Animal language – at Bliss Woods Farm in Freeport, Maine

Putting “Go Sniff!” into your reinforcement toolbox

I deliver and control “go sniff”opportunities much like I control food treats. I give “go sniff” to reinforce my dogs for paying attention to me.

If your dog loves to sniff, stop viewing this as a problem! The interest in sniffing around isn’t just a “distractions,” it’s a very affordable (free!) reinforcement that you can harness and deliver to reinforce behaviors that you like.

How? You put the opportunity to “go sniff!” on cue, and then deliver it, regularly, generously, as a reward for behaviors that you like. There is one little trick to it though, and the trick is that your dog needs to know and trust that you are going to deliver these “sniff” opportunities. Imagine if your dog was starving and didn’t know that you were going to feed him. That’s the sort of behavior you might get from a dog who needs to sniff and doesn’t know that you are going to give him all the sniff he needs.

I’d been doing giving my dogs “go sniff” opportunities for quite a while, before I started to really understand what was happening and what a gold mine of reinforcement I now had at my disposal. My eye-popping awakening came at an AKC rally and obedience run-through event, held in a huge barn/indoor arena. The facility owner told me they regularly had horses in there and “normally, we keep chickens in the corner.” They might as well have built the whole facility out of hotdogs, as far as my dog was concerned! My young dog was much too excited to eat treats, and so I settled him on his mat and watched competitor after competitor walk in with distracted, scent aroused dogs, take a look around and leave, saying things like, “not today!” and “I don’t think so!”

I started to warm up my dog. I gave him a sit cue, and then rewarded it as he had hoped, with a limited sniff opportunity.

Whenever I deliver a “sniff” reinforcement, I deliver it in bite size pieces, just as I do with hotdogs. My dog is on a six foot leash and I remain stationary until he’s done sniffing that limited area, and looks up at me for his next cue and reinforcement opportunity.

I always ask for a stationary behavior before delivering sniff reinforcement, to help make it really clear, that he’s getting sniff as a reward, so we heeled up to each aromatic corner of the barn. I delivered a “sit” cue, and walked around my dog, and then rewarded with “okay, sniff!” I stand in one spot, holding his six foot and let him sniff til satiated. When he looks at me, yay, off we go to the next corner, where I ask for some behavior ( “sit/down/stand” ), then reward with “go sniff!or whatever trick I want, then head to his mat for a food treat. Earning “sniff” makes it much easier for my dog to appreciate the value of earning “food.” When you are trying to feed a dog who wants to sniff but can’t, your food is worth nothing. Adding “go sniff” to your toolbox makes your food more valuable!

But with my hundred pound Czech bred German Shepherd, the cost of food reinforcements can be substantial, and there I was, discovering that all I had a literally limitless supply of completely free, non-fattening reinforcement!

Previously, I had been using “sniff” opportunities to teach loose leash walking. I used telephone poles and fire hydrants, along with a little food in between, which resulted in a somewhat variable delivery of reinforcement to nice leash walking behavior. It’s important to make a clear delineation between the end of cued performance and the beginning of the reinforcement opportunity, so I always ask for a stationary behavior, or at least some hand targets, before I deliver “sniff!” We w heel, walk trott, and come to a halt near a potentially smelly spot. Fire hydrant! Today, I might cue another few behaviors, maybe sit pretty, hand targets and then reward with “go sniff!”

Head halter training makes it much easier to put “go sniff” on cue, while on a harness, it might be difficult to encourage your dog with his head off the ground, he might be sniff grazing constantly, and when that is the case, sniffing opportunities are often reinforcing the dog for dragging people on the leash. Head halters allow me to deliver “sniff” opportunities to reinforce behaviors I love. See my head halter playlist for more information on that. (see https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1E6379E57F518AF0 ).

But even if you have a tiny dog who doesn’t need a head halter, you can teach your dog to respond to sniff reinforcement the same way they respond to hotdog reinforcement. Rather than ignoring or pestering your dog when he is sniffing around, you need to anticipate his interest and start controlling and delivering “sniff” opportunities the same way you control and deliver food: intentionally, not accidentally, and immediately after behaviors that you LIKE. Here’s a video of me doing that with Tigerlily quite a long time ago: https://youtu.be/fcgM4Bxb20k

As time has gone by, my dog has learned to glance towards things he would like to sniff, and then he look back at me, hoping I will give him an opportunity to earn the sniff. When I let him off-leash, I often say, “okay, go sniff!” and I think of those times as being his “sniff-meal” times, similar to the way he experiences food-meal times. He doesn’t ALWAYS have to work for sniffing reinforcement!

But when you use sniff as reinforcement, it means you really need to pay attention to your dog. You need your dog to trust that you understand what they want, and you will deliver. When your dog trusts you, they can ignore smelly sniffy stuff the same way they can ignore a bowl of meat on the floor, confident that you are going to deliver, and they don’t need to steal it.

Whole Dog Camp Lead Trainer Jenny Ruth Yasi, BFA, major in Behavior Science and Character Development, is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT-KA) and Fear Free Certified Professional (FFCP Trainer),a Certified Control Unleashed Instructor (CCUI), and a Certified Trick Dog Instructor (CTDI). She sits on the Ethics and Legislative Committees of the Association of Professional Dog Trainers.

