​Operant Conditioning is learning thru consequence (both rewards and punishments).  We learn that if we do one thing, something else will follow.   Science has repeatedly shown us that long term, rewards are more successful.  Study after study shows us this.  A Review of Dog Training Methods:  Welfare, Learning ability, and Current Standards, authored by  IJ Makowska, M.Sc., Ph.D. for the BCSPCA,  she demonstrates thru multiple studies and research just how important making the right choices in training are to a dog’s welfare.
 
I am going to use a simple example, flipping on a light switch and being rewarded with the light.    If we want that light to turn on then every time we must flip that switch to make it happen.  This is what we are teaching a dog with positive reinforcement.    We do not have to use aversives  such as shock collars  (or electric, static, whatever you want to call it), prong collars or even high pitched whistles.
 
How would this work, say,  if I wanted you to turn on the light but you didn’t know that was what I wanted?  Imagine that I  put you in a room and wait for you to turn the light on.  Then, every time you did something, but that something wasn’t turning on the light, you were punished.  You stand up “zap”.  You sit down “zap”.  You ask what I want “zap”.  This is positive punishment.    At what point would you become reactive to everything because nothing is working or simply shut down and give up?  How did you learn to flip the switch?  You saw someone, probably a parent, do it and then did it yourself and were rewarded with the light turning on or off.   This is positive reinforcement.
 
How simple is this to do?  When a dog is jumping they don’t KNOW this is the wrong behavior.  They just know it will get your attention.   So we choose the behavior we want them to do and then remove our attention from the jump and teach them that sitting gets them your attention.  The dog darts out the door getting freedom and a game of chase.  Wait, that’s not what you WANT them to do?  Again, we determine the wanted behavior, not darting out the door.  So first, we prevent the dart with a baby gate and/or leash and teach them that waiting while the door opens gets a reward.  Then we teach them that going thru the door on cue gets a reward.  Now the dog is waiting at the door instead of darting.  We can even teach them to turn on that light switch by stacking behaviors. 
 
Yes, this will take some time, especially if your dog has spent time learning the wrong behaviors. In the end, tho, your dog will be happier and less likely to develop behavior issues.  Using science and reward based training methods; this is how we should be teaching our dogs.  Teach Rover that he must do certain things in order to get that reward.  If he doesn’t do the behaviors that are required then he won’t get the reward.  With dogs we cannot explain this to them but we can teach them  by demonstrating that every time they make the right choice something good happens.  When they make the wrong choice they get nothing.  No attention, no yummy treats, no games to play, no snuggle time. 
 
Initially, we work on small, simple behaviors such as focus and sit to get rewards.  Then we make things a little harder.  Sitting and waiting in one place.   Add in coming when called.    Learning to choose the cooperative behavior in order to participate in the rewards of yummy treats, snuggle time, games of tug of war, going for fun walks. 
 

“I want to train my dog as a service dog.”
“I want to get a puppy to train as a service dog.”
“Can you certify my dog as a service dog?”
“I want my emotional support dog to be certified.”
“I wish my dog was a service dog.”
​
I probably hear some variation of the above several times a week.   Then I spend quite a bit of time explaining the law and practicalities of service dog training.    So here are a few truths.

“I want to train my dog as a service dog.” 
Odds are not good.  While any dog CAN be a service dog not every dog SHOULD be.  First, the adolescent or adult dog must be well socialized and trained already.  They need that solid foundation of socializing and experiencing a wide variety of people, places, things, noises, animals.  They must be able to tune out all of those things while performing specific tasks.  They must do this without barking, lunging, biting or soiling.  They also must be clean so must not mind being bathed on a regular basis. 

“I want to get a puppy to train as a service dog.” 
This can go well or it can go badly.  A dog’s brain develops until about age 2.  During that time their temperament can change quite a bit.  The happy, friendly puppy becomes a  reactive adolescent. Task training doesn’t typically begin until between 18 months and 2 years.  Even when you build the best foundation you may still have a dog that just cannot handle the stress of the job.  There goes years of planning and training out the window.  And remember, while the ADA  covers Service Dogs, Service Dogs in Training are covered by state laws.  These laws vary in how restrictive they are and in who can train and where the training can occur. 

