개의 수영: 물을 싫어하거나 좋아하는 개를 위한 필수 5단계 #162

You know what, Susan, my dog doesn't like the water and I'm fine with that. Well, guess what? At some point you're going to want to bath your dog or maybe they're going to get muddy and you're going to want to hose them off. I love that I get buy-in from my dogs. So, if I call my dog over after swimming and I want to maybe get some mud off of them, they'll happily stand there. I don't have to hold them. I call them over. I can hose them down and then I let them go when they're done. Completely cooperative between the dog and I. I ask, they say, sure, I'd like that. Why? Because it's been conditioned. All right. So, it's important for dogs that you have to bath. You don't want them to put that pinned ears, open eye, big fear, hiding somewhere, quivering in a corner because you might be wanting to bath them. Nobody likes to see that sight. You might want to take them to an underwater treadmill at some point. And let's face it, swimming is great exercise for dogs. Or if the very minimal, it's a great way for a dog to cool off. Just to go for a dunk in the summertime when it's a really hot day. So, it's worth your time to, at the very least, teach your dog to like water, to tolerate and to be compliant when you want to do something around water. But I think it's great to teach the dogs to love water. My last three dogs did not like water as puppies. They actually were a little afraid of the water. And I now have turned those three dogs, all of my dogs, it is every dog's number one reinforcement is the chance to go for a swim. And so, I use that high value reinforcement to build reinforcement for other things that are important to me. Like coming when called or walking on a loose leash or even agility skills. Take the biggest value reward and build it into things that are important because that also gives a transfer value for you. And so, it's worth it. You don't want a dog who just wants to run off and swim. You want to have that criteria of waiting for a cue and you want a dog that loves to swim. So, my goal is that the dog loves water. They love to swim, that they have it under stimulus control, that they know that they don't race around the pool or the pond while other dogs are swimming. And then this is a biggie. I want my dogs to swim, period. Meaning I don't want to have to be the loading dummy machine that just keeps throwing things for them while they're in the water. I want them to swim. Sure. If I throw a toy, my dogs will retrieve it. And for dogs who might bite at the water, I will give them a toy to hold while they're swimming, but don't bring it out and

expect me to throw it over and over again. Why? Number one, because they use their bodies differently when they're pulling with their front end to get to a toy. The back end doesn't really do as much work. Number two, their exercise or their time in the water is dependent upon you facilitating that. And if you're at a place where there's a lot of dogs, then there can be a competition with, Hey, that's my toy. No, my mom threw it. Now I have a toy like that. No, it's mine. No, I'm bigger than you. You don't want that. If I tell my dogs go for a swim, they do that. They just go for a swim. They just putty around. And I like to get my dogs to hold a toy, but you don't have to. If they don't bite at the water, they're just swimming. Such a great advantage to have a dog who just swims. Now let's face it. Some dogs are just afraid of the water. Why is that? Some dogs don't like the feeling of moisture or the wet on their feet. They don't like it when it rains outside. I tell you what, my new puppy, Belief, absolutely a big no on anything wet. She doesn't like her face wet. She doesn't like her paws wet. She doesn't like it when it rains. So, she's going to be a lot of fun to teach to swim. But I have no doubt in my mind that she is going to be a swimmer, just like the rest of my dogs. So, some dogs, they just don't like it. They don't like their face wet. They don't like their paws wet. They just don't like to be wet. And so, we have to take things slowly in counter condition that some dogs have been John Wayne'd. All right. Have you seen the old Western John Wayne movie where he picks up somebody's kid and just throws him in the pond as a way to teach him to swim because the kid's afraid to swim? They call that flooding. And here we are yet with another pun. People believe that a way to overcome fears with some animals, including dogs, is to just throw them into the deep end of the pool. Here we are. This is the podcast of metaphors, is it not? And so, they want to, you know, you're going to learn to like it. So, I'm just going to keep throwing you in and eventually you're going to go, Hey, wait, this is actually fun. I'm swimming in chocolate. This is awesome. And guess what? For every dog that ends up liking it, there's probably a trillion that end up going, I don't like water. I don't like swimming. And now I don't trust you. So, really bad idea. Really bad idea to just push your dog in the water and think that they're going to learn to like it. Okay. So, some dogs are just sensitive and some dogs don't like the sensation

