Polite Paws uses scientifically-based, humane, fear-free and pain-free methods to teach your dog new, beneficial behaviors and reduce unwanted behaviors including the following topics:
- POTTY TRAINING
- SOCIALIZATION
- BARKING
- JUMPING
- PULLING ON WALKS
- CHEWING
- MOUTHING
- COUNTER SURFING
- GENERAL CUES
- CANINE GOOD CITIZEN TRAINING
- RESOURCE GUARDING (may require a referral)
- AGGRESSION (may require a referral)
Private sessions are a great way to start the training process as they offer individual attention and provide a customized training plan. Although classes are a good fit for a puppy needing socialization or any dog needing basic cue training, most of the issues listed above will benefit from the one-on-one attention of a private session. Sessions are typically held in your home (depending on location) or can be offered virtually.
AN INTAKE SESSION will be offered as an initial training experience. The private session will last up to 90 minutes, and will include a review of your questionnaire, an analysis of existing behaviors, and development of a training plan. This session will cost $115.
FOLLOW UP SESSIONS are up to one hour and cost $75. The number of sessions required to see an improvement from your dog can vary greatly, and depend heavily on how much you work with your dog between sessions. Some clients see issues resolved after just one session, but more often multiple sessions are required to manage issues. Basic phone/text/email support can be provided between sessions. Get started here.
AGGRESSION SESSIONS are necessary if a dog has a bite history (a bite leaving a mark or drawing blood on another dog or human) or if the dog displays growling, lunging, or barking behaviors with the assumed intent to do harm. Under these circumstances, an additional charge of $25 will be applied to session rates. This is due to the increased physical risk to the trainer, the responsibility of managing a case of this severity, the emotional effects of such situations on the trainer, and the increased support that these situations require between sessions.
A NOTE ABOUT PRICING Many aspects are considered when pricing dog training services. Expenses relating to education, certification, professional memberships, insurance, website, technology, communication, transportation, virtual meeting software, credit card processing fees, training aids, and tools needed to fulfill sessions are just some of those aspects. Before I even meet your dog, I have spent on average 1 hour to review your intake form, schedule your session, provide session instructions, and create a rough training plan. I may also consult with a breeder, previous owner, rescue, or veterinarian. Then the travel time and gas to get to and from the training location. After the session, I will spend 30-60 minutes writing a session summary, emailing session notes, and scheduling follow up sessions. Most clients will require support between sessions via phone or text. Considering those details, a 1 hour session will actually take 3+ hours of time on average, without considering operating and transportation expenses. If financial concerns are prohibitive in getting training for your dog, please reach out.
I am not interested in creating a situation where clients are dependent on a trainer for every aspect of training. My goal is teaching our human clients the knowledge and skills needed to train their own dogs, with assistance, so that a long-lasting behavioral change occurs. Dogs will learn to exhibit a behavior for one person and not another, if similar principles and standards aren’t used. This is why it’s so important to get the entire family on board with training processes so that expectations and training techniques are consistent. This is only fair for poor Fido who might otherwise get mixed signals.
TRAINING TECHNIQUES – Would you like to know more about my specific training techniques? Learning theory is quite an extensive and intellectual subject. Research from Pavlov, Skinner, Watson, Premack and Thorndike are used in contemporary dog training. I won’t bore you with the details, but understanding how humans and canines learn is very important in the field of dog training.
ALPHA THEORY – One idea that I don’t use in dog training is alpha theory. This concept was developed from research by L. David Mech in studying captive wolf populations. His findings that a wolf pack is managed mainly by an “alpha wolf” has been debunked many times, and he himself has recanted these findings and worked to remove his publications from circulation. Nevertheless, alpha theory is still a prevalent theory, and unfortunately has had negative effects on dog training. Even if alpha theory was found to be valid among wild wolves, one cannot extrapolate that this concept would then apply to domestic canis lupis familiaris (dogs) as the species separated from canis lupis (wolves) 30,000 years ago! Although dogs do sometimes compete for resources and attention, and some dogs can seem to develop dominance over other dogs in a household, this status is fluid and subject to situations, and has very little application to dog training. The danger of alpha theory thinking is that often the owner believes that they must dominate the dog or “show the dog who is boss” which is invalid and can be used as an excuse to use abusive techniques or aversive tools on a dog.
REINFORCEMENTS AND PUNISHMENTS – If alpha theory isn’t valid, how do we explain dogs’ behavior, or more importantly, how do you change it? Dogs behave in ways that help them to secure primary resources, like food, shelter, and sexual fulfillment. It doesn’t sound too glamorous, but dog behavior is quite simple to predict and change when you understand cause and effect, and reinforcements and punishments. But wait, don’t dogs love us and want to make us happy? Yes and no. There is no doubt that dogs and humans form special, unique bonds. They love us unconditionally and enjoy being part of our lives. Our societies would not be the same without them! But the idea that a dog should perform a certain behavior just to please us is a bit misplaced. Dogs do want to know what is expected of them and are happiest in a household that has structure and predictability. Dogs experience fear, anxiety, jealously, stress, joy, and excitement no doubt. And dogs can learn very quickly!