“Can you certify my dog as a service dog?”
 From the 2010 Department of Justice Frequently Asked Questions about Service Animals and the ADA:
Q17. Does the ADA require that service animals be certified as service animals? A. No.  Covered entities may not require documentation, such as proof that the animal has been certified, trained, or licensed as a service animal, as a condition for entry.
Those certificates you see online and from some trainers are bogus.  I can test your dog and provide you with proof of passing that test (whether on basics, public access or tasks) but I will not certify your dog is a service dog.

“I want my emotional support dog to be certified.”
An Emotional Support Animal is covered under HUD, not the ADA.  You have  rights to housing and travel, subject to many restrictions.  The animal itself is not certified but a patient’s need for a specific animal is what is certified.  The only one who can do that certification is a Mental Health Care provider.  I do recommend training, especially if you plan to travel, but there are no requirements for training to have an Emotional Support Animal except under certain conditions, such as an airline may require proof of training to fly.  Do not assume the animal is welcome everywhere, not every housing falls under this law and airlines have their own rules regarding training, size and types of animals.  Do your research first.

“I wish my dog was a service dog.”
 Be careful what you wish for.  Life with a Service Dog isn’t always easy.  Many businesses don’t know or respect the law and will argue about your rights.  You not only have to think about your own needs but you also have to think about giving the dog an opportunity to relieve themselves, eat and drink.  Keeping them dry when it is raining, warm when it’s freezing and not letting them burn their pads on hot pavement.  People will stop you while you are trying to pick out groceries or new underwear, while you are filling out paperwork, talking on the phone, ordering food.  They will want to know what your disability is, in every gory detail, what tasks the dog does, how much the dog cost, how much training costs and finish by saying “I wish my dog could go everywhere with me”.  They will want to pet your dog, talk to your dog, call your dog and find ways to interact with your dog that will distract him from his job.  Some will even cuss and yell at you when you say “Please don’t, my dog is working.”

 
There is a lot more to having a Service Dog than just “taking your dog everywhere”.  You immediately become the center of attention.  You have to know your rights and your dog’s rights.  You have to know the law and be able to communicate it.  People do not like to admit they are wrong and once they tell you “sorry, no dogs, no exceptions” they often will defend that statement angrily to the point of calling law enforcement to have you removed.  Police will not enforce your rights as it is considered a civil matter.  You options are to leave and: move on, file an ADA grievance or go to the news and social media.  Staying and arguing, tho, is never advised.  I do, however, leave a card with the law and DOJ contact information.  I will follow up with something in writing advising them of the same thing.  

 As summer hits full heat, especially here in our desert, it may not safe to walk our dogs  as  outside energetic activities can be flat out dangerous.  This means boredom if they don't have enough mental stimulation to make up for it.  Some dogs become very destructive when bored, others may become depressed.  Here are  fun activities that can liven up a boring summer for Fido, keeping them mentally active.  #BoredDogs  #TooHotDogs #SummerAlternatives #FidoNeedsFun

​​I've had a horrible time the last week.  I'd like to share what happened because many of my clients are either dealing with fear and anxiety themselves or they have a fearful anxious dog.  I am sharing to put into words what I went thru this week.  I am hoping to understand it better myself from a behaviorist's point of view as well as from the point of view of the fearful client.  I am using myself as a clinical example of flooding. 

Like most people, I have a lot of fears.  Some small things (oh, spider, SPLAT) that I can keep going. I am able to manage most of them thru breathing techniques and biofeedback exercises.  .  A few, tho, are so severe that it can cause me to shut down.  Water is one.  If smell chlorine pool water or see an underwater scene on television I stop breathing and can start to panic.  Thankfully I am able to avoid anything deeper than a bathtub while living in the desert. 
 