of floating. And so, what we're going to do is I've got a five-step process and the sixth step is actually getting them out into a swim, but five steps to get the conditioned to put controls in place that for the crazy dogs that like to swim, we were going to add some criteria to that behavior. And for the dogs who are a little bit worried, we're going to give you five steps that you can teach your dog to love water. Step number one, you need to buy yourself one of those plastic kitty pools. Now you could start with this in your living room. I do it outside, but have at it if you want to do it in your living room. Because all we want to do is shape the dog to jump in, throw some cookies in the pool. Once they're in, tell them search. They eat the cookies, they jump out, give them a lower value cookie when they jump out. That's all that we want in step one that they go, well, I don't know why you want me in here. There's no water in here, guys. Remember this is your living room. No water. It's an empty pool. You might want to put a rock in the middle. I like to put a rock in the middle. More on that later, especially if it's outside, it won't blow away, but I use it for the training. Okay. Jump in, get cookies. If your dog likes to tug, we can tug when they're in there and we're just shaping them to get in and get out. All right. Once that's going tickety-boo, I want you to add a name and three different behaviors. So, I just tell my dogs, go get in, which I think is really a lame name. I, last week I had a student here and I suggested she use the cue, Dunkaroo. Dunkaroo doesn't sound anything like anything else we use. So, it's very specific. Go and jump into the water. Okay. Even though there's no water right now, I get it. There's no water. Eventually Dunkaroo is really going to mean water. So, step one is just shaping. Step two, adding a cue, which means you're going to walk around the pool and you're going to give your dogs cookies on the outside. So, the pools on the inside, the dogs on the outside, you're just going to give them cookies for not jumping across and going in the pool. And if they go, wait, there's better cookies on the inside. Just get further away and then stop, ask them, sit, and then give them the cue so that they can jump in and get more cookies. Eventually you want to be able to walk with the dog on the inside so that they're closer to the pool. Now, some dogs might jump in and jump out kind of like musical chairs. Like, is it now you want me to do this? Do I jump in there now? We want the dog to not jump in until you give them their cue.

And it's very, very clear. Empty pool. There's nothing driving them crazy saying, Oh, I got to get in here because look at all my friends are swimming. No, just an empty pool. You don't go in there until I give you the cue. Now, for those of you who have dogs that are crazy, you might have to stay at this step a little bit longer. Adding now three behaviors, sit, down, and spin. If your dog doesn't know how to spin, it's super easy. You can go to the YouTube video that I have on target training, or you could get super simple, just put a cookie in your hand and use it as a lure. I want the dog to do those three specific behaviors. For number one, the sit, they're going to have the sensation eventually of water on their butt. Ew, don't like that. And so, that's the first introduction to this is something you may or may not like at first, but I promise you're going to learn to love it. Number two is the down. For two reasons. Number one, the dog can cool off a lot easier if they're in that down position. Number two, it's easier way for them to not be a problem if they're sharing a pool with other dogs. But I really like it because it submerses their whole body and we see what they do and don't like about this water before we take them into a lake or a river to swim. And the third one, the spin, is because there is water in there. It starts sloshing around and that's the, they're going to feel water splashing up on their face and we're going to overcome all of these challenges just with those three little behaviors. All right. And you're going to keep tugging, which there'll be some slushing there. If your dog doesn't like tugging, that's fine. We can still throw cookies in and tell them to eat the cookies even when there's water in there. Okay. So, now we're on to step three. Step three, we're going to leave the pool. You just got to find a hose, a garden hose and a piece of concrete. So, if you live in the country, you're going to have to go visit a friend. And what I want you to do is you're going to just wet the concrete first and you're going to tell your dog search. And so, they're just eating the cookies off the wet concrete. Oh, I can do that. Now we're going to turn the water on really, really low. And you're going to drop the cookies onto the concrete with the water streaming. So, eventually the water will take the cookies down the concrete a little bit. They've got to be really high value reinforcement guys. So, don't cheap out on these really, really good cookies. Eventually we're going to turn the water

