I love to take my dog on outings. Together, we travel, visit dog-friendly restaurants and stores, and visit Sniffspots and parks because we have mad skills! We got those skills by playing “Pretend Games.” In The Mannerly Dog’s blog, you’ll find several articles that explain how to use Pretend Games to build various skills. “Life Skills” and “Teach Your Dog to Wear a Cone” are two examples.
“Pretend Games” simulate real activities that we humans want our dogs to learn how to accomplish. The idea is to create a comfortable setting that mimics the activity you have in mind. That way, you can practice the skills you need within circumstances that you can control. Humans and dogs have fun with these games because the pressures of an unfamiliar activity are replaced by smiles and good times during training. You can use pretend games to practice going on outings like dog-friendly patio cafes, camping trips, staying in hotels and riding on elevators, road trips in the car, and so much more.
Why “Pretend Games” for Outings?
I attended a festival recently where owners could bring their leashed dogs. I saw a few dogs who were relaxed and seemed to be enjoying themselves. Many other dogs were worried, scared, defending themselves, and dragging their owners around to the point where the owners appeared frustrated, agitated, and not having fun. They just weren’t ready for this type of outing. The owners of these dogs, once they had arrived with their families, probably felt pressured to stay and try to have a good time. Because they had not use Pretend Games to teach their dogs what to do and how to feel safe at a festival, the whole family’s experience was limited if not ruined. As the cool, crisp days of Fall begin, how can “Pretend Games” help get you and your dog ready for fun outings you can both enjoy?
Festivals are Not Beginner Outings!
A festival that allows dogs is not easy for dogs or their handlers. Outings like this require dogs and handlers to have great leash skills. Both must be confident and able to make quick decisions because it’s hard to predict what will happen next. Handlers must have great observation skills and constantly pay attention to their dogs’ needs throughout the outing. Why? Because other people are letting their dogs pull to the end of their Flexi-leads, bark at other dogs, and more. You don’t know what predicaments you’re going to run into, so you and your dog have to be on top of your game to avoid problems. Even outings like vet visits and trips to dog-friendly hardware stores may provide similar challenges. “Pretend Games” can help you and your dog build the skills you need to succeed.
Practice Leash Skills in the House
Begin preparing for outings with your dog by pretending to go for a walk, inside your home! You’re safe from unexpected problems indoors, so you can practice with confidence and build great skills. Give your dog treats for walking at your side rather than pulling ahead. Practice with and without a leash, so your dog learns to routinely walk along at your side. You’ll learn to guide your dog gently, without pulling on the leash, so your dog can learn to respond to your verbal cues and movements. Pick a side for your dog to walk on – left or right – and stick with it. Your dog will learn his role in the partnership you’re developing!
Know Your Role as Your Dog’s Partner
Even before you leave home together, you can practice how you’ll hold the leash and how you’ll give the treats. To teach your dog, you need to be aware of what you’re doing. A treat bag will keep your treats handy. It’s also fun to stash treats in different locations around the house! Walk with your dog for a few steps and grab a treat from a shelf or countertop – your dog will think you can magically make treats appear from anywhere – and that’s a real benefit for training. Practice giving your dog treats while you’re moving.
Holding the Leash
How you hold the leash is a personal preference, as long as it hangs loosely at all times. You want your dog to respond to your movements and verbal cues, not leash tension. Teach your dog to walk with you, not to respond to leash tension. You don’t want your dog pulling; if you pull on the leash, she’ll naturally pull back. Hold the leash in either hand, or even clip it to your belt loop or around your waist. I use a service dog leash that drapes around my shoulders because it keeps my hands free. All this prep work will help you learn habits that help your dog understand how you want her to walk with you!
Keep Your Leash Loose
I can’t say this enough, because we humans seem to have an inborn tendency to pull leashes tight. You may pull on the leash because you just want to keep him safe, but a tight leash keeps your dog from being able to make a choice. You want your dog to walk with you by choice, not because he can’t do anything else. If the leash is always tight, your dog learns to respond to the leash pressure and not to your movements or verbal cues.
Leash Skills Offer Comfort, Control, and Safety
I can’t tell you how many people I saw at that recent event with their leashed dogs 5 feet ahead of them, pulling them along, as they said, “Come on, Doggie!” What does that even mean? In actuality, the dog was saying, “Come on, Owner!” and the owner was obediently following at the pace set by the dog. With bugged-out eyes, hyper-alert attention on other dogs and children, these dogs were stressed out and ready to blow. Sometimes, they did – often when another dog crossed their path, these dogs would pull even harder, barking and lunging at the other dog while the owner pulled back as hard as they could, trying to avoid contact with the other dog.
A Tight Leash is Just Not Safe!
These dogs were not necessarily behaving aggressively, although some were. Some of them were overly-excited in their desire to play with other dogs or get attention from humans. It doesn’t matter why; these behaviors are problematic because the dogs were responding to other stimuli in the environment and not to their handlers. These handlers had little control of the situation; if the leash slipped out of their hands, a fall or brawl could occur or a dog could even be hit by a car if near a parking lot or street. The best control comes from a dog walking next to his mom or dad, on a loose leash, ready to respond when asked to make a u-turn and move away from a situation. Pretend Games at home can build the skills dogs and owners need for outings together.
