Lucky Dog Lessons

by Brandon McMillan

  Training Tips to Remember

  Safety First. The supply list for this technique includes a harness. It’s important to use one when training the COME command. A choke chain, pinch collar, martingale, or even a regular flat collar is not recommended for this technique. Any collar that lies directly on your dog’s throat could pose a danger to her trachea if you have to pull the long lead when she’s running in the opposite direction. This is a rare instance in which I recommend doing as I say and not as I do. If you watch Lucky Dog, you may have seen me teach this technique on dogs wearing martingale or flat collars. I’ve had decades of experience training dogs—enough to develop an expert sense of when to pull a leash and how much pressure to apply. When you’re working with such a long leash and fewer years of experience, though, it would be all too easy to accidently overcorrect and injure your dog. To eliminate that possibility, I recommend sticking with a harness.

  Start with the Fewest Possible Distractions. Using this technique to train any dog—especially a puppy—with a lot of distractions around is difficult. I recommend doing the first few days totally distraction-free. After that, you can start adding in distractive elements. This way you give your dog a chance to grasp the concept before taking her to the next level. You don’t want that brain of hers working too fast because that’s what can cause it to shut down. Slow and steady wins the race.

  Make Yourself Look and Sound Inviting. When teaching a dog to COME, the last thing you want to do is use a stern voice. Dogs generally equate that with being in trouble—and most know better than to come running to receive a punishment. Use a light, inviting voice. If need be, you can kneel down while giving the command. I usually don’t like doing that, but sometimes we need to use all the tools we have at our disposal in the early stages of training a command—and then make up for them later. As your dog learns to come through conditioning, slowly go back to your normal voice and give the command from a standing position. Remember: If your dog is not coming when called, never yell at her. If you turn the COME command into a negative thing, you may prevent your dog from wanting to learn it at all.

  Food Is a Dog’s Currency. Be sure your dog is hungry when you start to work. I highly recommend training this command at mealtimes so your dog is motivated to return to you. Training a dog who just ate is kind of like offering a minimum-wage job to a millionaire. Motivation drops dramatically once most dogs’ bellies are full.

  Keep in mind that when teaching the COME command, you’re in competition with every squirrel, kid, sound, and smell around. Since food is money to a dog, have multiple denominations ready to compete with any distraction. This will keep your dog’s attention squarely on you. Use your hottest bait only if absolutely needed. Also keep in mind when praising and rewarding that a longer recall deserves heavier praise and better rewards. If your dog successfully responds to the COME command at twenty feet, reward her at a level 5. If she responds at fifty feet, reward her at a level 10. Use your dog’s absolute favorite treats only when she’s performing at a top-notch level. In other words, if your dog is a bacon lover, give her a piece only if she comes to you when called from a far distance and through a ton of distractions.

  And while we’re on the subject of compensation, remember the lottery system we talked about in Chapter 3. As you taper down on how many rewards you give, it’s still vital to reward the first and last successful effort your dog makes when learning any command. That first reward gets your dog’s mind in gear to train. After that, you can randomly give rewards throughout the session, keeping your dog guessing about which time she’s going to get the prize. At the end of the session, always give a reward. This leaves a good impression of the command and will make your dog eager and willing to work the next time you train. This is an important rule to follow because your eventual goal is to wean your dog off the treats so she won’t be completely dependent on them.

  Use Toys. Remember that your dog is a prey-driven animal, and toys are the best way to bring that instinct out in her. Toys are often a better training tool than food when training recall because they squeak and get the attention of your dog even when she’s distracted—which makes them basically a distraction from a distraction. I like using both food and toys, but it’s a trial-and-error process to find out what works best for the dog.

  Don’t Give Too Much Freedom. I want to make one thing very clear: not all dogs are meant to be off-leash dogs! I can’t stress this strongly enough. This is the unknown with every dog I work with because I can’t know if a dog will be good off-leash until I start training for it. Even a dog with a good COME command may not have a reliable recall in an open field—because that’s where the rules change. As you train, you’ll have to make the decision about whether your dog can be safe off-leash, and I urge you to err on the side of caution—anything short of 100 percent recall is not enough. Keep in mind that young puppies are rarely up to off-leash freedom. Any dog with a wandering eye who hasn’t truly mastered bringing her focus to you on command is also a significant risk. Neither of these things means your dog won’t ever learn this technique, but they do mean the open wilderness needs to stay off-limits for now.

  The bottom line is that this final step of the recall command is advanced, and many dogs won’t graduate to that stage ever, let alone in a week. Proceed with caution.

  Right at Home

  I trained Leah with a long leash for several days, and in the end she was able to show me she could be trusted 100 percent to return each time she heard the COME command. When she met her new family, Leah seemed to instinctively know that they were hers. We took her for a long walk in the hills so she could demonstrate her off-leash skills, and she ran alongside each of them in turn—Mom, Dad, and their two young boys. When I left her that day, Leah was curled up beside them, tired from her hike and secure in her forever home. To this day I get pics and videos of the family hiking together in the hills and feedback about how much responsibility the kids have learned through having a dog. Making a placement like that is my personal equivalent of hitting a home run.