pressure up a little bit more. I mean, we're not fire hosing it or anything. We're just turning up a little bit of pressure so that the cookie, the, you know, you add one cookie and the dog's like chasing it a little bit on the concrete. Make sure it's safe. Like you're not turning this out to go down on the driveway into traffic. It's just a fun game of chase the cookie in the stream of water. What we're doing here is allowing the dog to be introduced to the sensation of the pads and maybe the tops of their feet are getting wet, but it's all being done in the contents of a fun game. No pressure. Again, throughout this process, it's your dog who dictates the pace. I'm going to say this one more time. If you've got an appointment for swimming lessons with your dog on the 7th, you might have to cancel that because only your dog knows how fast this is going to go. For some dogs, it may be fast if they're really driven by food. For others, if they're really fearful, have had a bad experience, it might take a little longer, but it's still possible. You just have to be patient. All right. So, we've got dogs who will dive into the stream of water and grab cookies and everything's hunky-dory. Now we're moving on to step four. We're going to take that pool outside with the rock in it so it doesn't blow away. I like it on a little bit of an angle. It doesn't have to be much. And sometimes the pool itself, just the structure of it will create an angle because here's what I want to do. I want to put a thin layer of water at the bottom, but about a quarter of the pool doesn't have any water at all. And I'm going to do the dunkaroo, go get in game where the dog gets in, gets a cookie, gets out. But you can point to them, look, it's safe. Look, I'm your friend. I'm looking out for you. You can jump in where there's no water. And they can jump in, there's water in the pool, but not where they're standing. And you're just going to do search, grab the cookie out of the water, get them out. Don't have them think about, oh, I'm in here and there's water and then do I get the cookie? No. Just grab that cookie and get out. High, high, high value reinforcement. Eventually we want to get that dog doing our sit down, stand spin. They can do it on the dry spot at first. And then walking around the pool, getting cookies, you're going to say, search. It's a very, very thin layer. It doesn't even cover their pads, right? So, their pads are going to get wet. The hair between their feet are going to get wet. Eventually at this stage, we're going to add enough water that it covers the tops of their feet.

Ooh. You don't go on to the next stage until you can get the entire pool with that thin layer of water covering their paws. Honestly, if you've worked through these stages really slowly, your dogs are going to go, yeah, I got this. What's the big deal? Yeah. And the first time they sit and get their butt full of water, they might pop right back up. You tell them, get out, play a game and get them back in. Don't let them think about it. Yes, my butt got wet. What the heck just happened there? Now we're ready to move on to stage number five. This is the big time. Stage five, we are raising the level of the water until it's at the dog's pasterns. If we can get our sit down stand spin here, it will be very quickly to move it up to the level of the dog's neck when they're in a down position. So, it's quickly, we move the level of water up to it's the base of the dog's neck when they're in a down position. Obviously for a little dog, that's going to be a lot lower than say for my border collies. I like that level because their body is all wet. We know if they've dealt with things, I didn't like my back wet. I didn't like my butt wet. I didn't like my arms wet. So, we've dealt with all of that. We've got the dogs, a place that can be cool when we're doing this in the summer. And by the way, when you get to stage five, pick a hot day in the summer to do it because you're taking them for a little walk. You're going to walk them around the pool and then tell them go dunkaroo. They're going to be hot. They're going to go, Oh yeah, I think I do want to do a dunkaroo. I don't know. This sounds like a lot. This is fun. I think I'm going to like this. Right. So, remember stage five, all the way up, your dog's success is what guides them. And if you don't know what success looks like, go back to podcast number 157 and evaluate your dog's body language. What are they telling you? If they're saying I'm a little apprehensive about this, go on back up a couple steps and have at it, make it fun, grow that confidence. Do not be in a hurry. So, you've accomplished stage five. Now what I would like you to do is take your dog on a walk to a conservation area where there might be a low stream and do the same thing in the low stream. If you've got another dog who likes water, let them kind of trail in front of the dog that's new to this. And before long, your dog will be running in the stream. Now we want to try and do it in a lake. A lake with a beach or a river with a beach where your dog can walk out is always best. If you go out and swim with them, ideal. And here's where something

I should have added before. For some dogs, I will have them swim with a life jacket for the first few months when they're swimming, especially dogs with a U-neck. Now a dog structurally with a U-neck, it looks like they have a little bump here because they have a bend in their neck. Some of those dogs, they swim vertically. Naturally their back doesn't float along the water. Now my girl feature, double picture is a feature today if you're watching this on YouTube. My girl feature had a U-neck. And so, as a youngster, when I was doing all of this with her, she swam kind of perpendicular in the water. She swam with a life jacket for six months and I eventually weaned it off of her. But all of my dogs, I put them in a life jacket every once in a while because I think it's just good to use their body muscles differently. Obviously it creates buoyancy. Obviously it gives them more security. So, every dog, when I start them off swimming, I start them off in a life jacket because it just takes away that hysteria. Okay. So, you're at the lake. You might want to go in. You might have other dogs that go in. Dunkaroo have at it and you will see a different layer of confidence. Again, only if you're patient. Now, for those of you who have a pool and you have that first step that the dog has to go down, that might take more counter conditioning. For me, for my youngest dog, this, I actually built a ramp for her to walk down into the water. That seemed to really help her because she was small. And that first step is a big first step for a dog that wasn't very tall. Okay. There you have it. Five, six steps to get your dog swimming, but five steps to get your dog loving the water. Please jump over to YouTube and let me know how you liked it. And while you're here, if you're not a subscriber, hit the subscribe button and the notification bell because listen, we've got a lot more really entertaining, educational dog training videos coming at you. I'll see you next time right here on Shaped by Dog.