Neutering my German Shepherd

I’m going to do it. Actually (remembering my childhood, where our family actually gelded our own pony, and it was common in those days to do that, maybe it still is, with elastic bands) I’m not going to do it, but my veterinarian is going to do it. She’s also going to do a gastropexy while she is at it, hopefully protecting him from torsion/bloat risk.

It’s hard to decide to neuter a dog. With Tigerlily, I waited til she was 3 years old. She was a rare breed (barbet) and in spite of how shy and prey driven she was, how she was really smaller than her siblings, I held onto that dumb desire to maybe breed her til she was three years old. She had a pretty miserable spaying procedure. Poor Tiger. I slept with her, holding a hot water bottle on her incision that night, and that helped. I wished I had spayed her earlier. Surgery doesn’t get easier as they get older.

M’Ocean is 3 years old too now. I am getting him neutered because I am realizing, I never want to breed him. I guess it takes me 3 years to realize that. Too many people use shock/prong/choke on these dogs and I don’t have a long list of people I would trust who want a GSD puppy. Also, a shock collar to teach him to avoid sexy coyotes seems like a worse training plan than neutering. As Denise Fenzi said, “If someone told me I could never eat another meal again, and there was a way to get rid of my craving for food, it seems like a no-brainer.”

M’Ocean is fully mature. 94 lbs. He’s basically a very confident assertive funny and friendly dog. I hate to do invasive things, but being a dog owner is invasive. Leash walking is invasive. The dog/human symbiotic relationship is as invasive as the hills. That dog has already left the doghouse. We’ve domesticated and changed dogs and we continue to do that.

It’s weird. Weird to have dogs who really feel like they are part of the family. My dogs feel like they are humans, kinda. They seem to believe I am their mom, or their Guru. They worship me, kinda. They aren’t looking to start another family. Well… my spayed older dog Bee is DEFINITELY not looking to start another family, but if I let M’Ocean spend a few days out in the woods this week, especially if I left bowls of food, probably he would go start another family, unless the male coyotes killed him first. But he’s living a good life amongst the humans, and in general he seems satisfied and well adapted to this domesticated dog arrangement.

I’ll let you know how it goes, and if neutering him changes anything in our lives, in good or bad ways. It’s going to cost me maybe $1000.00 which is just one more aspect of the ordeal. I really don’t like doing it, but after thinking it through, our risk versus benefit analysis, neutering him feels like the more responsible, safe, smart thing to do. And then next year, when we are hiking the Appalachian trail, I won’t have to worry quite so much about the dangerous ways sex hormones can influence coyote and dog behavior.

Resource Guarding, part one

“Resource guarding” is aggression that occurs around a dog’s possessions. The possession might be a food dish, dog bone, a soft space on the couch, or it could even be YOU. I once had a guest dog who would find a recently cleaned spot on the rug, and he would resource guard THAT! It’s the opposite of what we want, which is a relaxed attitude, a dog who isn’t worried about anything.

Resource guarding is the dog saying “Stay away!” It might mean stay away from my bone, my pups, my corner of the room, my human. It’s one of the most common behavioral problems I see, but fortunately one that is highly responsive to training.

First off: Why do dogs do this? Like almost all aggression, resource guarding typically starts as insecurity, and a lack of confidence, a dog who can’t predict what’s going to happen with a resource. Over time the dog can come up with his own plan for controlling resources, and this can develop into increasing aggression. Some dogs might be genetically more prone to this. I saw a puppy once that was scary aggressive, resource guarding at 16 weeks, and I was told euthanized by 6 months. Something was wrong with that pup. But that is very rare. Far more typically, resource guarding is triggered by the environment, regardless of genetics. Resource guarding is almost always a learned behavior. The dog has learned to act aggressively, because it allows them to control access to limited valuable resources.

This is why trying to pick up and control all potential triggers often fails. You can’t eliminate every possible resource in the environment. When you limit some resources, you’re making every other resource in the environment seem more important, MORE valuable, and this has potential to escalate things a dog may choose to guard. We will never be “done” with our mission to prevent development of resource guarding in all of our dogs. Behavioral health requires a sense of resource security throughout the lifespan.

When you’ve flooded your environment with other resources, the stinky spot on the rug doesn’t stand out so much. So that’s one way of approaching the problem. Rather than handing out one ball in a group of 6 dogs, dump out 24 balls. Begin with balls just laying there, don’t throw them right off the bat! If it looks like one dog is experiencing a ball shortage, dump out MORE balls. The idea is to have so many balls, no dog needs to worry about balls. Ignore the balls, don’t touch the balls, let the dogs do what they want. Add more balls as necessary. Do the same if you pass out dog bones or treats. I remember spending $30 on 12 dog bones once, but it was super worthwhile!

I’ve seen dogs learn how to relax, again and again, in resource flooded environments. The resource guarder will likely collect items: maybe six tennis balls, plus two bones and a rag, but then they start to settle down and feel foolish because none of the other dogs cares a bit about what they’ve got. All the other dogs have what they need and they aren’t bothering the resource guarder. What does this tell you about the world?! I don’t know, but maybe something!

These ideas are not necessarily a prescription, but reflective of experiences I’ve had with dogs who stay with me. As an old friend used to say to me when talking about beekeeping, “you need to think like a bee!” The same thing is true regarding resource guarding in dogs. We have to think of how we would feel if someone came and took our iphone out of our hands! Fortunately, dogs don’t care about iphones!