Post by oksaradt on Jan 16, 2008 11:10:13 GMT -5
Since no new posts, I'm compelled to torture you with yet another instructive tidbit. I wish I could have one of those films from the 60s with Mr. Science, but we're just not there yet.
The Wait command (and all it implies) comes in very handy in HRD work, more so than the other disciplines. But, it can be helpful in all. With some dogs, all you need is the wait and a "stay" is never required. I know some obedience trainers that don't teach the "stay". They prefer to train the dog that "sit means sit" and "down means down" until I say otherwise.
I train the wait in two ways, because both are directly applicable in HRD work. It's the same command, but I want multiple associations with the dog.
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.
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Ok, why so much emphasis on the "wait" command? Imagine this, you and your dog have been assigned the next WTC disaster. There are human remains in every direction. Your job is for you and your dog to flag these. The media is tagging along. Your dog can not eat anything it finds..... Let's be honest, in the dog's mind, if you've fed it ribeye scraps off the grill, it's not going to see any difference with the charred remains of the bank teller in front of you other than the smell. Single owners that die with dogs and aren't discovered for days can sometimes end up being their FooFoo's last supper.
So, our end goal is to train the dog to associate "wait" with 1) freeze and 2) Don't eat.
I initially train the "wait" as a Koehler-style exercise with a gate or a dog crate door. The goal is to teach the dog that you are assisting it in its survival. You ask the dog to sit on the other side of the gate (mainly as this slows down its reaction time), tell the dog to wait (you can associate a hand signal if you wish), and then start to open the gate towards you. If the dog breaks, you slam the gate back against the stop making noticable noise. The dog startles and you act with dramatic chagrin, "I'm trying to help you out here.....I said to wait." The dog hears, "blah blah blah blah.....wait." It doesn't matter what you say as long as the tone is condescending. You keep repeating this until the dog decides not moving is the prudent decision. You can then give the dog a release, such as "OK!", and pat the leg, walk away, whatever, to compell the dog to walk through.
Repeat this until the dog has it down pat. For Murphy, this took ...3 days with around 5 incidents per day.
Now, the next stage is with feeding. None of my dogs are free fed, and if I feed them in a pack, they all have to do sits and waits until I put every one's food down and release them individually. If I'm in an onery or rewarding mood, I might let one start eating while I put the other bowls down. I'm the alpha, I can do this at my whim. To get to this stage, I feed a dog individually to train the "wait for food".
Again, Murphy took about 3 days of twice-a-day feedings to make sure I wouldn't back slide, but he's now got the concept. Now, the times will build.
This portion entails I feed this dog individually. I train all my puppies this way, but also have to go through this with foster dogs that come in later in life. I place a chair for myself as patience is key.
I sit with the food bowl in my lap.
I tell the dog to sit with it being 2 to 5 feet in front of my chair and facing me. I don't care where the dog sits as long as we're facing each other.
I give the wait command. Murphy likes hand signals, so I do sort of a snap opening hand towards his eyes. This will diminish over time, but I've found that hand signals come in handy when i want my dog to do something and we're in a presentation, so protocol requires me to be silent. (It just gets very distracting at a demo when someone is giving a speech and one of the dog handlers is constantly uttering commands to his/her dog...that and it looks unprofessional.)
Anyway, I give the wait command and ever-so-slowly place the bowl down next to MY side. Any time the dog breaks, the bowl comes back up into my hands & lap. Murphy's first night of this took us 20 minutes before he got to eat. I gots all the time in the world and I already ate... Most of this time was spent in Murphy trying other methods to get his dinner on his terms. (This ritual/routine is also a nice way to assert your position of dominance with the dog without any effort at all.)
Finally, Murphy sits and eyes the bowl with intensity, but doesn't move. I count my time in my head in seconds (first night was 2 seconds of wait time) and then release with a boisterous "OK" and a clap. With some dogs I've found the clap is required to break their focus on the food bowl.
(Side note: While your dog is eating, you should be able to reach down into its bowl and do whatever you want with the food, including taking it back away. If your dog won't let you do this, then you aren't completely alpha in it's mind. You're just the cafeteria lady. Again, I have to be able to do this for obvious reasons when working a WTC BBQ if I wasn't paying attention to my dog.)
So, down the road, when my dog and I are working fresh charred remains and my dogs comes up on scent, tells me of it's find...I can say "Wait....good dog." Move in, flag the remains, reward my dog, and move it on without a fireman watching my dog snack on the remains of his buddy or the media capturing a "moment" that no one really needs to see, but the media appears to live for.
