Videos

Videos

Chickens:
It is a popular belief within the training community that if you can train a chicken you can training anything else.

In the video above: I have first trained the hen to peck the two bowling pins in order of colour, regardless of their place or position. In the second part of the video I have trained the hen to only pick up the tiger.

Sometimes in certain situations dogs need to wear a muzzle for the safety of them selves and others around them. Although a common belief is that muzzle are cruel or that dogs will hate them; if taught well you can teach your dog that wearing a muzzle is like wearing a collar. In this video I demonstrate with Spook the “London Border Collie” one way you can teach your dog to wear a muzzle without hating it.

In this video the hen has been taught to peck only the blue target. She has been taught that when it disappears she should not just peck any of the other colours and even if tempted. In this video she has to wait a period of time before the blue target is placed back.

The hens are taught all this by using a signal which communicates to them that something they have just done has earned them a reward and we know that behaviour that is rewarded will occur more often. No choke chains, smacking, shouting... and we can still get reliable behaviour fast!

I see so many dogs like this where they are labelled “stubborn” or “dominant”. What do these labels actually mean? In this video we see a dog who doesn’t want to get into the bath. He may not like baths and maybe no one has taught him what they would like him to do in that situation. So instead of fight with him I teach him what I would like him to do and with a few minutes of work I am able to modify his behaviour and influence his emotional state about being in the bath tub.

Do you say "Good Dog" or the like when you train your dog? Have you thought about what it might means to your dog? Many people say something like "Good Girl / Boy" to their dog to communicate that something the dog has just done was good, (liked by the owner). Most often we will give our dog some kind of reward (food, praise, fuss etc...) at the same time or after we say "good dog". If our dog always hears "Good Dog" after they get the reward, could "good dog" then not mean to your dog that all the good stuff has finished; Where as, if you say "Good Dog" first, as soon as the dog does something you like, then "good dog" starts to communicate to your dog why s/he is getting rewarded and therefore become more meaningful?

Other Animals:

Training with a variety of other animals.

Here I teach Jack to touch a target when present in order to earn some food. He learns that he can’t mug me for the food but he can earn it by doing something for it. I can then use the target to move Jack by holding it in various locations for him to move towards and touch. You can see Jacks head move side to side while me makes a choice to either try and mug me or touch the target. Teaching without force.