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The Education of Candy – Entry #13

Friday, September 9th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Eleven

Introduction to off-leash: Combines all the previous lessons. Most of the work on this is done at home, with the leash on. The primary commands are “come” and “no.” To work on this, I dropped the leash while Candy and I strolled around the backyard, watching the birds or inspecting the grass and the bushes, Candy dragging the leash behind her. I gave her the “come” command to get her to go with me, and “no” if she got too far away. Gene suggested fifteen feet as a good perimeter. Inside fifteen feet was fine, outside got a correction and a “no.”

Obedience Lesson Twelve

Off leash in the real world. Gene gave me a red nylon 30-foot leash, which I attached to Candy’s everyday collar. She still wore and dragged the short leash on her choke collar, so I could correct her if need be. The object here was to go for walks around the neighborhood, on jogging paths, across the fields, with Candy going with me, within that fifteen foot perimeter. She was off-leash, in the sense that I was no longer holding the leash, but she still had a measure of safety, because I could always step on the 30-foot leash to stop her, if need be. If she needed to be corrected, I could walk toward her on the long leash until I got to the short leash, and give her a correction.

Candy’s first formal lessons were now over. She had become a friendly, willing and trained dog. From the timid, scared, extremely fearful dog we had brought home, she had become an easy, loving and confident companion. Because of her first fifteen months in a kennel, she will probably never be completely unfazed by noises and strange human events, but she now has the tools to handle them. Does she have more to learn? Yes. As Gene said, “If you train a dog for 903 days, on the 904th day, there will still be more to learn.”

I will forever be grateful to Gene Lonsway. He made a different dog of Candy, and taught me a lot about myself, as well. As I write this last entry, Candy is lying on the floor in my office…calm, and a companion.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #12

Monday, August 29th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Nine

“Come.” Our work sessions with Candy were done on the patio around Gene’s fenced pool, where it was easy to drop the leash, and know Candy was not going to be distracted and chase a squirrel. In the “Come” lesson, we left the six-foot leash on, and I would walk some distance away, and call “come!” If she did not come immediately, I would correct her with the leash, then coax her to come to me, and praise her lavishly for having obeyed. No treats involved…just verbal praise. Gene’s mantra for this lesson was expressed in the letters C-C-C-P: Command, Correct, Coax, and Praise. While he was talking specifically about the “come” command, I felt it was a pretty good capsule view of Gene’s whole teaching method.

Obedience Lesson Ten

Cease and Desist immediately. The commands here are “No,” “Quit” and “Hush.” They are introduced with a low level of difficulty, but with the leash on, so the dog can be corrected if she is doing something wrong, like chewing your wife’s best sandals. The dog is expected to Cease and Desist IMMEDIATELY. This has obvious usefulness for anyone wanting to share a house with a dog. Gene made a game of the lessons, praising Candy extravagantly when she did as commanded.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #11

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Eight

The “down.” Now, I learned the real-world use of those liver treats Gene had told me about in our first lesson. Candy had learned to love the treats. To introduce the “down,” Gene had me walk with her on my left, stop, and say “down, “ at the same time I held a liver treat in front of her nose, where she could not miss the smell, then lowered the treat to the ground and swept my hand out in front of her, on the ground. Candy naturally followed the treat down and forward. Voila! She was “down.” I gave her the treat. After a half dozen or so repeats, Gene had me do it without the treat. By now, it was instinctive for Candy to follow my hand, so she lay down, even without the treat as a reward.

Now, we combined the “down” with a “stay.” Candy quickly learned to lie down, and stay. Practicing in the backyard, I would put her in a down-stay, for fifteen minutes or more. At the start of the stay, she would watch me intently, waiting for me to release her. Eventually, when I didn’t, she would roll over on her back and wiggle, to scratch her back. Sometimes, she would doze off. No matter, she was learning to stay where she was placed. Little by little, we increased the time of a down-stay…a very useful command out in the real world, or at home when you have company.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #10

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Six

The “Stay” command. Once the “sit” is learned, the next step is a “stay.” Candy takes to this command quickly. As I have mentioned, she is a calm and submissive dog, so the idea that I might want her to stay in one place is no problem. She takes to it immediately, staying in a “sit” while I move around her, holding onto the leash in order to correct her if she starts to get up. She doesn’t. I am able to immediately move out to the end of the leash, and circle her. Over the next week, we worked on the “sit-stay” at home, in the backyard, with good success.

