1.    How do you think your training philosophy differs from other dog trainers?

I’m not sure this differs much, but I believe dogs are different from each other. You have to get on the wavelength of the particular dog you’re dealing with. You have to understand the dog, know the dog, and let the dog know you. There aren’t going to be any that are exactly alike so that’s going to affect how you train them.

Always praise what you like first, and try to interrupt what you don’t like with the least amount of correction and no correction if possible – just change him to something else. Watch and get to know him. If you’re going to correct the dog for something, do it just once, not more than once a session. The correction needs to be a surprise. Never cause pain or fear when giving a correction. One good way to surprise a dog is for you to change direction while you’re walking the dog on a leash; you walk fast and turn around and the dog has to follow you. Without a warning, it’s less of a correction. Get to know the dog and evaluate and determine how much warning to give. Maybe you just need to say come on and go and give the verbal intervention, and the dog can avoid the correction by listening to you and responding quickly.

2.    What are the most typical problems you see in housetraining?

Not taking the dog out often enough, not clearing the scent of an accident, and giving punishment. Start out housetraining for a dog of any age by taking the dog outside at least once per hour when you’re home and awake, plus any time you see dog looking for a spot. Then as you get to know the dog and see how often dog needs to go, you may be able to decrease the frequency. But if you’re gone for hours, the dog’s body will have to catch up and he’ll need to go out more often when you’re home.

The only thing that I know of that you can be sure to eliminate odor of accident is a bacterial enzyme odor eliminator product, and you have to use it long enough. If you catch an indoor accident while it‘s still wet, using profuse amounts of undiluted clear vinegar will work, although you will smell vinegar for a couple of days. Punishment does not work and it creates complications; it creates submissive urination, it causes the dog to hide from you when he needs to go. He then won’t show you that he has to go. Dogs don’t understand what they’re being punished for when they go inside. If a dog starts to go inside, hustle him outside, but don’t punish him. If you can get him to finish outside and then praise him, you have victory! Praise is what can get the message across.

3. Adult dogs usually live at the shelter in kennels with cement floors on which they are supposed to do their business. What housetraining issues do these adult dogs tend to have?

The first thing to do with an adult shelter dog is to start with the dog outside before you even set foot in the house for the first time, or right after. Get the dog outside and encourage her to relieve and praise her for it. Do it often, more often than once an hour. Her scent will be out there, and you will reinforce her with praise. Try to rush her outside, and then praise, praise, praise. I think it’s true that some dogs have spent their whole lives outdoors and that may ruin them for housetraining, although it may be more genetic than just the experience. That’s especially true for an adult dog who had a home before going to the shelter. They may already have housetraining that just needs to be refreshed.

4. How do you get puppies off on the right foot for housetraining when they’re first brought home?
There are windows of opportunity to develop good housetraining habits in a puppy. If you fail to housetrain the puppy starting the minute the puppy arrives, it puts the puppy at a disadvantage that will continue to grow. Most dogs are not capable of adequate bowel and bladder control until they are about 4 months old. Complete housetraining is rarely accomplished in a weekend. The first and most important element is a good routine, a regular schedule. Commit to taking your puppy outside at regularly scheduled times so the puppy can count on those opportunities. Don’t let a puppy go without a potty break during the day for longer than the number of hours equaling the pup’s age in months plus one. An 8-week old puppy needs to go at least every three hours. Most people work for a full day, which can make housetraining difficult. Also, keep puppies in small areas, and don’t give them run of the whole house. Do this for any puppy or dog. A dog will use corners of the less frequently used rooms, so close off those areas

5. Toy breeds are notorious for having difficulty housetraining. How can you set them up for success?

If you don’t neuter a tiny male toy breed, you may never be able to housetrain him. You may never be able to leave some dogs alone in the whole house.  It’s ideal to neuter by one year of age. Some small dogs, particularly males, can be more difficult to housetrain because their concept of space is smaller. For a really small dog, the denning area, which they prefer not to soil, is large; for toy breeds even a small area is big enough and considered okay to go outside that area. They don’t feel the need to go far away to potty. A dog will happily use corners of less frequently used rooms, so close off those areas. Get the young puppy outside often, even more than once an hour, and encourage him to relieve and then praise him to the skies for it. Keep the puppy really close to you physically, in a positive way. This is your support to form good relationship with your dog. Housetraining is one of the first things you’ll do together, and you want to be really positive. Some people feel that they have to punish a dog for indoor accidents, but that doesn’t work; you have to teach the dog the right thing to do.
Kathy Diamond Davis is author of the Canine Behavior Series at www.veterinarypartner.com, the client education website of the Veterinary Information Network.

