Mansfield Dog Trainer Trains Owners

Spring is approaching and the snow is starting to melt. It’s time to let your dogs run around in the fresh air, as long as they are well trained of course.

Local dog trainer Jane Young. along with two assistants, led a free dog training class Tuesday night in a very packed meeting room at the Mansfield Public Library to teach families how to get their dog to come when called.

Young is the proprietor of Foxfield Dog Training in Mansfield. She has been training dogs for competition for 16 years and has been in-home training for six years. She brought along her 3-year-old Golden Retriever, Glitter, and her 18-month-old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Mensa, to demonstrate her techniques.

The title of the class was “‘Come’ Does Not Mean When You Feel Like It.” She taught the group five methods to get your dog to come all the way to you the moment you call them without hesitation.

“What come really means is I need my hand in your collar,” Young explained.

When the dog comes all the way to you without hesitation and you put your hand in its collar, you click the clicker signifying that the dog will be getting a treat for doing that and then you present the treat. This way, the dog knows that when you say come, it means all the way.

The first technique was motivational recall. One person holds the dogs chest so they cannot run away while the another shows the dog a treat then backs away before calling the dog’s name and saying come in a playful voice. She tells people to make the dog think you will be going to a party when it gets to you. If it is not excited it may decide there is no reason to come.

You practice that for three or four days and then show the dog the treat from farther away before you back up and call it and you continue this until you no longer show the dog the treat before you tell it to come. The dog gets the treat each time it does it correctly, but it is not rewarded if it does not.

Young is of the negative punishment class of dog trainers. She doesn't use any methods that could be painful for the dog, such as prong collars or ear pinching. Her punishment is to deny the dog its treat unless it does exactly what she wants it to do. She also shuns dogs that do not mind her.

She told the class that puppies are sometimes shunned in their litter for doing something wrong so they learn at a young age that if a dog or person looks away and ignores them they have done something wrong.

“The ultimate punishment is to be shunned,” said Young.

The next step she discussed was hide and seek. You throw a treat and tell the dog to find it. You then hide while the dog is getting the treat and call its name and say come. It is rewarded with a treat when it comes running all the way to you.

Distracted recall is a bit more difficult and may require three people. It is meant to train the dog to come even if there is something more interesting than you and your silly treat in its path.

You could use hot dogs or a different kind of treat than your reward. Place it between you and your dog covered so that it cannot actually eat the enticing distraction and then you call it. You start over without the reward when it stops, and it will stop at the distraction item.

When the dog starts to get the idea, the third person uncovers the distraction but if the dog goes for it they cover it back up. Eventually, if you can believe it, your dog will ignore an uncovered mound of hotdogs to come to you.

The next thing Young taught was getting your dog to stop dead in its tracks if you tell it to. This would be used if you call your dog and then realize it is about to run across the path of something dangerous, such as a vehicle in a street. This begins with a board or stick on the ground between you and your dog. You must bring the dog to the item and get it to lie down in front of it a few times, rewarding it with a treat each time. If you do not do this, the dog will not understand the exercise.

You then place the dog on one side of the object and you go to the other side. You call the dog and use hand signals to get it to stop and lay down where you showed it to before. Eventually, your dog will get it and will not need anything between the two of you to know to stop.

The final exercise was a blend of two others. It combined find it from hide and seek and drop or down from the last exercise.

Young explained that dogs learn visually rather than linguistically, meaning that it is easier for them to understand hand signals, but it is also important for them to learn the cue words in case they run ahead of you or cannot see you. They will only pick up the hand signals if you do both at the same time. What you need to do is do the hand signal and then say the cue word you choose and if they do it you would click the clicker to let them know they are correct and they will be rewarded. This way, they learn that the hand signal and the cue word mean the same.

Training a puppy or a dog may seem difficult or even impossible to some but it is not.

“Dog training is easy when you do it right,” Young encouraged. 

She teaches these free classes on Tuesday nights and is open to suggestions for new topics. They run from 7-8:30pm and she invites people to stay later if they have more questions. You can also hire her at a rate of $60/hour plus mileage if she has to travel outside a 10 mile radius. For upcoming dates for her classes or to sign up for training you can check out her website at foxfielddogtraining.com. Her classes are also listed in the monthly calendar at Mansfieldma.com.