Group Training

Kay Laurence
 December 2008

I have not lived with a single dog in over 35 years, and I somewhat envy those who enjoy that one to one friendship, it would be rather luxurious to have no door gates and enjoy a dog’s company 24 hours a day. At the moment with Flink occupying the sitting room with the new pups, Mabel enjoys luxury retirement in upstairs living, and with Dottie in season gated doorways are extremely important. Everybody just needs their own space to ease their personal stresses, otherwise it is usually one for all and all for one. I think they enjoy to hurly burly existence of “one for all”, but I am surprised how easily they settle into refined space allowance and friendships in pairs.

I make a habit of constantly reinforcing the lack of “who me?” that may inevitably arise when Speck is asked to leave the room so that Dot can enjoy some company, and Tessie moves back from kissing the door’s handle to allow Mabel to go out. We all get a bit fatter with the titbits that come more frequently.

I have regular sessions when I train my “in competition” dogs, but all the dogs enjoy the group training sessions and become used to being easily managed as a group. These are more spontaneous sessions – when the kettle is on to boil, when we all come in for bed time, going out for running etc. I firmly believe that if you want response from the group they must train as a group and learn as a group, on all behaviours, not just the management behaviours. Arousal is intentionally infectious, prior to hunting the dogs would become aroused by the excitement of one key dog and pass this along quickly, no point in dragging along a sleepy hound for a hunt. Anticipation of their “hunt” (read daily exercise opportunity) is quite a frenzied affair and could easily erupt into chaos without much being added to the pot. I carefully manage gates and doorways, and only allow those with the right amount of self control to wait at gates, the youngsters who cannot contain themselves are managed behind another gate until the bottle neck is clear. Without this regime waiting for the gate to open could become a hot spot for nipping and jostling.

The youngsters learn their protocols in pairs with another senior. I also play “walk to the gate” games and practice the recall back to me. This is a rattle of the treat pot, with my simultaneous whistle which is followed by free food on the kitchen floor. First come gets the most food. I use it for a call off the gates when DHL arrive and any time I need a group response back to me.

Quieter training times are learning to do behaviour for individual treats. Firstly you have to decide your protocol for the “marker”. Using a clicker on clicker trained dogs could confuse the response. Dot may be waiting, or trying a spin, whilst I cue Speck to beg, Speck gets the click, but so does Dottie – whether the behaviour is appropriate or not. I know the marine mammal trainers point at the animal receiving the whistle. But one downside of a visual accompaniment to the click is the dog needing to look at you whilst they puzzle solve and learn. This could be a disadvantage.

With the group training I use their name as the marker for the reinforcement. The default behaviour of being in the group, is a semi-circle in front of me, and watching me. As they focus, I give their name, look at them and then a treat. I personally want my dogs to only respond to their cued behaviour. I don’t want to be looking at Speck and give a “drop” cue and everyone else to respond. In the group learning situation I begin teaching the youngsters this protocol by cueing the experienced dogs a behaviour that the youngsters do not know. The experienced dog gets the Look, Name and treat, then the dogs that did not respond get the same reinforcement, one by one. This is the correct behaviour, without reinforcing them for holding their position they will begin to cycle through all sorts of behaviours. Between the experienced dogs I can look at the individuals to cue them instead of using their name, but this is too subtle for the youngsters, so the experienced dog’s name is given, then followed by the cue for the behaviour.

Dogs learn this amazingly fast, but it takes quite a lot of self discipline and a clear understanding of your protocols. I have a cue for everyone to sit and I go down the row reinforcing, Dottie, who is always nearest the food reservoir gets hers first, and then sneaks around my back to be sitting at the end of the row for another opportunity! Such good puzzle solving, I can’t resist reinforcing it, if the others could mimic it as well it would look a great, “wicked” behaviour.

General protocols for group training are to teach the behaviours to each individual in their own lesson. Once on cue they can bring those behaviours to the group. But they need to have learned the look, name, cue protocol prior to trying new behaviours.

If you don’t want to look at the individuals, you can use the Sheepdog Training Brace technique of a different cue for each behaviour. Shep would have go left, right, stop, walk forward, that’ll do,

(and perhaps the all time favourite: TAKE TIME!), and for the same behaviour Bryn would have away, come bye, hup, get on, and blastyoudog. But the key is that Shep would not respond to Bryn’s cues and vice versa. But I have seen great brace trials run with the Get Bye Shep, Get Bye Bryn type of cues and the dogs just remember the cue and wait for their name to respond. Astonishing.

You could decide that verbal cues are only directed at the individual (they are easier to ignore than signals) and signals for the whole group, or the opposite way around. The key is to make sure that no individual becomes lost for information or reinforcement – that would be the quick way to lose control of the class, being “naughty” would stop the behaviour with the current dog and get reinforced by your attention.

It will keep you mentally alert, and the dogs will certainly enjoy it. But a plan of the protocols is essential.