You know I am not opposed to treats entirely but what I am opposed to is many trainers and training methods today say you should only use treats and that the only type of correction should be a withholding of treats. To me, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as I want my dog to obey me out of this mutual kind of bond and respect we have not because I happen to be holding treats. Sometimes I will use treats to communicate an idea. For example, if I am teaching a dog to sit then maybe I will use a treat to guide his nose backwards which leads to a sitting position but the second he starts to understand it, I switch to just praise. I find there is a lot more teamwork built when there is mostly praise and it is not just treat based training. Anyone can teach their dog a trick with a treat but what I want is functional obedience – obedience you can use in your home, in your yard, on the street. Treats are not the best motivation for that but rather a healthy relationship based on this trust and teamwork and praise is the best way to accomplish that.

Ty Brown is an expert dog trainer, author, and speaker who specializes in obedience training, behavior modification, protection dog training, and narcotics dogs.  To learn more about Ty and the dog training services he offers, visit www.dogbehavioronline.com

There is a way I like to introduce two dogs and again, maybe to frame the proper way, I can explain what normally happens. Normally what people do is take their dogs that do not know each other and let them free and we let them meet each other. And who knows, maybe six times out of ten or seven times out of ten, nothing happens and they get along just fine. However, often that is not the case. Dogs don’t live by the same social structure we do and when I meet new people, I never immediately start fighting. With dogs, they can meet new dogs and it immediately turn into aggression. Even a dog you wouldn’t consider aggressive has buttons that can be pushed that will cause the dog to be aggressive.

The name of the game when introducing two dogs is control – control from the owners so that the dogs never get to experience anything that would be considered inappropriate such as aggression, such as pulling to get to the other dog. What I like to do is set up a situation. If it is just a casual meeting, I like to have my dog or the client’s dog, sit at my side and allow the other dog to come close while my dog continues to sit at my side. Then the other owner has their dog sit by their side. This accomplishes a couple of things. Number one – it’s practical that the dogs be by your side and not just pulling and going crazy. Number two, it puts the dog in a controlled frame of mind where the dog is thinking about the sitting, thinking about the teamwork. If you were to look inside a dogs mind, aggression is the absolute opposite of control – aggression is chaos, aggression is pure reaction. If you want to battle chaos, you have to have control and so first, I start out with the dog in this controlled frame of mind. Sometimes if I am nervous about a dog getting along with another dog, I will even do a minute or two of obedience work – sit, heel, down – so the dog is really focused on a controlled mindset and focused on the relationship we have with me being the leader. And once I can see that the dog is in a controlled mind set, now he is in a perfect mind set to meet another dog so I will allow them to come up to each other on leash and sniff at each other like dogs do. I allow them to do that for a minute then I will pull them away and try it again a few times until we can see that yes, the dogs are compatible, there isn’t going to be any fighting and at that point, the leashes can come off and the dogs can do their thing. They have shown that they don’t have a propensity to fight with each other. But if we were to do that without the control, maybe a dog that is under control meets a dog that is not under control and it is out of whack so where aggression might not have occurred in a controlled setting, in an uncontrolled setting it may. I like to make sure everyone is calm and under control before introductions.

Ty Brown is an expert dog trainer, author, and speaker who specializes in obedience training, behavior modification, protection dog training, and narcotics dogs.  To learn more about Ty and the dog training services he offers, visit www.dogbehavioronline.com

1. How do you think your training philosophy differs from other dog trainers?

I don’t train with food. It’s fine for training tricks, but food or a toy can work as a distractor if the dog is fearful in a certain situation. For basic training, by which I mean responses that can save your dog’s life such as come and down, I don’t want food involved. My training is based on the intense relationship between you and your dog. You want to build a positive relationship with your dog. Dogs are pack animals domesticated from wolves. When wolves transformed into different types of domesticated dogs, certain characteristics of the wolf were minimized or exaggerated. As such, domesticated dogs have the type of relationship with people in which they will follow you, protect you, take care of you, and do all the things wolves in a pack would do except eat you for lunch. For example, chase and kill were changed to chase and kiss. You get a similar mentality when you work on communication. Pay attention when your dog tries to communicate with you, as this is the ultimate goal of being with dogs. You and your dog can exchange thoughts in a private intense communication between a person and dog. Training is gentle, it’s not jerking the dog around, and it’s not using food: it’s based on pleasurable, intense communication.

2. You were recently in Paris with your service dog, Flash. What was the typical response to a service dog there? Do the French train their dogs the same way Americans do?