“Outings” to the Back Yard
Once you and your dog have practiced in the house, you can practice going out the back door into the back yard. The back yard is the next step simply because there are most likely fewer dangerous distractions out there. Practice out there to prepare for going out the front door as partners in walking. You’ll observe your dog’s patterns and what his body language looks like right before he becomes overly excited. You’ll also get an idea of what types of stimuli draw his attention most. Some dogs are more visual and others respond more to sounds or smells. Can you and your dog “stop and smell the roses” together and then continue walking as a team? Pretend you’re on an outing, notice where your problem areas might be, and practice the skills you need to get better.
Situational Awareness
Martial Arts masters teach situational awareness, and so do dog training coaches! Outings with your dog involve unpredictable environments that require your attention. It’s imperative that you are observant of the environment you and your dog are in so you can spot potential dangers. This includes both physical and behavioral dangers.
A squirrel could be a physical danger to you if your dog excitedly pulls you down trying to chase it. That same squirrel could be a behavioral danger if your dog learns that pulling hard on the leash gets him where he wants to go. You see, once a dog learns something, it does not go away. We can use training to overcome that response with one we like better, but the possibility is always there for that behavior we don’t like to pop up under the right circumstances. If someone is walking another dog nearby, can you and your dog maintain your walking partnership?
Prep for Outings by Practicing Recalls
The potential dangers in the environment are often labelled “distractions” and we hope that’s all they are! But dogs are capable of jerking leashes out of handlers’ hands and more – will your dog come back to you if you drop the leash? Another pretend game to practice is recalls from short distances. Reinforcing with treats means training your dog for longer-distance recalls under more challenging conditions.
Outings May Include Car Rides
Once you’ve practiced at home, why not go to a store? You don’t need a dog-friendly store because first, you’ll be practicing outside. Before you incorporate car rides into your “Pretend Games” for outings, make sure your dog is an “Easy Rider” by teaching him to love riding in the car!
Use the Parking Lot, Not the Store!
Once you and your dog have some skills in your pocket, your first outings should be to store parking lots. You have lots of control over how close you get to people, dogs, and cars. At first, park as far away from the entrance as possible. This reduces the impact of all the distractions at that location – sights, sounds and smells! You may be amazed at how your dog gets “caught by his nose” and can’t hear a word you’re saying to him. Be ready for this because hundreds of people have passed through this area, dropping food and who knows what else! This is why the exercise I’m going to describe is so TINY!
Tiny Exercise, Huge Benefits
Unload your dog from the car according to your plan and routine. Get him next to you, on the side you’ve established through your practice at home, with a loose leash between you. First, just hang there for a minute – let your dog take in the sights, sounds, and smells that are overwhelming his system in this new environment. Offer treats, but recognize he might be overwhelmed by his need to take in the information his senses are picking up. On this first visit, you might ask ONLY for a loose leash, and only for a minute or two. Your dog might wander back and forth, wondering what this new place is about, but as long as the leash is not tight, you’re succeeding. After a minute or two, ask him to get back in the car according to your routine and drive away. That’s it!
Careful Practice Leads to Fun Outings
Long distances and short training sessions are part of how “Pretend Games” help you succeed. If your dog is highly stimulated by the distractions at the far side of the parking lot for just a minute or two, imagine how overwhelmed he would be inside a store or in a crowd at a festival! By taking these baby steps of pretending you’re going to an event, you allow your dog to make associations between the experience and the good feelings he has while listening, watching, and sniffing the stimuli. At the same time, he’s practicing the behaviors you will want during a “real” outing. You get to observe where any problem areas are and plan your next training sessions accordingly. Everybody wins.
Outings Practice: A Few Locations in a Few Minutes
Because you’re pretending, protecting your dog from being over-stimulated, and keeping training sessions short, you can repeat your success a few times in a row. Drive to another parking lot and repeat. Always give your dog 30 seconds to a couple of minutes, maybe longer (it won’t hurt a thing!) to take in the stimuli in the new environment. If your dog is more relaxed in a particular parking lot, walk him around in a small circle at your side before putting him back in the car. Make sure the leash is loose at all times – that means your dog is “with you.” If you have a little trouble at one location, shorten the visit at the next.
Don’t overdo this exercise, but if you and your dog are both relaxed and having a good time, go to three or four parking lots on your trip, then go home. Practice getting into and out of the car and your leash skills the same way every time. Give your dog plenty of treats for his good behavior. And keep each session very, very short. The mental stimulation of good training sessions will probably result in a nap for your dog when you get home! Soon, you and your dog will be walking around the car on your visits.
Make it Easy for Your Dog to Succeed
In time, your pretend games can progress to parking closer to the building, people, and cars. When you’re ready, walk your dog up to the front entrance and back to the car. Then, you can start hanging out on the porch of the hardware store, letting your dog help you pick out your next lawnmower or BBQ grill!
This is how you prepare your dog for festivals, going inside a dog-friendly store, and other new environments while making sure the two of you have the confidence and leash skills you need to succeed. We humans tend to want to keep pushing forward when we’re doing well, but this usually results in pushing our dogs to failure. Don’t do it! Stop when you have success. Take a break and start again.