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING – Dogs learn from both classical and operant conditioning. There is a lot of great information on these concepts if you would like to research the topic further, but for our purposes, I am going to keep it pretty simple. Classical conditioning is basically emotional, unintentional learning. When your dog gets excited when you get a leash out, this is classical conditioning in play. Your dog has learned to associate the leash with walks, which they LOVE, so they respond with excitement. My dog leaps and barks around the room in excitement! In the same way, if you put a bark/shock collar on your dog when you go on walks, and your dog learns to associate pain with these walks, seeing the collar might cause your dog to respond by cowering and running away in fear (true story-I have seen this happen personally). You didn’t intend to teach your dog these behaviors in response to a leash or a shock collar, but learning has still taken place. We can use these principles to our advantage, and it’s pretty fun to consider all of the associations your dog has already made with different objects in your home or situations in your life! Maybe have every member of your household work on making a list of things Fido has learned on his own!
OPERANT CONDITIONING – Operant conditioning is a bit more complex and includes the concepts of reinforcements and punishments which will strengthen or weaken a behavior. We are not going to go into the quadrants of learning because it isn’t necessary to understand them in order to be a good dog owner or have a well-behaved dog! But it is important to understand that a behavior that is reinforced is more likely to be repeated. Unfortunately we often accidentally reinforce behaviors that we don’t like, and then get frustrated at our dogs for exhibiting these behaviors. For example, if your dog jumps up on you when you arrive home from work, and you scold him for this behavior (“No Fido, get off, can’t you see I’m wearing my good work clothes?”), the attention you just gave your dog will most likely reinforce the jumping behavior. He doesn’t see the scolding as a bad thing-he’s been home alone all day and missed you dearly! He’s so excited to get ANY attention from you, that he will take anything he can get. So you have unintentionally reinforced this behavior and he will most likely repeat it tomorrow. Conversely, if you were to completely ignore Fido when jumps on you, or even turned your back on him, he would find that this behavior is not beneficial for him, and it has a punishing effect. Jumping makes his favorite human go away and that’s bad! So eventually he will stop this behavior. If you pair the lack of attention for jumping with rewarding Fido when the DOES sit calmly for pets, this will reinforce the correct behavior! Fido will learn that jumping is no good, but sitting quietly will get him the love and attention he is craving. See how that works? It doesn’t happen instantly. Remember that Fido has months if not years of experience with his jumping habit. It has worked really well for him in the past, so he’s not going to give up right away, and that’s okay! But if we are consistent with our response, and reward the desirable behavior, you will see the behavior change you want.
PUNISHMENTS – You might be wondering, why not just use more harsh punishments Fido for jumping in the first place? Okay, valid question. First of all, it isn’t very fair to change up the rules on Fido so quickly, using a technique that might cause him pain or fear. For months/years he was unintentionally rewarded for jumping, and he was doing what worked for him. Not communicating clearly with him the new rules, and then punishing him with an ear pinch or the application of a shock seems inappropriate. Also, using a method that causes pain or fear can have serious adverse effects. Not only does it harm your relationship with your dog, your dog might associate the pain with something totally random, and you might create another entirely different and more serious issue! Although you might see an initial behavior change with a punishment, pain and fear based methods can cause anxiety to build up in your dog, and might encourage them to lash out in an aggressive and defensive way down the road (totally understandable in my opinion). How long would you take abuse from a supervisor before you would stand up for yourself and defend yourself? And more importantly, wouldn’t you work much harder and enjoy your job more if your boss offers bonuses and vacation days for a job well done, instead of pay cuts or docked vacation days for poor performance? I sure would! Actually research has shown that rewards are much more effective and faster at changing behaviors than using punishments. And it’s so much more fun! If training is not fun, something is wrong!
REINFORCEMENTS – So since we don’t use pain or fear based methods in training, we use things that our dogs love as reinforcements! Food can be a very valuable tool in behavior training. Sometimes there is resistance from dog owners saying that they don’t want to use food as a motivator. How else do you intent to communicate with your dog that they did the desirable behavior? Food to a dog is like a paycheck to us humans. We are asked to do something, and we get “paid” do to it. That simple. And dogs have to eat to stay healthy, so food is an easy and helpful reinforcer. Pets and praise can be effective in communicating with dogs as well. And access to a favorite toy, a game of tug or fetch, access to play outside, a walk in the park, can all be used as a reinforcer for beneficial behavior! It’s fun to learn what is truly motivating to your dog, and use it to communicate with them. Because although dogs can learn what certain words mean, dogs do not understand English and we often confuse them with our flowery and diverse language. Dogs are experts at reading and communicating with body language, but that’s a topic for a different page!
I really love this illustration by Lucile Mendes:
