Indirect Access is a very important concept in dog training. With positive training, we work with something the dog wants to get, and we give that to him when we see a behavior we like and want him to repeat or cement into the dog's behavior repertoire. For this to work, the dog must learn the principle of indirect access. In other words, when a dog sees something he wants, he must learn that he can't just bulldoze his way over to it and steal it for himself. He must come to realize that the fastest way to earn the prize is to do something in exchange for it, so that the trainer will deliver it to him.
There are several excellent exercises to teach this to the dog, and the more you practice these exercises and games with your dog, the more attentive he will be to you and your wishes. Because attending to your wishes has become a way for him to "cash in" for treats and prizes.
Read below for information on how to teach your dog eye contact, “leave it,” and “heel” using indirect access.
The dog thinks that he is training YOU to produce goodies that he wants whenever he gives you certain "cues." He has figured out that when he gives you the "sit and stare" cue that you will respond by giving him a reward. You, on the other hand, think you are training the dog to perform certain behaviors whenever you give certain cues. You have learned that when you feed him after he sits and gives you his attention he will tend to perform this behavior, rather than trying to knock you down and paw the treats out of your hand.
You are both correct. In a way, you are training each other. You are both getting what you want. You are both happy. There is no force or violence to strain the relationship. The bond with your dog grows stronger. This is the idea behind the "Naked Dog Obedience" that we teach at Dog Scout Camp. The dog doesn't need a leash and collar, because he does exactly as he wishes. But, that happens also to be exactly what you wish him to do! He wants the treats. You show him how to earn them. He does what gets him the treats. You get good behavior. It's a win-win situation.
There have been other popular terms to describe the concept of indirect access in the past, such as the "Learn to Earn" program, and the "No Free Lunch" program. These are similar, in that the dog must learn that he gets nothing by trying to help himself to it, he must exchange a bit of self-control or obedience for everything he receives.
In recent years, many successful trainers have popularized their methods of teaching this same concept of direct access. Two of my favorites are Jean Donaldson and Chris Bach. I highly recommend that you read the materials put out by these trainers.
Many of the ideas that we developed for training at camp are either identical to those of Donaldson and Bach or were expressly taken from their teachings. Like most good dog trainers, the things I haven't developed on my own, I've copied from great trainers which I admire and agree with, and I'd like to make sure they get part of the credit. It would be impossible to list all of the great trainers who have influenced my thoughts and methods of dog training, but Karen Pryor, Jeannie Collins, Jack Volhard, Dawn Jecs and Terry Ryan have been my friends and mentors, as well.
EXERCISES TO TEACH INDIRECT ACCESS:
THE EYE-CONTACT GAME (this is my version of Chris Bach's "game")
It is good to have your dog give you his attention. If you don't have your dog's attention, how can you teach him anything? You want to "shape" the occurrence of your dog giving you his attention by rewarding those times when he chooses to look at you. As you know, what is rewarded will be repeated, and you will experience your dog giving you his attention more and more.
Start with your dog either "naked" or on a tether or on a leash with your foot on the end (for dogs with really short attention spans.) You just want a reasonable expectation that your dog will stay in the general vicinity with you so that you can teach him something. With your dog in front of you, have a bunch of pea-sized treats ready (something the dog REALLY wants. You could also use a favorite toy, but food is easier to deliver in rapid fire and succession. Get your clicker in one hand and a treat in the other. Have the rest of the treats nearby, but not really obvious to the dog, and not where he can get to them without working for you. Here you go:
1. Show the dog the treat (this becomes the first "signal" to watch)
2. Move the treat out to your side at an arm's length or less.
3. When the dog's eyes follow the treat, do nothing. He may stare at it for a long time. So you might want to rest your hand on the edge of a table or the back of a chair. If the dog jumps up or tries direct access to the goodies, just move your hand enough to prevent access and go right back to the original hand position.
4. Sooner or later, he will wonder what's up with this, and look to you questioningly. This will likely be a very brief look, so be ready with your clicker! You want to catch his eye contact on you, not looking back at the treat.
5. The instant his eyes meet yours, click and hand him the treat. You must pinpoint the instant he looks at you, because he might quickly look away again. That's why I like to use the clicker- it's fast. You could use a verbal reward marker, like "YES!" instead. It's important that you don't move your hand to give him the treat until after you MARK the behavior you wanted: EYE CONTACT. His eyes will be on that treat again if you move your hand. That's ok, though if you've already marked the desired behavior with the click or the "yes."
Repeat steps 1 - 5 again. Notice he's not sure if he should look at you or the treat (especially if you had lousy timing with the clicker.) He may glance back and forth quickly with his eyes between you and the treat. Be very patient. Some dogs are persistent about staring at the treat. They must learn that this behavior NEVER gets them the reward. The payoff is in looking to the handler.