The French are intensely interested in dogs, although dogs are not particularly well trained there. They don’t have a concept of service dogs, although they understand guide dogs for the blind quite well. I’m not in a wheelchair, and that makes a service dog a bit more difficult to understand. However, at several museums, when they let us in it was the first time they’d had a service dog inside. All the museum staff helped out immensely. Unlike Americans, French people don’t race up and start petting your dog without asking as they do in America, yet people went out of their way to talk to us about our dog. I train my service dogs myself, which has given me deep insight into training that I didn’t have before, despite having run an obedience school for over 20 years. The first night we ate in a restaurant in Paris, the waiter put us at a tiny table near the kitchen door because he didn’t even see Flash, a border collie. As soon as he saw Flash, the waiter moved us to a larger table by the window with plenty of room for a dog. He brought Flash water in a champagne bucket. It’s fantastic when you’re treated that way. Some restaurants turned us away, but they were all popular and tiny.

3. How are people generally doing in terms of training our dogs?

People used to understand how important it is to train their dogs, but that doesn’t seem to be the case any more. In New York City where I live, dogs go everywhere – in the elevators, on the sidewalks, into the bank. There aren’t any drive-through banks in New York. Dogs have to have basic training to live here. The old ways of training were too harsh and rigid. You certainly can’t train a service dog with harsh methods. I see the dog as my partner, but I’m the senior partner. I know the bus could run us over and the dog doesn’t. All dogs, in and out of New York City, need solid basic commands like come and sit because it can save their lives by not letting them get hit by a car. That’s true of any environment, but particularly an urban one. Today, however, there seems to be a kind of permissiveness where people think a dog’s bad behavior is cute. People even let their kids rush up to pet dogs without asking permission, which can be dangerous for the child.

4. See Spot Sit: 101 Illustrated Tips for Training the Dog You Love is one of the best training books I’ve ever read. Why do you think it is so effective?

See Spot Sit reflects my growth as a trainer. Information is quick and simple these days. It’s the essential stuff. Because it’s simple illustrations with minimal copy – it’s just one tip per page in a 5 inch by 7 inch book – it’s quick, visual, and accessible. Cartooning is an integral part of it. I started using cartoons when I was teaching high school several years ago; I used a rabbit character that I’d draw on tests. Once I forgot to include the rabbit and the kids went on strike: no rabbit, no test. I understood the power of little drawings long ago. A lot of the training information is in the illustration as the drawings augment the text, they don’t just illustrate it. I’ve learned what to include and what to leave out for effectiveness. Someone once said “I love the boots” and missed the key to what was happening. So instead of showing someone next to the dog or the crate, you see hand signals and wrists to show position. The minimalist aspect of the drawing augments the ability to transmit information quickly and make it memorable. Elmore Leonard once said, “I leave out the part people skip.” That’s how I write books. I write the text and then I draw, and when I draw I change the text when I realize how much I can cut out because of the illustration. I can show a loose leash rather than say “hold the leash loosely.” The illustrations and short tips are much more memorable and useful than long text.

5. What’s the most common issue you see as a trainer?

It’s lack of sufficient exercise. It’s rare to find a problem where the basic source isn’t lack of exercise. Owning a dog has to be a family deal, but it isn’t a family deal when the dog isn’t getting enough exercise. I do training in short, fun bursts of 10 minutes, and exercise is the only thing that happens for more than 10 minutes. Dogs must get enough exercise. Training a dog enables a person to live in a way that’s good for both the person and the dog. I have border collies in Manhattan, and they have to be exercised appropriately. While I play with the dog, I also train. Training occurs while I’m doing something else that’s fun.

A professional dog trainer who ran an obedience school for over 20 years, Carol Lea Benjamin is author of over 25 books, including such topics as dog training, selecting dogs from the shelter, dog tricks, the Rachel Alexander and Dash mysteries featuring a dog trainer, and children’s books (including cartooning for kids). Her most recent book is an effective, concise training book titled See Spot Sit: 101 Illustrated Tips for Training the Dog You Love.

First let me explain where in my opinion where I think people are going wrong and that will help frame the answer in how to do it right. What often happens is people walking down the street and their dog sees a distraction and just starts to show aggression – you know, barking, going crazy and going after the other dog. The normal dog owner response is to start screaming ‘no, no, no!’ and tugging on the leash. What is going on in the dog’s mind that they are seeing this distraction and they are feeling those tugs on the leash and they are associating those tugs with that other dog. They are left in a state of mind to where they are associating any of those little tugs to the other dog and its building more frustration and more desire to get to that other dog or person because they are associating that uncomfortable feeling with that distraction.

Typically, when people are failing in their training efforts, it’s for three different reasons: tools, techniques and consistency. Often times it’s the wrong tools. For example, a harness teaches a dog to pull so it is counter effective. You need the right kind of tool and there are a number of tools that do work. A regular training collar is typically appropriate. If you have the right technique then typically, what it falls down to is the right technique and so the way I like to approach that type of problem is a technique that does make the aggression inappropriate but doesn’t leave the dog in a mental void to where they are associating any uncomfortableness or correction with that other dog.

