A Note About Stairs

My dog training program is going really well, we've capped off our obedience section and the next three weeks will be moving into reactive behaviours and more problem behaviours, as well as practicing on real life clients.

Though I learn a ton every day, I think one of the best realizations that has hit me is the practice of 'playing stairs'. I see far too many people playing stairs with their dog(s), and I must admit, although I haven't played stairs with Beckett -I've always been his 'leader' once I figured out what that position entailed-, but I have done so with Lemon.

What "Stairs" are. The idea stems that both the dog and the person are on the stairs. Sometimes the dog gets to a higher stair first, and sometimes the human does. So, some days you have a really great day, you are in charge, the dog walks perfectly, obeys perfectly, is the follower you want them to be. Next day, you are cringing, shouting, not getting any respect. The dog has jumped up a stair and is looking back at you. This goes on and on for weeks, months, possibly years. You don't have a bad dog, cause most days are good days, but there's no true consistency. You have more of a buddy-buddy relationship, than one of leader, and one of follower.

A buddy-buddy relationship seems like a nice thing, but there are side effects from it. You are never truly happy with the relationship -the "bad" days-, your dog develops small annoying behaviours, the list goes on.

Dogs who have been brought up with this throughout puppyhood can have a really hard time understanding true leadership, but reality is, in order to get the follower/leadership position, we can't play stairs. The leader ALWAYS has to be four stairs up, the follower ALWAYS has to be four steps behind. It's been hard for me with Lemon. She's a good dog, she doesn't have a lot of faults -she'll finish a fight if someone starts one with her, she barks at the door, and she's a bad cat-food thief, but otherwise I have no complaints-. However, it became fairly clear quite quickly, because I give Lemon pretty much everything she wants -the dog sleeps in bed with us-, without asking her to do much in return (to be honest, as long as she comes when she's called, that's been enough for me until now) she doesn't feel she has to work, or that she has to listen beyond a basic recall. And to be fair for her, why should she? She already gets everything she wants based solely on the fact that she has a good recall and that's all I expect. So, I had to take away a lot of her priviledges. She's gone back to sleeping in her crate, no snuggles whenever she wants them -we still snuggle in the evenings, so she's not deprived or anything-. Suddenly, she wants to work for me. After three days, the 'stairs' disappeared, my dog wants to work for my affection. Actually, she'll do just about anything for it. Learn at the rate of the border collies in class -okay, I will for snuggles. My little dog who we labeled "Capable, but not willing" is suddenly very willing. In some ways, I think she's happy she has to earn her keep. She barely barks at the door anymore, she heads to her crate to sleep, and she's ready to work at class. And really, all because I don't play stairs with her anymore. I am her leader, she's to do what I ask of her. When I've finished all the training I want to put into her, then she can come back to sleeping in the bed some nights, until then, we have work to do.

Some dogs need to be 'snapped' back into the follower role, if they are a more pushy, willful type (there's a little aussie at class who sometimes has to learn the hard way, and take the road less often travelled), but with Lemon, you take away what she thinks is hers and then she wants to work for them. I think she understands they are priviledges and not her 'rights'.

And Beckett, well, we've had a good understanding for awhile. Though every once in a blue moon he goes 'husky' on us and decides the recall just isn't worth it. It usually happens just before we leave the park. Like yesterday, when he and a big older yellow lab just had to have a senior romp around for 15 minutes, both ignoring their people. Semi-seniors I tell you! I can't tell if he's getting wise to me, or I'm getting slack. To be honest, it was kind of nice to see him jettison himself around the field for that long.