Then there are the bees.  From a very early age I have been terrified of them.  It could be a result of getting stung several times as a child and hearing my mother say that I was probably allergic to them  (I'm not.)  To explain the severity of this fear, the depth of it, I'll tell a short story.  Many years ago hubby and I were sitting in the car, windows down, he in his Sailor dress whites.  A bee came in the passenger window and I shoved my six foot one inch, two hundred twenty pound husband thru the drivers window with me following. 

About 12 years ago I was on a project in an isolated area of the marine base.  As we were cleaning up our site a bee flew in my ear.  There was buzzing that felt like it was in my brain.  An awful, horrible, inescapable feeling of the bee jackhammering his way into my brain.  What was normally a half hour drive to the base hospital was much longer as I was stuck behind a 5 mph military caravan.  I was full on hysterical by the time I arrived at the ER.
 
Fast forward to this past Monday.  I came home from work and immediately took the dogs outside and then into the bathroom so they could drink from 'the magic fountain' (the sink).  Then I heard it.  At first I thought maybe the AC vent was closed and whistling air.  No.  I looked behind the shower curtain and there were thousands of bees in the tub and window. 
 
At this point the fear took over.  I had no peripheral vision, all I could see were bees.  Tears were flowing.  Breathing was that fast-clutch-fast breathing when you can't quite get air.   I was sweating and shaking.  I secured the bathroom and tried to ignore it.  Almost had myself convinced I could do it when a bee buzzed by my ear.  At that point i screamed my way into the bedroom, with 4 great danes, and locked us in, rolling a blanket and stuffing it under the door,  we were there until my husband came home.  I was huddled on the bed, with 4 danes, shaking and sobbing and trying desperately to breathe.  For 8 hours I was there until he came home. 

This has been repeated EVERY DAY THIS WEEK.  Typically we have a swarm in the Mesquite tree in the spring and I work hard to ignore them and not venture too close.  But this was EVERY FREAKING DAY.  Hundreds, thousands of bees.  Messages from neighbors telling me about the swarm.  Thankfully the dogs were patient and waited for hubby to get home as I think they realized I was checked out
 
Why am I telling you all of this?  Because somewhere in the fog of this week I thought about fearful dogs and how to use this fear in a way that helps me work with dogs.  One thing I know for sure, immersion and flooding are a VERY BAD WAY TO GO.  When my husband would yell at me, trying to tell me to get over it, well, that didn't work either.  When he'd ask "what do you want me to do" and expect a logical answer?  Yeah, I could not formulate a sentence that would make sense other than "GET RID OF THEM".   He realized there wasn't anything he could do but work on blocking the bee's access.  
 
It is easy now to look at it with the luxury of 20 20 hindsight and try to pinpoint what point I was over.   That was when I peaked behind the shower curtain and saw them. Where could I have tried to pull myself back, I identifying the moments that I might have been under threshold enough to respond in a logical way.. If I'd known they were there but hadn't seen them I might have been able to respond logically.  But even with that, as soon as the one buzzed by me it was the final straw.
  
By identifying those moments for myself it makes me more aware of when we need to stop in order to keep the dog below threshold.  That fine line of 'making a difference' and 'over threshold'.. 
 
Having the mesquite tree full of bees every spring has assisted in desensitizing me to where I could be calm with bees busily doing their work at a distance.  Being flooded with them in our bathroom...all of my progress feels like it has gone out the window with the bees.
 
I will use this, tho, to be a better behaviorist and trainer.  To be more aware of that line between counter conditioning and flooding, over threshold. 

How many times have you heard trainers talk about how a dog must "submit" or "be submissive" and then show you a dog that appears to be calm?  Some use yelling and/or body language to intimidate the dog, maybe with alpha rolls or they use tools such as prong collars and "dog training device" otherwise known as an electric shock collar or harsh leash corrections, often combined with a prong collar.  Sometimes they'll even step on the leash to hold the dogs head close to the ground. 
 
You won't see that at 29K9 Dog Training.  Why?  Because those dogs are not submissive, they are often terrified and shutting down.  They are so afraid of what is happening that they disappear into themselves until it is over.   So what happens to the dog?  Sometimes nothing.  But.  Science shows us, in study after study after study, some dating back over 50 years, that dogs who aggress on humans are usually trained using these fear based methods.  Because sometimes that dog becomes a ticking bomb.  And it isn't against the person who uses those techniques on them but someone else.  A child, a friend, a spouse.  Or it may be another animal. 
 