So for example, I have a dog and we are walking down the street. I like to keep the leash nice and loose so I will teach the dog how to walk on a loose leash. If he sees another dog and he begins to show aggression, what I will do is immediately switch direction and give a firm but fair tug on the leash with a gentle ‘come on’ command. I don’t yell, I don’t scream, I don’t add any hecticness to the situation – I just simply go off in the other direction with a firm tug or two. What happens is that the dog gets the correction for the aggression – we immediately say that any aggression is inappropriate but in changing directions, the dog is looking elsewhere and the dog is not associating that correction with the other dog but with his misbehavior. Often in changing a dog’s perspective, all you have to do is change where they are looking so in doing that 180 degree about face, now the dog has had the negative response to the aggression and realizes that wasn’t any good. And sure enough, I will turn around again and if he shows the aggression again, a couple of firm tugs and turn again. I continue to do this and soon the dog realizes that every time he sees this other dog and shows aggression, he is turned in the opposite direction and has the negative response of a firm tug so he realizes that it’s probably better not to do that in the first place. And so, instead of exacerbating the problem by yelling and pulling, what I am doing is changing the dog’s frame of mind.

To help overcome this problem, I would continue to introduce other dogs and ’set up’ the situation. There is a term I use and it is kind of a sneaky term. It is called ‘canine entrapment’ and I don’t want to be mean or trick the dog or anything like that but life is distractions. Many trainers that work in distraction free zones and so that is where I work differently right from the beginning. From day one we are going to areas where there are distractions. One thing I love to use is a dog behind a fence. You go to any neighborhood and you can always find some house that has a dog just barking like crazy behind a fence – that’s where I go to train because for the dogs that I am training, that is a huge distraction. If my dog can be perfect there or perfect while my neighbor walks their dog down the street or perfect with another dog behind a fence, soon they understand there is a concept in place – aggression is not tolerated but there is a better way to live and when you walk by the handler’s side there is teamwork, there’s this feeling of camaraderie and its an excellent way to live. They also learn that the whole aggression thing is uncomfortable and they do not want to revisit that. So yes, distractions are key. Fences are perfect because you can always find a dog barking behind a fence and before, many of my clients would avoid that area but now, we are using it to our advantage. I’m saying you want your dog to be perfect everywhere, not just in a vacuum but in real life.
Ty Brown is an expert dog trainer, author, and speaker who specializes in obedience training, behavior modification, protection dog training, and narcotics dogs.  To learn more about Ty and the dog training services he offers, visit www.dogbehavioronline.com

All lot of people seem to think they need to address these bad behaviors – the dog is jumping, the dog is barking and they think they need to tell the dog ‘no’. What I like to do is give the dog something more productive to do. Often what I’ll do is teach the to ‘lay down’ and ’stay’ and then once the dog understands that then we will start to go towards that then we will start to have someone ring the doorbell. At that point, the dog is much more excited then normal when they hear the doorbell so often what I will do is keep the dog on a leash and a collar when we are practicing. When approaching the door, have the dog do their ‘lay down’ and if they are too excited, give them a little tug as a little bit of motivation to ‘lie down’ and ‘stay’  then I open the door. It’s often too much to ask to expect the dog to know what to do so you have to guide the dog and show the dog what is more appropriate then just barking.

As for when to take the leash off, I normally do is do it in stages. The first number of times we go through this the dog is on leash. Once the dog gets used to the idea that this is what we do instead of jumping on the guests we drop the leash but he is still wearing it, just dragging it to give him his freedom. If the dog decides not to do what is asked of him, I can still give him a little tug on the leash. Once the dog is doing that well, then what I will do is actually to what I call a ‘tab leash’ which is just a clip with maybe 18″ of light cotton rope attached to it and we will do it a number of times with that. Once the dog is doing perfect there, we will do it with no leash.

What most people do is put themselves in a situation where they cannot communicate with the dog besides shouting at it ‘no, no, no don’t do that!’. That never works but attaching something physical to the dog and giving a little tug now and then. This way you are attaching something physical to the words you’re using and puts you in a position where you don’t have to yell, you don’t have to scream, you can simply get the dog to lay down. Easier said then done, it does take repetition and does take a lot of work but doing it in those stages you can wean the dog off the use of the leash. Its sort of a Pavlovian response – the doorbell rings, the dog goes crazy, the doorbell rings, the dog goes crazy. Now what we are doing is reversing that response – the doorbell rings, the dog lays down. That becomes the natural behavior instead of the going crazy, jumping and barking.

Ty Brown is an expert dog trainer, author, and speaker who specializes in obedience training, behavior modification, protection dog training, and narcotics dogs.  To learn more about Ty and the dog training services he offers, visit www.dogbehavioronline.com