Obedience Lesson Seven

Diversity and Distractions. Gene created a series of distractions while Candy was in a stay, to try to get her to move out of the stay. When she did, he gave her a correction. She quickly learned that “stay” was a must. Once in it, she was not to move until released. Little by little, Candy was learning to accomplish commands that she would do in real life. Next: “Down.”

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The Education of Candy – Entry #9

Thursday, August 11th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Five

In the course of all these weekly lessons, Candy is becoming a more civilized (rehabilitated?) dog. She walks well at heel on our daily walks. Waste bins, parked cars, sewer grates no longer terrify her. We walk the same route every day, and she becomes familiar with all the sights and sounds. When something occurs – tree trimmers working alongside the road with power saws – she is still wary, but she doesn’t freak out, either. We do as Gene says: “lower the difficulty;” in this case, it means crossing to the other side of the street from the men in trees.

I try to keep introducing new experiences. Some stores, like Pet Smart, are happy to have customers bring their vaccinated and leashed dogs into the store, and wander up and down their aisles with you while you shop. Stores that handle food – restaurants, grocery stores, fast food places – are not so tolerant. Good familiarization for shy dogs.

This week’s lesson is the first one that uses an actual verbal command, “sit.” The previous “sit” lesson was all done by action, not by a command. Now, Gene adds a small correction if Candy doesn’t sit on command. First, the command, “sit,” spoken calmly, and not like a parade-ground order. If she doesn’t sit, a tug on the leash and choke collar, and the command, “no, sit.” This is repeated as many times as it takes for the dog to comprehend that she is going to be corrected each time she fails to obey. To my amazement, Candy gets it right away. It gets tougher: she is expected to sit immediately on the command. If she doesn’t, she gets a “no, sit,” and a quick correction with the leash. Gene explains that what you want is for the dog to react at once to the command, not after two or three seconds.

Each of the lessons that Gene teaches come with an understanding that I will go home and practice with Candy over the next week. Gene always asks to see what Candy has learned in the past week…like a professor checking your homework. If I have misunderstood something, or am doing it wrong, he corrects me, too…without the choke collar, of course.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #8

Monday, August 1st, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Three

With this lesson, Candy began leash training in earnest. While she would walk fairly well on the “Gentle Leader” device, she did still pull me from time to time. The good news was that she had slowly lost her fear of the choke collar, and was willing to have it on, without shying away from it. Gene emphasized that “resistance is futile,” and that the dog must learn that when the leash begins to get tight, she must do something to stop it, and that means stopping whatever behavior you are trying to correct.

Gene also has a neat trick for stopping a dog pulling on the leash. Stop, say “no!” turn and go the other direction. His theory, the dog has to learn that she gets no benefit from pulling, and, in fact, gets just the opposite. This tactic worked well with Candy. She no longer pulls unless we’re headed for her favorite bathroom spot. Once that’s taken care of, she settles in at my left side for a nice walk.

Obedience Lesson Four

Leash manners, part two: I have been walking Candy on my left side with the “Gentle Leader,” so it’s natural for her to walk there with the choke collar, and she does it without having to be reminded. Gene says her ears should be level with the seam of the left leg of my trousers. Candy is a very submissive dog, and she tries hard to do what I ask. Getting her in the proper position is as simple as shortening the leash a bit, so she can’t move ahead.

An obedient dog must learn to sit on command. Gene has a sure-fire technique. First, he walks her in circles, turning right and left. When he turns right, Candy has to speed up to keep pace with him. When he turns left, she has to slow down, or she will be in his way. She gets this quickly. To get her to sit from a walk, Gene simply turns left abruptly, pulling the leash backward. The first couple of times, Candy doesn’t sit, but tries to keep going ahead. Gene walks into her, and she scampers out of the way. By about the third attempt, when he turns left abruptly, she backs up and sits down. I try it with her. Magic! She sits. In this lesson, there is no attempt to command or correct the dog. The object is to show her how a proper sit looks…stop, back up slightly, bottom on the ground.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #7

Sunday, July 24th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson Two

Leash training began with what Gene calls “prohibited behaviors,” including play biting, jumping up, getting on furniture, and destructive chewing. The value of this training is obvious. Everyone wants a well-mannered dog. Making those corrections is something the dog’s owner must learn. Correcting the dog means a sharp, short tug on the leash and choke collar, the word “no,” said in an authoritative way – not a shout – but just “I mean business,” and, once the dog has obeyed, praise, and a scratch of the ears.

“Don’t shout at her and then loom over her,” he said. “How would you like it if I did this to you?” And he walked over to my chair, scowled, hunched his shoulders and looked angry. Gene is a big guy. I’m not. I got the point. “Just tell her ‘no,’ and when she does it right, praise her.”