  10

  HEEL

  One of the joys of having a dog is taking walks together—unless your dog pulls your arm nearly out of its socket or trips you up every time you try. The HEEL command teaches a dog to walk beside you, matching your pace, without plowing ahead or lagging behind. I often meet dog owners who are so accustomed to push-me, pull-me walks they’re not even sure if a side-by-side stroll is possible, but it is. Any dog can learn to HEEL.

  If you have a small- or medium-size dog, the HEEL is a convenience and a fail-safe for keeping your dog beside you when you need him to be. But if you have a big dog, this command is an absolute necessity. There are few experiences more stressful than trying to walk a dog you can’t handle. And too often, dogs who don’t learn to HEEL end up not getting the exercise they need—which makes them all the more crazy when they do get put on the end of a leash. It’s a vicious cycle that can lead to an out-of-control, pent-up dog and a frustrated, unhappy owner.

  When I train a dog to work in a therapeutic setting or to be a service dog for a disabled veteran, I have to know he will HEEL every single time he’s asked without fail. This was especially important for Sandy, a dog I rescued and trained to assist a brave young marine who lost both of his legs in an IED blast in Afghanistan. Back in the United States, he received prosthetics and began the long, difficult process of relearning to walk. A well-trained service dog had the potential to make his transition a little easier.

  Courtesy of Litton Syndications, Inc.

  Meet Sandy. In my line of work, I meet a lot of dogs who’ve been beaten down by their time in animal shelters. Many withdraw or become depressed. But when I met two-year-old Sandy in an LA shelter, my gut told me something very different had happened to this golden retriever during his stay. Sandy had been turned in after his owner passed away. This was a pedigreed dog who’d had a very easy life before his change of fortune. You could see it in his manner—he wa
s out of shape, a little pampered, maybe even a little lazy. He’d been taken out of his Beverly Hills home and placed in a cell, and he didn’t know why. Rather than causing him to psychologically retreat, though, Sandy’s experience in the shelter seemed to have ignited a slow burn inside him. He had developed an edge, and he’d drawn on all the strength and fire he had within him to get through his ordeal. Instead of losing confidence, he seemed to have gained it. When he looked at me, I could see that this was a dog with drive.

  Even though I hadn’t even assessed his skills yet, I knew a dog with that unique quality would be eager to work and learn new things—it was all I needed to know to decide he was a potential candidate to train as a service dog. My gut told me Sandy was the dog I’d been waiting for—a dog to place in a very special forever home. Sandy’s new owner would respect the inner strength hard times had brought out in this dog. Tim is a young man who was digging deep to overcome his own hardships.

  I love training dogs and helping them find their forever homes, but training a dog like Sandy to be a service dog for a man like Tim—that’s something I live for.

  It was going to take a lot of work, but I knew that while Sandy and I were training in California, Tim would be working even harder on the other coast, learning to better balance and walk with his prosthetic legs and figuring out how to approach his new life as a disabled veteran.

  Teaching the HEEL

  The HEEL command is a must for every dog, but it can be one of the more frustrating commands to train, especially if you’re a novice dog owner working with a big, powerful, or high-energy dog. I’m going to share two methods here—one that works best for big dogs and one that’s better for smaller dogs. If you need extra guidance, you’ll find a number of ways to customize it for your dog’s unique challenges in the tips section at the end of the chapter.

  Big-Dog Technique

  First things first, you’ll need:

  •Some really attractive treats, and you’ll need to train this command when your dog is hungry. Ideally, you want him to be hungry enough to be motivated, but not so hungry he’s ravenous and unable to focus.

  •A four- or six-foot leash

  Step 1. Hold a treat in your right hand and position your dog on your left side. (You can swap sides if you like, but traditionally dogs are walked on the left.) The leash will be in your left hand coiled up so the dog has just a little slack. Hold the treat in your right fist with a closed hand about six inches from your dog’s snout.

  Hold a treat in your right hand and position your dog on your left side.

  Step 2. Begin walking at a normal pace and say HEEL. Most dogs will naturally start jumping up and mouthing at that treat in your closed hand. This is completely normal, but your goal is to keep your hand closed and wait your dog out till he stops, so get ready to endure a little slobber for a good cause. Most dogs stop after ten seconds. Some take a little longer. Whatever the case, wait your dog out, and when he stops this behavior, he’ll be walking perfectly for a few seconds before he starts jumping and mouthing again. The trick is in the timing; you need to praise and treat your dog during that short interval when he has stopped mouthing and is walking normally. Like most animals, dogs are trial-and-error creatures, so they’ll quickly learn they get rewarded when they stop mouthing and walk at your speed. Do this over and over, and your dog will mouth less and walk normally for longer periods of time. Your goal is to add a couple of seconds of good walking behavior every time you have a training session.

