Week Three: To Harness All That Energy (with preview)

Week Three in Review

Preview: This week, Roxy and I have one goal; to get her to wear a harness. Easy, right? Yeah, not so much! Roxy has a lot of anxiety around having a collar put on her and that's just around her neck! I chose a body harness because Roxy is deaf. I had a very good consultation with a knowledgeable woman at my local Petco. Here's the one I chose. Until she became part of our family, my biggest worry was that she'd get out of the yard and I wouldn't be able to find her, nor call her name to find her. I now realize it's much more than that.

If I want to be able to keep her safe and eventually have her work as a therapy dog, I need to be certain that I can recall her and that she can't slip from her restraint. Since she's already shown me that she can slip her little head out of a collar no matter how tight it is around her neck, a harness it is.

Putting a collar on her was a huge challenge. She looked frightened, bit at it, and wiggled, hopped, skipped and gyrated out of my reach with everything she had. It was like watching that really bad dancer of the 1980's - you know, disco days! So, I was relatively sure I'd have to do some training with her to get the harness on. But I needed a starting point.

Instead of posting our experience next week, when it's (hopefully) done, I'll be adding to this post as we make progress.  So, stay tuned and check in often for more updates.

Train Your Dog to Wear a Harness in 3,572 Easy Steps (or less)

This is the harness we're working with.

Day One

Step One: I decided to think positive and act with confidence as I put the harness on for the first time. That lasted less than ten seconds. I stopped as soon as I realized it wasn't going to be that easy. I did not want to make things worse, making Roxy associate the harness with a negative experience.

Step Two: An hour or so later, I got out the harness and some wiener pieces. Yummm! I touched the harness to her nose and then gave her a treat. After a bit, Roxy touched it voluntarily. Treat, treat, treat! 

Step Three: I touched the harness to her chest and gave her a treat. Repeat, treat, repeat, treat, repeat...

Step Four: I looped the neck part of the harness around her neck without fastening anything. This was a hard one. It's a lot like the collar to her. We did this a tiny bit at a time and again...Treat, repeat, treat, repeat, treat, repeat...

This session lasted about 10 minutes. We repeated another 10 minutes three more times this day.

End of DAY ONE.

Day Two

Roxy with harness partially attached.

Step Five: Repeat steps one through four from previous day until she easily let me get through step four.

Step Six: Fasten neck latch.* Roxy freaked out at this. She actually started trying to wiggle out of it before I even latched it. I think she could just sense from my body language that we were about to do something we hadn't done as of yet. The first few times, she wiggled out of the harness. Tempting as it was to hold her tighter and just fasten the darn thing, I kept my goal in mind. Goal: for Roxy to easily and voluntarily accept having the harness put on her. If I simply latched it when she was wiggling, I'd defeat the purpose. When she fought hard against it, I simply let go and went back to just putting it on her. Eventually she let me latch it. Treat, treat, treat! I took it off and we started all over again. When I was sufficiently convinced she felt good about having it latched around her neck, I moved to the next step.

*After getting to know the harness better and what Roxy would accept better, I realized made a slight change in how I'd teach her this skill. There are two latches that fasten around the neck of this particular harness. Since Roxy isn't thrilled about things that go around her neck, and because she would tolerate stepping into the harness pretty easily, I decided to keep one side fastened together and just have her step into it. Then there was just one side to snap.

Step Seven: With the neck part only, latched, I petted her, acted totally overly excited. We played and I tussled her fur, kissed her, and just generally played for a minute or so. She accepted this without trying to get the harness off at all! Yippee! Next, I had her go through some of the unrelated training she'd already learned, and gave her treats like a crazy-human! This included things she's confident in and will do without treats: sit, stay, lay down, come. We did these several times. The goal here was for her to get used to the harness on while keeping her brain busy with things she's good at. Mission accomplished! Then I unlatched the harness and we repeated it probably 5 times.

Note: I was soooo tempted to go ahead and just put the chest strap on too! But I remember reading somewhere to always stop on a good and positive note. So, I resisted the temptation.

Day Three

Step Eight: Repeat training through steps from previous day, making sure she's retained what she's learned.

Step Nine: Snap the chest latch (on her back) closed. Roxy fought very minimally on this one. That was a big surprise! In fact, it only took two attempts and she let me latch it. Once it was latched, I gave treats, treats, treats. Then I unlatched it and did it again and again. Treat, treat, treat. Gotta love those weiners!

Step Ten: Leave harness on for short period of time. As with Day Two, I had Roxy do the things she was already confident with: sit, stay, lay down, come. We did these in random order. Treat, treat, treat. Only once did she jump around as if she wanted to get the harness off, but just for a moment.

Conclusion

So, instead of this taking a couple thousand steps, Roxy was able to learn to have her harness put on in ten steps and in just three days. Please remember that all dogs are different. Your dog might learn more quickly or more slowly. The time it takes doesn't matter as much as getting the behavior down pact.

Have you ever taught your deaf dog something by breaking it down in steps? Do share!

Karen and Roxy (Woof!)

Next Post: My tips for getting your dog to wear a harness/collar or anything else new.