Gene also insisted that I keep Candy on a leash, 24-hours a day, so that if she did something wrong, I had a way to correct her immediately.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #6

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Obedience Lesson One

Training resumes. Gene takes a look at the choke collar I had bought for Candy early on, and discards it. He prefers a heavier gauge chain, with differently shaped links, so that a tug on the leash makes the chain tighten on the dog’s neck, just for an instant…a quick reminder that “resistance is futile.” The leash also makes a noise, serving as a Pavlovian device to let the dog associate the noise and the pressure of the chain with correction.

Gene took Candy, and stood about ten feet in front of me, where she could see me, and I could watch both of them. When Candy would try to come to me, Gene would give the leash a short, but emphatic, tug and say “no!” He would then immediately call Candy to him, saying “come here, sweetheart,” and scratch her ears and tell her she was a good dog. He explained the correction as a four-step process: 1) snap the choke collar by quickly tugging the leash, 2) say “no!” in a commanding voice, but not a shout, 3) call the dog to you in a normal voice, and 4) praise her. The object is to correct her, he said, but not make her afraid of the collar. Within half a dozen repetitions of the exercise, Candy was sitting quietly at Gene’s feet, watching me, but not trying to move toward me.

Finally, Gene praised the progress Candy and I had made during the six weeks without formal lessons. She had made great strides at beginning to trust Ann and me. She was learning to be a companion, and not just a dog that lived in a kennel. Gene described our progress this way, “You’ve brought her back to level zero (from far below it.) Now we’re ready to begin formal leash training.” That would be our next lesson.

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The Education of Candy – Entry #5

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Holiday Intermission

Before we broke off training for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, Gene gave me a new take-home thought: “Try to make each day a good day, and a good experience for her. Don’t worry about training, but take her for walks. Sit in public outdoor places, and let her see new things. Go down to the corner, and sit on the grass while she watches traffic go by. Oh, and give her treats, so that she learns what they are.” Growing up in a kennel, Candy had never, apparently, been fed treats as rewards, or for any other reason. Gene uses a brand of freeze-dried liver treats. He calls them “crack for dogs.” Sure enough, in a few weeks, Candy loved the treats, and looked forward to them.

During the holidays, Ann and I were traveling, so we left Candy with, first, our son and his family, and then, with our daughter and family. Each family has two dogs each. When we returned from a week of travel, Candy was in dog-heaven…two dogs to play with, and lie around with, each day! Our daughter had trained her own golden retriever, and took Candy along for walks with her dogs. In a space of a week, Candy seemed to lose her fear of the leash and collar. Once we were back home, I began using the “Gentle Leader” device, which puts a strap around her nose. Pressure on the leash does not choke the dog, but pulls her muzzle to the side, distracting her. Within a week of walks, Candy was walking quietly at my left side. What would Gene think of this, since he prefers a choke collar?

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The Education of Candy – Entry #4

Monday, June 27th, 2011

This post was written by guest blogger John Dancy.

Rehabilitation Lesson Two

Back to Cup A Joe for more rehabilitation. This time, we walked around behind the stores in the shopping center, to see what we could find that would be new to Candy. Gene took the leash and led her up some steel stairs; the kind with no backs on the steps. Candy handled them with aplomb. Stairs were not in her glossary of fears. But passing near upright 90-gallon rolling waste bins was too much for her. She panicked, pulling and tugging, trying to get away. Gene quietly led her away, explaining, “Sometimes, the stress is too high, so you back off, and do something else, starting over. Lower the difficulty level.”

In this case, “starting over” came with a picnic table. Gene wanted to show Candy that she could climb onto things, if she wanted. At the picnic table, he dragged her by the leash, first onto the seat, then onto the table itself. Candy, of course, had no idea what was happening to her, or why. She landed on the picnic table like a just-caught mackerel in the bottom of a fishing boat. Quickly, Gene pulled her off the other side of the table. She accomplished her egress with no more grace than her entrance. But after a couple more tries, Candy put her front paws onto the seat, hauled her hindquarters up behind her, then used her forelegs to jump up onto the table. She sat there, proudly, grinning. What’s more, she did it happily, again and again. She had learned a new trick.

“Behavior is a matter of perception” is one of Gene’s mantras. He explained that what we were trying to do was exchange Candy’s perception of fear into perceptions of confidence and familiarity. Eventually, she would learn that waste bins are not monsters, but just cans to hold the trash. That change of perception was where we were headed.

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