Yes, a prong collar may give immediate results.  I have seen it happen.  I even used them in my early training days.  Eventually, tho, my own dog, like many, became increasingly more reactive.  My own frustration and my dogs caused me to return to a different collar, a head halter, that allowed me to turn my dog away quickly, without correction, and redirect her to focus on me and reward it.  The difference was amazing.  Add in some counter conditioning and she started to associate the other dogs as a good thing for her.  This  method works very well. 
 
Why? Because we can't tell a dog "you are being corrected because you barked at that dog".  What often happens is that dog feels the correction and connects it not to their own behavior but to their handler and the other dog.  So soon the dog sees another dog and barks louder to tell the dog "go away or I am going to get punished!"  *YANK* and next time she starts barking and growling and lunging and *YANK* and next time responds sooner to a dog in her environment and more aggressively.  What worked initially becomes a nightmare for the dog.  And as humans we seem to be programmed to think "ok, lets increase the punishment to get the behavior we want" .   The dog, however, does not understand this.
 
Eighty percent of all aggression is fear based.  So teaching a dog by using fear is setting up a dog for failure.  How they handle their fear may be a ticking time bomb.  

​29K9 Dog Training Announces New Accreditation
June 21, 2017
 
Twentynine Palms – Locally owned 29K9 Dog Training announced today that owner Ronda Warywoda has completed the requirements for her Certificate from the University of Washington in Applied Animal Behavior.  She can carry the letters UW-AAB after her name to designate this.
 
Applied Animal Behavior combines evolutionary theory, biology and learning theory to diagnose and treat animal behavior issues in companion animals. For example, treating aggression towards other animals or humans; attention-seeking behaviors; fear and anxiety, phobias, separation anxiety, stranger anxiety; inappropriate elimination or marking behaviors; resource guarding; and socialization issues.
 
This will allow 29K9 Dog Training to take on some of the more advanced behavior cases, addressing them in ways that teach handler and animal the skills needed to move forward in their goals for their family pet.
 
 
About 29K9 Dog Training
 
Ronda Warywoda has been training in the Morongo Basin since 2009 and is authorized to train aboard the MCAGCC base.  She graduated from CATCH Dog Training Academy and mentors trainers from both CATCH and Animal Behavior College.  An AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator as well as a Therapy Pets Unlimited Evaluator, she brings experience and education, using science to provide the best opportunities for getting your pet on track.  Education without Intimidation.
 
 
To learn more, contact her at:
 
29K9 Dog Training
PO Box 1177
Twenynine Palms CA 92288
Phone: (760) 221.3272
ronda@29k9.net
www.29k9.net

We want training to be fun and engaging for both the handler and the dog.  Why?  Because then both enjoy the training and a bond is created.  It becomes their special time. 
 
Now, think about this.  You are told to do your work tasks but after they are completed you get nothing.  Not a thank you, not a paycheck, nothing.  No acknowledgement at all.  How would you feel?  Would you want to learn new tasks?  Would you want to go to work the next day? 
 
This is why we use paychecks, or rewards, when teaching new behaviors to our dogs.  Higher value initially and then phasing those out to utilize more life rewards.  When teaching sit they get a treat or toy, whatever they will work for.  Once they are sitting routinely on cue we phase those out and use praise, petting, letting them snuggle, their dinner, going outside.  They still get a “paycheck” but it is based on life rather than treats. 
 
This doesn’t mean treats should not be used anymore.  We all like that bonus the boss gives us for doing our job well, so do dogs.  Spend some time doing a little training refresher, bring out the every day treats (or even kibble) and alternate between praise and treats. This helps keep it fresh in their minds and they really do enjoy your attention.  It means more to them than the treats do, believe me. 
 
Be sure to end every session with something fun.  Big praise and petting, a little time with a toy or ball, a romp outside.  This helps cement the training, helping to retain it.  It also helps cement your bond, making him want to do and learn more.