Einstein's first day-- introducing the clicker

Kathy arrived with Einstein (E) at 10am. We were very structured about how we brought him in. Since dogs do better with new dogs if they meet on "neutral" territory we did not want to just walk E into the house. We kept him in his crate in K's car, and one by one I brought my dogs on leash out to sniff him, and to let him sniff them. Great, no reaction other than curiosity. So far so good.

Kathy stayed awhile and we walked E around the yard, and through the house. We sat outside in the shade and my dogs layed down, indicating peaceful contentment. He seemed a bit clingy to Kathy but not badly. She held him a bit and encouraged him to sniff around. He was on leash at all times!! The last thing you want at the beginning is a "bolting" incident where he dashes away and is scared to come to you. While K and I were sitting talking, she quietly handed the end of the leash to me, and now I was on the other end of his leash. No problem. I got down on the ground and did not invade his space-- I averted my eyes a bit and let him come up and sniff me. This let me present myself in a nonthreatening manner, which put him at ease.

After awhile of that, when things seemed to be getting nice and boring, we moved into the house. He hopped up onto a chair (OK with us) and again K gave me the end of the leash. We continued talking, and he curled up in the chair with his chin on the arm. K quietly got up and went into the other room where she could hear me easily. He watched her go and I gently stroked his chest, which he liked. He relaxed (hooray, great sign). I sat on the carpet in front of the chair and he smelled my hair, and if I stopped touching him he asked me to keep going, which I did. I quietly asked K to tiptoe in and see this, which she did. She was happy to see him transitioning so well. So she came in again, stayed for a moment, and went out again. Again, he was curious and watched her go but was OK with my attention. She came back in, and then after a few more minutes went out and brought his crate (with his bed) in. Earlier we had clipped together 2 very lightweight leashes, so we had a lightweight longline. This was attached to his chain collar.

We said goodbye, and let E rest a bit and just observe the new situation from the comfort of his crate. He went into his crate voluntarily, and we kept the leash on him, letting the end trail out of the crate, and we closed the door on it. That way when I want him to come out, I'm not sticking my hands and arms into his crate, possibly scaring him. I just take the end of the leash, open the crate, and encourage him out. If he needs more, I can give a very gentle tug on the leash.

He has been walked back to the "potty yard" area twice but won't go there yet. I took him out onto the front grass and he immediately did his business there. Again, this is all on leash. He is going to be on leash at all times for the first few days AT LEAST.

It was time for dinner for the dogs. We fed ours, and I crated them to have some uninterrupted time with E to introduce him to the meaning of the click. I tongue-click (like you do when you want to giddyup a horse) because I always have that handy to mark a good behavior (producing a click at the exact moment of desired behavior is called "marking" a behavior. It identifies for the dog what behavior produced the click, which in turn produces a treat!).

To introduce the association of click=treat-about-to-come, it's very simple. You just click and drop a treat in front of the dog. The dog is not paying attention to the sequence yet, but is happy totake up the treat. You do this several times, tossing the treat a few inches over here, a few inches over there.... and after about 25 repetitions, when you click and the dog is looking around on the floor for where the treat went, you know you've got the association you want. Voila! E caught on very quickly.

I do not talk during training (at this stage) because it would be very distracting to the dog. I want him to understand the simple relationship between the click and the treat, without a lot of superfluous chatter on my part.

I put him back in his crate for 15 minutes to let the learning that just occurred have a chance to solidify in his mind. This happens at a subconscious level. Now that he understands that the click preceeds a treat, I will use the timing of click to deliberately increase certain behaviors. Usually we choose just one behavior to work on during each short little training session. In my case, I'm going to click/treat (C/T) for either of two behaviors-- voluntarily stepping out of his crate toward me, and/or making eye contact with me (even if just for a fleeting moment). Both of these teach him to pay attention to me, to focus on me.

Again, the light leash is still on him the whole time. I'm sitting on the sofa near his crate, the door is open, and he is inside. I start by clicking a putting a treat inside, then clicking and putting a treat closer to the door, and once he's taken that one, I click and put one on the edge of the doorway, then just outside, etc. At first he reaches his nose out and takes the treat just outside the crate, and we do that for a few reps, and then I put one far enough out that he has to touch a foot to the carpet. We go slowly. Now two feet, now a step out, then back into the crate. But he comes out quickly this time, and is willing to take a few steps out. Now back into the crate. Pretty soon, he's out of the crate, walking 2 feet to the right of it to retrieve his treat. Now just to mix it up I toss a treat in the other direction, 7 inches or so to the left of the crate. He slides back into the crate to think about this for a moment, and then goes out and finds the treat. Again, I toss to the right, he gets it, I toss to the left, and he slides into the crate to process this change, and then goes out and gets it. Next time I toss to the left, he goes there directly, no need to retreat to the crate to absorb this change. So that means he is adapting to change pretty quickly. Very good. Preceding each treat is a click, even though I'm not writing that for you each time here. Got it?

During this exercise, I would C/T any fleeting glance to my face. Soon he was looking me straight in the eye (for a moment) and I was very pleased with our progress. This whole thing took about 5 minutes. I ended the session by saying "Good boy, that's all for now" and leading him into his crate with a kibble. Time for another 15 min. rest.

Now we move to a new location, a room about 15 feet from his crate. He looked back toward the crate a few times as if to ask to be returned to that area. I sat on a chair and waited for a glance in my direction, which I got pretty quickly, and off we went, clicking and treating for more and more and more repetitions of eye contact. Any urge to retreat to the crate seemed to disappear for him as he immersed himself in this now-familiar game which resulted in lots of prizes for him. I got him up to a bit over a full second of sustained eye contact with ears up, a look of total interest. I also started saying his name as he gave me this attention. Excellent progress. We ended the session, back into the crate to let it solidify for a few minutes. Again, this last session was approximately 5 minutes long. At this point, he has had about a full cup of "small bite" high quality kibble, which is his dinner, so you can see how many repetitions we did, and how many rewards he got (lots!).

If a full second of eye contact seems trivial, keep in mind that this is a dog that came into rescue terrified of the world, and he just left the only two people he had ever trusted. For him to be voluntarily coming out of his crate and giving me this kind of attention and eye contact (which is a sign of assertiveness, too), is a big deal for his first day. I'm really impressed with him.

Temperament-wise, E is what we call a "soft" dog. He is trying to please, he is not wanting to challenge anyone and he is very very gentle. When he takes a tiny treat from my fingers, he does it with such delicacy. He licked my hand ever so lightly. So for the first few days, we want to ensure a quiet, gentle atmosphere for him, too. When I touch him, I do it very gently and slowly. We've kept the sounds around the house soothing and quiet today. Usually, after a few weeks a dog starts to show his true personality and we expect the more boisterous side of E to come out later. Soft dogs can be easily overwhelmed, they're the kind of dogs who crumble if you raise your voice to them. So a peaceful environment is always a good thing to provide in the very beginning of a dog's transition.

By the end of the evening, E was happily in my lap, soaking up affection. I kept my energy quiet and gentle. He successfully did his business in the dog yard, but I had to "fence" it off with an ex-pen to keep him in the area. That, plus my other dogs setting the example, let him know that this was the place where it was OK to go. I did let him off leash in this confined area, because I could tell he wanted to go out away from me to defecate. Success! We gave him another chance to urinate at 10:30pm and then put him in his crate for the night. He slept quietly all night.