Cove Mountain Kennels

 

Photo from Jessie’s photo album: http://www.showme.net/~tlem/Keel%20Ft.%20Drum/PhotoAlbum.htm 

Here’s what happened. Sunday, I needed a midnight snack and accidentally left 1/2 of the pumpkin pie on the kitchen table over night. When I got up in the morning, the foil cover was off and the pie plate was as clean as can be. Allie, my 2 year old lab was sleeping contentedly, sprawled out on the living room floor with a full belly.  What should you do? Come uncorked? Discipline the dog? What?

In this case the right thing to do was to do nothing at all. If I would have snatched her off the floor and disciplined her, it only would have been confusing. She would have linked the discipline with her sleeping on the floor, which she does every day.  The same exact thing applies when house training a puppy and you find a mess long after it occurred, or when in the field with a dog and it comes back after ignoring you for 30 minutes. Timing of correction is critical; keep in mind that a dog’s association period for learning is about 2 seconds long, so consequences (rewards or corrections) need to happen immediately.

What I plan on doing with Allie and her table jumping pie eating tendency is to set her up. She would never jump on the table when we are up and around; she has made that association that such an action is not acceptable. However, she has learned from Sunday’s reward that once we are in bed, such an action is acceptable. I plan on putting her e-collar on (a positive thing for her – it means we are going out to run or train and have fun) and then leaving some tasty treat on the table while we go to bed. Then I will slip outside and watch for a while through the window. The moment she jumps on the table I will hit her with the collar. If I get too cold outside before she commits the offence, I will go in put the food up and wait for another day to set her up.

The principle here is in order to properly train your dog, timing is critical; you must catch the 2 second window after the action (positive or negative). To do so later than that only confuses the dog.