INTRODUCTION TO IMPULSE CONTROL AND DISENGAGENENT FOR DOGS
Impulse control is a very important part of your dog’s development, it promotes good manners and control over certain circumstances. This is very important especially for larger breeds weighing in at 25 kilos plus who may cause injury to elderly people or children when they barge forwards or wildly jump up to get to the offering, this could be food or a favourite toy. Also having our dog show great self-control displays a well balanced controlled dog to other people who may be in your company
TRAINING IMPULSE CONTROL
Where do you begin?. Like any other discipline we train our dog to achieve, we begin in the quiet of our home. First thing first, we need to set our selves up for success there is no joy or encouragement in failing. To begin with a partner holding your dog on a lead, ask for a SIT and place food in front of the dog, this could be the feed bowl at feed time, as the dog attempts to take the food we Cue (command) WAIT!, if the dog moves towards the food then you partner will tension the lead to stop the dog – again Cue sit and WAIT! . After repeating this several times the dog will eventually wait until he is given the release cue.
RELEASE CUE
A release cue is very important to your dog, after all he needs to understand the importance of waiting for the cue to realise – ok well done mission accomplished school is out carry on as normal.
DOG CHASING ON IMPULSE
Well done you have now trained your dog in the first stage of impulse control, moving on we now want to be able to stop the dog from impulsively chasing stimuli. This could be another dog, a squirrel, a car, children.
LETS GET STARTED
Once again we begin in the quiet of home, again setting ourselves up to succeed we begin on the lead. Holding your dog on the lead throw out a piece of sausage when the dog attempts to follow we tension the lead and Cue LEAVE!, undoubtedly the dog will follow, so return him to the same position as he was at the beginning of the exercise and repeat until your dog remains in place awaiting your release CUE. This will take an unspecified amount of time according to the learning ability of your dog.
DOG STEELING FOOD WHEN DROPPED
When the dog is at rest, randomly walk around the room after a short time, drop food on the floor as if by accident. As soon as the dog tries to take the food CUE “LEAVE”!, pick the food up then mark and reward the dog for his compliance with another food reward, never the one that you have dropped. The golden rule is ignore the negative – reinforce the positive. Once we have successfully trained Impulse control. The next stage is dis-engagement.
DOGS DISENGAGE FROM STIMULI
Dis-engagement is very similar to impulse control, again we begin on the lead in the house. With the dog on a 6ft lead place a high value item (food or toy) 7ft away allow the dog to approach when he is almost there, tension the lead and call your dog away, he must learn to leave the high value reward and return to you for a lesser value reward.
PROOF THE BEHAVIOUR
So once the training in house reaches a good reliable level it’s time to move into the garden, carry out the above discipline under distraction. When we achieve a good standard it’s now time to proof the discipline in the local park. Of course the stimuli will now become real life objects like litter/discarded food. Dog faeces (coprophagia). Once this behaviour is proofed outside we can take accolade and praise from other dog owners who will envy your well balanced dog. Of course the above exercises will work hand in glove with a strong re-call ability which can be found on another of my Bloggs.
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