The limit of the time the dog waits is really up to the training. If you've only ever ask your dog to wait 5 seconds, don't expect it to wait for 2 minutes in the field. You get what you train for.
Regards,
Jim
The Wait command (and all it implies) comes in very handy in HRD work, more so than the other disciplines. But, it can be helpful in all. With some dogs, all you need is the wait and a "stay" is never required. I know some obedience trainers that don't teach the "stay". They prefer to train the dog that "sit means sit" and "down means down" until I say otherwise.
I train the wait in two ways, because both are directly applicable in HRD work. It's the same command, but I want multiple associations with the dog.
.
.
.
Ok, why so much emphasis on the "wait" command? Imagine this, you and your dog have been assigned the next WTC disaster. There are human remains in every direction. Your job is for you and your dog to flag these. The media is tagging along. Your dog can not eat anything it finds..... Let's be honest, in the dog's mind, if you've fed it ribeye scraps off the grill, it's not going to see any difference with the charred remains of the bank teller in front of you other than the smell. Single owners that die with dogs and aren't discovered for days can sometimes end up being their FooFoo's last supper.
So, our end goal is to train the dog to associate "wait" with 1) freeze and 2) Don't eat.
I initially train the "wait" as a Koehler-style exercise with a gate or a dog crate door. The goal is to teach the dog that you are assisting it in its survival. You ask the dog to sit on the other side of the gate (mainly as this slows down its reaction time), tell the dog to wait (you can associate a hand signal if you wish), and then start to open the gate towards you. If the dog breaks, you slam the gate back against the stop making noticable noise. The dog startles and you act with dramatic chagrin, "I'm trying to help you out here.....I said to wait." The dog hears, "blah blah blah blah.....wait." It doesn't matter what you say as long as the tone is condescending. You keep repeating this until the dog decides not moving is the prudent decision. You can then give the dog a release, such as "OK!", and pat the leg, walk away, whatever, to compell the dog to walk through.
Repeat this until the dog has it down pat. For Murphy, this took ...3 days with around 5 incidents per day.
Now, the next stage is with feeding. None of my dogs are free fed, and if I feed them in a pack, they all have to do sits and waits until I put every one's food down and release them individually. If I'm in an onery or rewarding mood, I might let one start eating while I put the other bowls down. I'm the alpha, I can do this at my whim. To get to this stage, I feed a dog individually to train the "wait for food".
Again, Murphy took about 3 days of twice-a-day feedings to make sure I wouldn't back slide, but he's now got the concept. Now, the times will build.
This portion entails I feed this dog individually. I train all my puppies this way, but also have to go through this with foster dogs that come in later in life. I place a chair for myself as patience is key.
I sit with the food bowl in my lap.
I tell the dog to sit with it being 2 to 5 feet in front of my chair and facing me. I don't care where the dog sits as long as we're facing each other.
I give the wait command. Murphy likes hand signals, so I do sort of a snap opening hand towards his eyes. This will diminish over time, but I've found that hand signals come in handy when i want my dog to do something and we're in a presentation, so protocol requires me to be silent. (It just gets very distracting at a demo when someone is giving a speech and one of the dog handlers is constantly uttering commands to his/her dog...that and it looks unprofessional.)
Anyway, I give the wait command and ever-so-slowly place the bowl down next to MY side. Any time the dog breaks, the bowl comes back up into my hands & lap. Murphy's first night of this took us 20 minutes before he got to eat. I gots all the time in the world and I already ate... Most of this time was spent in Murphy trying other methods to get his dinner on his terms. (This ritual/routine is also a nice way to assert your position of dominance with the dog without any effort at all.)
Finally, Murphy sits and eyes the bowl with intensity, but doesn't move. I count my time in my head in seconds (first night was 2 seconds of wait time) and then release with a boisterous "OK" and a clap. With some dogs I've found the clap is required to break their focus on the food bowl.
(Side note: While your dog is eating, you should be able to reach down into its bowl and do whatever you want with the food, including taking it back away. If your dog won't let you do this, then you aren't completely alpha in it's mind. You're just the cafeteria lady. Again, I have to be able to do this for obvious reasons when working a WTC BBQ if I wasn't paying attention to my dog.)
So, down the road, when my dog and I are working fresh charred remains and my dogs comes up on scent, tells me of it's find...I can say "Wait....good dog." Move in, flag the remains, reward my dog, and move it on without a fireman watching my dog snack on the remains of his buddy or the media capturing a "moment" that no one really needs to see, but the media appears to live for.
The limit of the time the dog waits is really up to the training. If you've only ever ask your dog to wait 5 seconds, don't expect it to wait for 2 minutes in the field. You get what you train for.
Regards,
Jim