Hey Dog Lovers,
Today we talk about the importance of handling your dogs. This applies to both puppies and older dogs.
This is a great way to communicate with your dog that most people overlook. I try to make it a point to discuss handling in all my classes as it is important and easier to train in the younger dogs.
Touching your dog causes the release of calming hormone, oxytocin in your dog’s body that helps calm your dog. It has also been proven to make your dog more social and even increase their ability to learn. This is one reason why dogs are great as therapy dogs. This conditioning of dogs makes them less likely to bite when put in the situation of being touched randomly.
If your dog doesn’t like to be touched use counter conditioning with high reward treats each and every time you do handling drills. I typically use 5-10 minutes of handling and each time I touch the dog I give them the treat.
IMPORTANT: Never trap your dog or puppy while doing this exercise. If your dog ever backs away from the handling, simply do not reward the dog and see if the dog will come back on his own. What the dog is telling you when he backs away, is that what you were doing is too much for him and that you need to go back a step and raise criteria in smaller increments. If you think your dog might bite you during these exercises view the video below for a more detailed list of cautions. You can also teach your dog to like wearing a muzzle before you start conditioning handling, if you are seriously worried about your safety. You can also seek help from a professional trainer who doesn’t use physical or psychological intimidation to train dogs.
During the handling exercises, experiment with breathing and sighing and offer your dog calming signals (signals that dogs tend to do when they are acting non threatening), so your dog doesn’t think it’s some sort of intimidation game and also to help calm your dog. Some calming signals you can do are: offer your dog a “look away“(look away from him as you touch him), blink your eyes softly and slowly, lick your lips, yawn, and sigh.
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