  Step 3. It won’t be too hard for your dog to figure out that walking straight ahead alongside you is earning rewards, but a proper HEEL has to mean more than that. Your dog has to make the association between the command and sticking by your side no matter which way you go. In order to start teaching this more complex understanding of the command, start mixing up your walking pattern, turning left or right, doing an about-face, and moving in ways your dog can’t predict. As you make a turn, hold that leash in your left hand close to your hip so your dog doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room and give the HEEL command again. Your goal is to keep your dog moving at your left side as you go. Be patient. This is a complicated concept, but your dog will get it with steady practice.

  Step 4. You don’t want a dog who constantly requires food to do the things you want, so once your dog has gained an understanding of the command, it’s time to start the process of weaning him away from getting a food reward every time. Here’s how to do it: Start by going back to Step 1, but have a treat in your hand only eight of ten times. The two times you don’t have a treat, heavily praise your dog and let him know what a good job he did. Always make sure that both the first and the final time in a session are paid with a treat. You do not want to end a session without giving a reward—that will leave a lasting impression with your dog and might impact his motivation level the next time you work with him. Your goal is to slowly use fewer treats over the course of a week until you eliminate them completely.

  Step 5. In addition to weaning your dog from receiving a treat each time he correctly obeys the HEEL, you also need to help him adjust to heeling without your hand in front of his snout. Over the course of the week, begin moving your hand a little closer to a normal position each day. You started at about six inches from your dog’s snout, so it’ll take a few days to bring that right hand back to resting at your right side. Keep in mind, though, that your dog has been relying on that hand as a signal, so if he falters at all with the command, give him a little extra clarity and motivation by putting your hand back in front of him.

  Small-Dog Technique

  If you have a small dog, it’s not practical or comfortable for you to be constantly bending down while teaching the HEEL command. And it’s not effective, either, since you want your dog to be focused on the treat at first, so it needs to be close. To make things easier on both of you, you can use an inexpensive training tool called a lure stick. Long before I started using these sticks for dogs, I used them to train big cats like tigers for commercials and movies. A good rule of thumb in that kind of training is that you don’t want to feed a tiger with your hand unless you don’t mind losing it! Any tiger treat—think big cuts of red meat—goes on the end of a lure stick, and that keeps the trainer’s hands a safe distance away.

  When you use a lure stick for teaching the HEEL command, it’ll bridge the gap between your hand and the dog’s snout.

  Step 1. Position your dog at your left side and hold his leash coiled in your left hand so there’s just a little slack. Hold the lure stick in your right hand and attach a dog treat to the end.

  Step 2. Now comes the tricky part. Start walking at a normal pace and hold that treat on the lure stick a few inches in front of and above your dog’s snout, but don’t let him grab it. If your dog lunges for the treat, lift it out of reach, pull back on the leash to stop him from lunging, and keep walking. Keep repeating. Eventually, your dog will end up just walking beside you—even if just for a few seconds—without lunging or jumping for the treat. At that moment, say “Good HEEL,” and give him the reward. Do this repeatedly and your dog will soon figure out that he gets a reward when he stops jumping and walks at your pace. Once he grasps the concept, start waiting for another second or two each time before giving him the treat.

  A lure stick is a useful, inexpensive tool for teaching the HEEL command to a small dog.

  Once your dog masters these first two steps, jump to Step 3 above and follow the remaining instructions for training this command. At the last step, you’ll be phasing out the lure stick instead of just readjusting your hand position, but the logistics are just the same.

  Training Tips to Remember

  Narrow the Options. If your dog has a hard time grasping the HEEL command, make it easier for him by giving him fewer prospects for roaming. At the Lucky Dog Ranch, I do this by setting up a temporary barrier about two feet from the wall of the training yard, creating a corridor that keeps dogs next to me—even before they understand the HEEL co
mmand. At home, you can do the same, using a row of folding chairs or card tables turned on their sides. As your dog starts to grasp the command, move that barrier back to three feet, and then four. Eventually you can remove it altogether.

  If your dog has a hard time grasping the HEEL command, use a temporary barrier to create a corridor. This gives him fewer opportunities to roam.

  Teach Your Dog Not to Crowd You. Some dogs just want to be close to you—even on a walk. If your dog has a habit of leaning in or getting underfoot, you’ll want to make it clear that the HEEL command means walking beside you, not on top of or beneath you. To teach your dog to walk politely beside you, you’ll need to make a temporary adjustment to your own gait. Start with your dog walking next to you on your left. When he starts to crowd, straighten your left leg and step it out in front of him , basically taking one very wide, awkward step. This movement will give your dog a light bump and push him out a few inches from your side. Say HEEL at the same moment you claim that space so your dog starts making an association between walking next to you and the command. Continue to repeat this process until your dog gets the hint that walking beside you is great, but crowding up against you just doesn’t work. Be sure to praise him when he’s walking in the correct place so he understands what he has to do to get this command right.

  If your dog starts to crowd you, straighten your left leg, step it out in front of him, and give him a light bump to push him a few inches from your side. Say HEEL at the same moment you claim that space.