so the dog comes to us.....
We are the pack leader !!

We have lots more to write about our experiences of training our
Old English Sheepdogs.
All our dogs are rescue dogs and so we have not had the luxury of starting our training at six or eight weeks old.
Many rescue dogs are deprived of vital socialisation at an early age.
All this makes training more difficult, making it a longer process.
We will never have perfect dogs!
Because they are so big and bouncy we do need control!
 

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We have listed here some of the subjects we aim to cover:
(This takes time please be patient!)

Training a Blind dog.
Training a Deaf dog.
Training a whistle recall.
Training a Diabetic dog.
Fun and games including agility.
Pulling on the lead!
Stealing food.
Getting out of the car.
Teaching the recall.
The Emergency STOP!
How not to allow your commands to be ignored!
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In the meantime if you require training help, one to one / home visits please contact us via the bobbytails post office on the home page.
Remember, training begins at home !

See a few of our dogs old training certificates and pictures.