Hearing Dog Training

Skunki is a former shelter dog, living with her foster-trainer family. (Names changed.) Parents are Mitchell and Gina. Their 15 year old daughter Sascha has lots of dog training experience from being a junior counselor at dog-training summer camps. Both parents can take Skunki to work with them, and so Skunki gets a lot of good experiences in controlled situations. Skunki has had about 5 training visits from me.

Our volunteer Happy was also there to help train; Happy was Skunki's first foster-trainer, and comes to help (and also play with the dog!) Skunki often goes on play dates to Happy's house, where she has another dog to play with. This visiting keeps Skunki flexible, so that she will adjust more easily to her permanent home when she graduates from HDP.

Skunki's obedience was good. She could down without any help now. Her obedience at the door and in the car was good. Less barking at other dogs from inside the car, too.

We only had 90 minutes for training, so I kept things moving. First, when I knocked on their door and was greeted by Sascha and Skunki, I asked them to close the door again so I could knock again. This gave an extra chance for Skunki to get a reward for touching Sascha when I knocked. I was happy to see the family had left a container of treats near the door, so that training was easy for them.

All the family and visitors had been told to knock as well as ring the doorbell, for lots of exposure to both sounds. Also, anyone with a key was told to knock and ring anyway- another chance for real life training. If nobody answered, then they could use their key.

We went inside and started with a ding-dong sound on the iphone. This was to decondition Skunki from barking at the real doorbell. Every time we rang the iphone doorbell, I told Skunki to touch. She knew the difference- but at least we were building a good response.

We also used the iphone doorbell because the door to the house is down a long flight of stairs, and we wanted Skunki to practise touching every time the doorbell rang, instead of dancing around on the stairs and barking.

When the family buys a remote wireless doorbell, we will use that.

Skunki is a calm friendly dog, but after three weeks in this home, had started to do some shrieky alarm-barking at noises outside or people at the door. This is typical of dogs. Most dogs in a new home take a few weeks to feel confident and start being territorial, and Skunki had started barking at "intruder" sounds, and at animals or people passing the home.

The family were instructed to sharply tell her "NO" or "Quiet," or sign "NO," and then immediately ask her to come and touch for a treat or praise or a toy. Their goal was to startle her into stopping the barking, but then substitute a better behavior, and reward that.

Even if it was a sound outside, and not a visitor, they were cueing Skunki to touch. This would train Skunki to be a very versatile Hearing Dog. Any unusual sound or situation can be alerted to by a Hearing Dog- if it has been rewarded for alerting when it is noticing things. Even a sudden turn and focus of the dogs ears should be an opportunity to cue Touch.

Now, she only gives a short bark occasionally. This is fine. We feel Hearing Dogs should bark a few times, but then go to alert the partner. The problem is when they work themselves up into a barking frenzy at the door and cannot remember to do any alerting.

We experimented with some iphone rings. She was very interested in the eerie Spaceship sound.

We took a few minutes break and caught up with Skunki's latest adventures. Then we practised Name Call. Sascha and I both had handfuls of treats, and we each took turns calling Skunki to touch for a treat.

After giving her a treat, that person asked her "Where's your friend?" and used the ASL "Where" sign. Then ignored her.

Skunki had learned in two previous lessons, that "Where's your friend?" and the "Where" sign meant, "Go to the other person- no more treats available here!"

We had started at first by standing close together and sending her back and forth from a few feet away. Now, we wanted to expand the distance. Doing this would turn the game from a routine into an exciting search game.

Dogs also like reuniting their packs, so after every couple of name calls, I would follow Skunki back to Sascha, and we would all do a group ritual of talking happily and playing and praising Skunki. Getting both of us together was rewarding to Skunki. Most dogs prefer the human pack to be close together, not separated into rooms.

We kept our spare handfuls of treats hidden behind our backs. Each time, we moved a few steps farther apart, around one corner, then two corners, and finally Skunki was zooming back and forth in a big U shape between two rooms and a hallway. She was easily able to LEAVE the person sending her instantly, and go to find the other person.

Because we were moving to slightly different places each time, Skunki was excited to find out where we had gone, and went even faster.

That was about 5 minutes of fast training. Skunki got a break and lounged around rolling on the carpet.

Next, we repeated the Name Call, but with both of us sitting on the couch. She did great! Other people were standing around talking, but she ignored them.

When we switched to two different people giving the Name Call cues, Skunki was confused. She kept alerting Sascha and I, but we were ignoring her. Happy and Gina were calling her for treats instead.

This confusion is typical. Dogs associate this exercise only with the people they have already played the game with. Introducing new people always causes bewilderment. Dogs can often generalize well, but not in this situation. But Skunki learned fast that only the two new trainers would reward her, and then she ignored Sascha and I.

The family pointed to Blue, her special favorite toy, sitting on the fireplace mantel. They admitted they had done no training with the toy, but promised to do it the next week. We are using John Rogerson's incredible motivational technique that gets a dog obsessed with one special toy. It even works very well with dogs that are not highly toy motivated. I use my guru Patricia Cooks' evolution of John's method. When training is completed, this toy is used as a reward for training.

It is kept out of reach at all other times, and the game to teach this intensity is really worth the effort! The dog can have other toys, but should go into a frenzy of desire when the "special" toy is used.

Later, when Skunki does her sound alerting consistently, we will use "Blue" as a jackpot reward, and also for intermittent exciting training sessions for sounds she lacks intensity on, or for very distracting situations. "Blue" will be our secret weapon to be used whenever needed.

We gave Skunki lots of short breaks, but she was always eager to practise for 5 or ten minutes at a time. She had not gotten breakfast, and the treats were cut up about the size of a small pea. Still, she ate about half a cup of them during the training. That is about half the days' food for a small dog her size.

I was surprised at her intensity and eagerness, because she has about an average young dog energy level. I'd been worried she'd get bored, but she never lost interest. Obviously, she's got great potential, and also obviously, her foster-trainer family is good at making training fun and exciting for her when they practise.