Tag Archives: German shepherd dog training

Training Tuesday: When trimming your dog’s nails, good can be better than perfect

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German Shepherd puppy wearing a graduation cap and looking at cameraOne of my spring training goals was to condition Milo to like, or at least more stoically endure nail trims. He always let me take care of his nails, but he hated it, and a mani-pedi left both of us severely stressed.

I put us on a pretty standard counter-conditioning plan, which we’ve been following fairly closely.  It worked. To a point. Things got better. Now, he will hop happily up on the nail trim spot, give me a paw, and sit still while I give each nail a quick grind with the Dremel.

But, we hit a roadblock. Milo calmly, even nonchalantly, accepts me grinding all the nails on one paw. Paw number two though? No way. As soon as I ask for a second paw, he starts panting. We’ve been stuck at this stage for a while, and I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out why we can’t move forward.

The other day I had a thought that changed everything: why be a perfectionist about this?

Where we are now is actually good enough. There is no reason why I need to trim all his nails in one session. His nail trim spot is always set up, and it is dead easy for me to do one paw a day. It only takes about two minutes.

There are two ways that I can think about where we are now:

  1. I’ve failed to foster the perfect attitude in Milo because he gets stressed out before I’ve trimmed all his nails.
    or
  2. Milo and I have succeeded at getting to a place where it is easy on both of us to keep his nails healthy.

Option one leaves me feeling frustrated at the nail trim process and at myself for not being a good enough trainer.

Option two lets me give up that frustration and celebrate a practical success.

I have a suspicion that the combination of letting this frustration go and continuing with positive reinforcement might be just what Milo needs to continue to make progress.

But, even if he doesn’t get to a stage where he is happy to have all his nails trimmed, it is OK. We are fine where we are right now.

milo's nails.jpg

We’re taking it one paw at a time. I’d like his nails to be shorter and neater, but I don’t need to trim them all at once to get to that point. I would love it if Milo learned that a pedicure is a treat, not a torment.

Training Tuesdays: April 24, 2018, Milo needs a challenge

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Hi fans! This is a short post because it’s grading season, and I’m up to my eyebrows with student work from my Philosophy 271: Animals in our Lives and Philosophy 458/673: Feminism, Bodies and Biology classes. I had the pleasure of working with two groups of fabulous students and so the grading is not that bad. But, holy smokes, is there ever a lot of it.

I had an epiphany this week—I’ve been treating Milo like a baby and he’s bored. I was so focused on splitting his training tasks into tiny pieces that I was slowing him down and frustrating him.

I had this epiphany because my friend Liz said, “Carla, you need to give him more difficult things to do.” Does it count as an epiphany if someone straight out tells you something? Probably not technically, but this week had an ‘epiphany-feel’ about it.

After that fateful conversation with Liz, I gave Milo long tracks with multiple articles—he did a great job. No more waiting for him to find an exact heel position. I simply demanded it and he stepped right up and met my higher expectations. And in Rally class, which we just started, I demanded serious attention, which he gave me.

Note to self: “Do what Liz says more often.”

So, this week the plan is to do more of those things: long tracks, precision in heeling, and focused attention even in a distracting Rally class. I am feeling hopeful.

You might remember that I’ve also been working on getting Milo to tolerate a manicure. In the last couple of weeks I’ve come to see that Milo deeply despises have his nails trimmed. So, I’m keeping us on a baby steps schedule for this counter-conditioning procedure–tiny steps and lots of hotdogs.

Next week I’ll fill you in on our progress. Cheers!

Black and tan German Shepherd sniffing brown grass

Milo has what you call a “deep nose” when he tracks and that is a good thing.

 

Training Tuesday: April​ 17, 2018

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German Shepherd puppy wearing a graduation cap and looking at cameraThe theme for this week’s training plan is “When the ice melts.” Mother Nature dropped a few centimeters of slush on us last week, which is now frozen solid. Living on a curling rink has put a little hitch in Milo and my training giddy-up. But, this too shall pass. Here’s my weekly report:

Last week’s plan:
• Practice indicating articles in the house
• Do a few steps of focused heeling
• Do some counter conditioning for handling Milo’s paws to make nail grinding easier.

What we did:

I had to rejigger my plan on Thursday because the article indication and heeling went faster than I expected.

Article indication
After one day he responded to an article, in every room in the house, like this:

I think we’re ready for the track.

The focused heeling was fine. I added some more steps.

Paw handling was our biggest challenge.
• The trouble is that I started out using cheese as a reward. When Milo smells cheese, he goes into hyperactive, happy overdrive, which is not the frame of mind I want him to be in for nail trims. I want him happy, relaxed, and still. We switched from cheese to kibble on Thursday, and things went much better.

This coming week’s the plan is:
• Mix up 5, 10, 15, and 20 steps of focused heeling on low-distraction parts of our walks. We’ll move to a field when the ice melts.
• Tracking is on hold until the ice melts. When we start up again we’ll practice on a 100 step track with one right turn, one article on the track, and one article at the end of the track.
• Add touching the (turned off) grinder to each of his nails with lots of reinforcement.
• Keep doing a couple of Rally signs on our walks.

Stay tuned for next Tuesday’s training report!