When the dog is quickly looking at you as soon as you hold the treat out to your side you can start to increase the amount of time he holds his eyes on you. Wait for a half-second of maintained eye contact with you before clicking his attention. Require that he look at your eyes steadily for a brief moment before marking and reinforcing the behavior. VERY gradually, build the amount of time he needs to look at you before you click. After you get the first 4-5 seconds, the dog seems to catch on that it’s duration you want and you can increase the length of time by 2 second intervals, then eventually 5 second intervals. Each time you play the game, vary the amount of time the dog needs to maintain eye contact before you click. But on the times when you want to work on increasing the duration, don’t expect too much too soon. You can count the seconds in your head. Just smile and look back at him. If he looks away too soon, you can break off the game and look away, too. Then start over and when he looks at you, begin counting again.
When your dog will look at you for an eternity, begin adding small distractions, and require him to pay attention, even though there might be something else going on. After he has looked at you for several seconds, move your hand. If he breaks eye contact to look at the hand, start counting all over again. He will learn to stop falling for your "fake-outs." He will learn that the fastest way to get the goodie is to "tune out" everything else, and focus only on you.
In the advanced stages of this exercise, you can drop toys or pieces of food, and the dog will be required to continue making eye contact and not go after the toy or food. Notice that all of this is done completely without corrections. You don't want to FORCE or INTIMIDATE your dog to look at you with FEAR. You want him to choose to look at you because that is where the goodies come from. It is very rewarding for him to make and maintain eye contact. The dog's only "punishment" is not receiving the food if he falls for some of the distractions you provide, or fails to look at you.
Notice also that we have not named this "trick" yet. Clicker Training is not a "command-based" training method. We don't shout commands and proceed to punish everything the dog does that is not the correct response. How can you expect a dog to give a correct response to a command he doesn't even know yet? After we teach the behavior we want (eye contact), we then name the behavior. Something like "watch me" or "ready" is fine. You give this verbal cue just before you hold out your hand, so that he learns that the cue means you are about to ask for eye contact. After several repetitions of asking, then immediately holding out your hand (the old cue for eye contact) wait a pause before you move your hand. See if the dog will look at you when you give the word cue. If he does, be ready to click and reward immediately! If the dog will repeat this several times in a row, your dog now understands the new word cue in that training environment. Now you’re ready to work through the above steps in a new location. Don’t worry, the dog catches on MUCH faster then second and third times through and will eventually “generalize” and realize the cue always means “eye contact” regardless of where he is or what he is doing. You can also deliver rewards and attention to the dog if he chooses to offer eye contact at times other than a training session!
This exercise (Chris Bach calls it a game, so that more people will want to do it with their dogs) has many benefits. Your dog will pay more attention to you in his everyday life. He will learn not to "help himself" to things, but to look to you for permission. He will have a point of reference for maintaining a heel position. He will be less likely to miss cues given to him, because he'll be watching you more, even without a cue to do so. In general, he will be more in tune with you and "tuned in" to you.
LEAVE IT!
The world is full of distractions and interesting things to capture your dog's attention. Some of it could get him into trouble. You don't want him sticking his nose up an unfriendly dog's butt, eating a piece of rotten food from the ground, or making "friends" with a porcupine you might encounter on a walk. Teaching a dog the "leave it" is the equivalent of teaching a toddler "don't touch." It could save him from accident or injury, and it will reinforce the concept of indirect access, making him more attentive to you.
You will need the dog on a leash, this time, to help you "manage" his environment. In other words, you don't want to accidentally have him GET the thing you're trying to teach him to leave alone. You will need treats, and a helper can be very useful on this exercise.
Here we go:
1. Let the dog see your helper drop several treats on the ground ahead of him.
2. If he lunges to get the treats, turn yourself into a post. Hold the handle of the leash against your hip, plant your feet and don’t move (and don’t jerk back on the leash.) Be sure and position yourself far enough from the treats on the floor so that the dog can’t reach them, even with an outstretched paw! The leash is simply a safety line. It is NOT used to convey any message to the dog!
3. Hold food out to the dog with your other hand (he won’t see this right away because he’s focused on the food on the ground.)
4. When he looks away from the food or slackens the leash by moving backward toward you, mark that desired behavior (click, or say "yes.") If the dog knows what the clicker means, odds are good he will glance in your direction. This is when he will see you have been offering him a treat! As he comes to you to get the treat, praise him for being so smart.
5. After the dog gets the treat from you the first few times, odds are he will go right back to what is on the ground hoping to get that too! Go back to being a post and get another treat ready for him when he turns around. Be ready to click or say yes when he looks back at you!
6. It won’t take very many repetitions before the dog is spending less time looking at the food on the ground and more time looking at you.
7. When that happens, have the helper move the food (or you can simply move your own position, such as going to the other side of the food) and go through the above steps again.
8. You can start adding the “leave it” cue of your choice when you can accurately predict the moment your dog is about to turn and look at you (because that’s what you want to cue to mean! – “turn away from that and look at me”) So you want to add the cue just before the dog does that behavior.
9. Whenever you change the location of the food on the floor (even if it’s just a foot or two in a new spot) or if you change your own location, don’t say the cue until the dog is again predictable.