Fear, Anxiety, and Stress
As you might already see, there are many goals for these “Pretend Games.” One is to observe and pinpoint any concerns your dog has in new environments. Do groups of humans excite him? Do motorcycle engines nearby worry him? Is a kid holding a balloon completely overwhelming? It is important for you to protect your dog from intrusions of any kind. It’s also important to be prepared to enact your back-up plan if your dog encounters something that really concerns him, to the point where he behaves fearfully, anxiously, or as though he is stressed. That back-up plan may be “U-turn and happily trot back to the car.” And then, create a training plan to help your dog understand that the stimuli upsetting him are not so bad.
Signs of Stress in Dogs
We can safely use the term “stressed” to describe a dog who is fearful, anxious, or stressed. This keeps things simple for you. Signs of fear (tucked tail, pinned-back ears) or anxiety (hyper-focus on the environment, constantly looking around, tense body) can be similar. Signs of stress in general include these and more (raised hackles, stiff tail and body, tense face.)
When you notice any of these signs that your dog is anything but happy and relaxed, and know that he is not dealing well with the situation he’s in. Get him out of the situation until he is prepared. Our Dog Reading Self-Study Course can help you learn about the signs to watch for. You really want to look for signs that your dog is comfortable and confident, curious and happy – a loose and wiggily body, softly wagging tail, soft eyes and mouth. These signs are your cue to move forward with training and activities – everything is going well!
Excited or Upset Dogs Can Show Stress Signs
Dogs can show stress signs when they are afraid or defensive, or when they are happily excited. It’s important for dog parents to notice these stress signs because a dog can quickly become hard to handle, no matter why he’s showing these signs. For instance, some dogs are happily stressed when they want to play with another dog SO MUCH that they are overwhelmed by their desire and really can’t hear you begging them to pay attention to your requests. Their brain is overloaded and their cognitive skills are limited at this point. Even though the dog is happy and playful, you’ll see stiffness in his movements, frantic actions, and inability to pay attention to your cues. Your dog is just as out of control when overly-excited but happy as he is when he’s upset and defensive.
So whether your dog is reacting stressfully to another dog out of fear or happy excitement, your leash skills are the way you can handle the situation and get back to being able to control things. If you and your dog are really good at leash skills, they will happen automatically and your dog won’t have to think about what to do. Practicing Pretend Games can get you where you want to be.
Reinforce the Behaviors You Like
You can see that rewarding the behaviors you want at all times is the best approach, no matter what is causing your dog to perform behaviors you don’t like. If you’ve read my article on the two ways dogs learn, association and consequences, you’ll recognize that both are occurring at the same time when you use treats as training tools. You can’t go wrong with this approach, when it’s accompanied by preparation in the form of practiced leash skills. You need to be able to get yourself and your dog gracefully out of a situation that is causing these stress behaviors, whether they come from happy stress or fearful stress.
If Your Dog is Not Ready, Cancel the Outing!
I saw a large German Shepherd at the recent festival I attended. Her tail was tucked so far underneath her that it was touching her ribs and I could barely see it. This was when her dad still had her outside the boundaries of the festival. I’m glad he stopped there to try to calm her. However, the best way to deal with the symptoms of fear and stress that I was seeing would have been for them to leave and go home. Once the dog calmed at home, the next day would be soon enough to start the “Pretend Games” I described above.
Pretend outings of walking out the door together for just a minute, then back inside BEFORE the dog showed signs of stress/fear, would be the prescription for helping this dog learn she was safe in new environments with her dad. If she likes car rides, driving to a parking lot and getting out FAR from the business and people would be a good exercise to build her confidence in a low-distraction environment.
Fearful Dogs Can Develop Confidence
Believe it or not, it is possible to change behavior in a dog like the one I described above. Beginning with easy-to-accomplish tasks in simple environments and progressing to slightly harder challenges when the dog is ready is the fix. You can’t do it by forcing the dog into an environment that is too much for her to deal with. A dog like this German Shepherd needs a chance to succeed in a situation with stimuli occurring at such a low level that she can remain calm and curious and practice the leash skills and confidence she’s been learning at home.
Fearful dogs really benefit from “Pretend Games” that their parents set up at the level where they can easily succeed. First in a simple and easy-to-conquer environment, then in progressively more challenging situations, fearful dogs can build confidence through associations and predictability. When they make good behavioral choices, rewards follow.
Success comes with a dog’s ability to trust her owner to keep her safe. When she knows exactly what her job is, she’ll learn to carry through in any environment – as long as new situations are introduced carefully so she can learn. As confidence grows, formerly-fearful dogs may still be cautious, but they’ll be able to conquer new settings with the help of their owners. Owners of dogs like this must always be aware of which outings their dogs can handle and which ones are too challenging.
Beyond Basic Manners
“Pretend Games” are a big part of our Beyond Basic Manners curriculum. We use a variety of settings and combinations of skills. I’ll write about more of them in articles to come. Contact me if you want some help training your dog to accompany you wherever you go.
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