When the dog is no longer pulling and straining and will look at you quickly (and keep looking at you) in the presence of tempting food on the ground, you are ready to progress. You want to raise the criteria, make it harder for the dog. Instead of being a post, you’ll be adding some movement.
1. Start with just one small step to the side as the dog is giving you eye contact. If he maintains eye contact, click and reward him.
2. Next time he looks away from the food (with or without a cue), try two steps to the side of the food. If the dog goes back to looking at the food on the floor before you finish both steps, simply stop, be a post and wait for eye contact again. Then when the dog gives you eye contact, try one step again.
3. Repeat step 2 several times times. When the dog is able to maintain eye contact for two steps in a row as you circle the food on the floor, go for three steps.
4. Repeat step 3 several times then try to see if the dog will hold eye contact with you doing 4 steps around the food. You are still keeping a distance from the food that prevents the dog from being able to reach the food if he tries to lunge for it.
5. When you are able to walk all the way around the food and the dog is maintaining eye contact the whole time, then you are ready to start moving closer to the tempting food. Start just a little bit closer (you can shorten your leash just a bit as long as it is staying loose unless the dog pulls toward the food.) The leash is simply a safety line. It is NOT used to convey any message to the dog!
6. If you work this slowly enough, your dog will be walking OVER the food and not try to get it, because trying to get it hasn’t been working. Only looking at you has gotten the dog what he wants (food.)
I can’t stress enough that the leash is NOT used to correct or help the dog! It simply prevents him from reaching the tempting food. If you do all of the thinking for the dog by dragging him away, or punishing him for trying to get the food, then when you are not there, he'll probably help himself, because you and the leash aren't there to do his thinking for him. He has to know that he will always get something good if he leaves the food or undesirable object (baited fishhook, poison, dead animal, wildlife, or whatever) alone. With enough practice, you’ll be able to do this off leash, or with the dog several feet away from you! Because the dog knows “leave it” means to look at you immediately, regardless of what is around that he wants. This is a cue where the delivery of something the dog likes is never faded. He won’t know WHAT a proper response might bring, but he knows it will be something he loves. If you go to just using praise for this cue, the dog may decide that the item he’s leaving is more valuable and he will start to disregard your cue. Make sure you pay well for this cue so that the response is always fast and reliable. It doesn’t have to be food, but it has to be something your dog really likes.
When you first start to do this "game" off leash, have a helper to make sure that the dog does not reward himself.
Show the dog that there is food on the floor next to your helper. Walk the dog past the food, and if he tries to snatch it, the helper will quickly cover and hide the food with his hands, foot, or a bowl. No matter what the dog tries, he is thwarted from getting the food for himself. When he chooses to leave it and turn his attention to you, reinforce (click and reward) the behavior.
Teaching Heel position using indirect access:
Another variation of this indirect access exercise is one I got from Jean Donaldson. This exercise works on loose leash walking, or the heel position. You will need food, clicker, a helper, a leash, and your dog.
1. Have the helper walk up to your dog with his hands full of yummy treats, and let him sniff.
2. The helper then backs away a distance of 20 to 30 feet and entices the dog, showing off the treats.
3. Create or make a note of something near you that will help you re-find the spot where you are currently standing. This will be the “start line.”
4. Start with the dog in heel position by your left side. Then you step forward toward your helper.
5. It's likely that the dog will lunge forward toward the helper to try to get at the food. He’s trying the DIRECT access method and we need to show him that doesn’t work. As soon as the dog is out of heel position, QUICKLY run backwards to the start line and re-set.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5. After a few repetitions, the dog should start to catch on that lunging is not working. He will try a little self control. Tell him quietly and calmly that he’s such a smart dog! As soon as he gets out of position, re-start.
7. Be patient as your dog figures out this new puzzle! It helps them a lot if you go through the other indirect access exercises above before you try this one. Be sure you are getting back to the start line quickly. Also be sure you are consistent with how far in front of you the dog can get before you back up.
8. The dog will get close to the helper while staying in heel position, and then lunge at the last moment. The dog is very close, but don’t give in just yet! Start over one more time and odds are the next time he will control himself ALL the way to the helper. Have the helper give the dog several treats one right after the next (not in one big handful) and pour on the praise too! Repeat immediately and you’ll see the dog go through the steps much faster.
Once the dog understands this concept, you can use it anytime there is something in front of the dog that he wants. That something (the dog park, a squirrel, forward movement on a walk) can take the place of the helper in the above scenario. When the dog maintains heel for as long as you want (don’t expect too much too soon) you can reward him with what he wants. This could be going into the dog park, chasing the squirrel up a tree or getting to go at the pace he chooses on the walk.) The more often and the more places the dog practices this, the better he will be at snapping into place instead of pulling!
It is good for your dog to know that you control the rewards, even when you don't have the food. It is good for him to learn to pay attention to you even when he can tell that you have no food with you. Indirect access games teach the dog that, no matter what may SEEM to be the shortest distance to the goodies in life, it is always quicker and more rewarding to pay attention to you and follow your wishes. The best way for him to access the things HE desires is by attending to your desires.
