Dog Training: Prompt Aways

A Standard Poodle quickly heads toward disaster. An oncoming truck approaches quickly. A whistle blast creates an automatic turn on a dime response and the dog races back to his owner for a jackpot reward. This prompt away saved the dog's life and is a true story.

Prompts can be in the form of sound, body cues or verbal cues or a combination of all three.

A dog is having fun playing with friends at a local dog park. The owner decided it is time to go home. When there was a break in the play and their dog made eye contact, a hand signal quickly went up overhead and the dog raced back to the owner for a jackpot reward. The leash went on and the journey home started pleasantly and with a speedy response.

A nervous German Shepherd mix is fearful of people and reactive to dogs. Walks are not fun. A prompt away used going out the door refocused the dog's eyes to the owner. A prompt away at the property line refocused the dog's eyes and attentiveness to the owner. The dog sees the owner keeping him safe and walks are

much more pleasant without barking and lunging.

What are prompt aways?

A prompt away is a simple cue to stimulate an immediate response to come away from something. A prompt cue is a recall on steroids. It is an important learning step in my dog training classes. It is basic learning just as a sit, stay, or down. The prompt away teaches a dog impulse control, builds trust and creates teamwork.

How are prompt aways used?

Prompt aways are used as a signal to stop what the dog is doing PLUS turn away from PLUS come racing back. Breaking it down into three separate skills is advised.

Prompts can be used to redirect barking, as outlined in my three bark rule sequence, or to call a dog away from dog to dog play, and even to save a life, or to call away from other people. It is a cue as prompt to redirect attention away from toys, and helpful with resource guarders.

A prompt is always followed by a high level reinforcement, such as food, used as the motivation. In reality, the trade is the reward for coming away from distraction. The high level reinforcement is at first food and then can be coupled with a game of ball or Frisbee or praise plus food. Food is always the primary reinforcer and in prompts the dog should not be disappointed as to the outcome, the delivery of food. Most dogs find the disbursement of food highly motivating. As the response becomes strong, the food will not be the reason the dog makes the decision, but will become secondary to the process. The prompt will make responsiveness automatic as it has become a conditioned stimulus.

To condition prompts start in puppy hood or as soon as receiving a rescue or re-home. Prompts are a big part of the socialization process. In a puppy class, a puppy play period would include a prompt away during breaks in puppy play times. Each owner calls their puppy away from the play and the pup is rewarded and allowed to then go back into play, which is a reward in itself. The more the prompt away is practiced, the better the puppy gets at coming away from. Prompts teach a dog to break away from play and return.

If play gets too rough, or the dog gets tired, they know they can seek refuge in their return, take time to regroup and go back to play or end play altogether. The owner becomes a safety zone and the prompt starts to become a welcome motivator highly rewarding to the dog. Needless to say responsiveness increases owner's trust in their dog and builds strong bonds and relationships.

Prompts can be used to teach a dog that alert barks ARE acceptable, but incessant barking at windows, doors are not. Barking has a beginning and an end. The end is the point at which the owner takes control of the visual. The visual is the dog passing by, a person and dog walking by or even a prey animal lurking near and out of reach, such as a bunny, or squirrel. The prompt redirects the behavior and relaxes the dog. Barking becomes communication not annoyance.

The prompt is a word cue, such as "come away" for breaks in play or dog park returns. There might be an enthusiastic and happy cue of "done" for turn away from barking and race back for a redirect in activity and reward. There is an automatic prompt using no words for times of returning attentive eye contact while going out doors, or going off property or coming out of a vehicle. There is a whistle blast for emergency responsiveness.

It is expected these activities themselves indicate an environmental cue of attentive learning and responsiveness. There is a prompt of "check in" for off lead trail walks practiced and mastered with increasingly longer lengths of line and freedom until perfected off lead.

Teaching prompt cues

Prompting is taught in baby steps.

Start with a six-foot lead. Wait for the pup or dog to look back at you and run backwards. The dog will follow eagerly.

If you are using a clicker, mark the exact moment the dog steps toward you with a click, and reward in the position of the dog being in front of you. If you are not using a clicker, simply mark the response with "good" or "yes!". The click or word marks the behavior you want, it is not used as a prompt.

Start to highly reward this behavior of turning away from and racing toward and repeat over and over again. When pup or dog is automatically turning to look quickly, then add a cue. The prompt cue training increases in distance with a longer leash, then a long line and then to off lead all in various environments so the dog generalizes the prompt away and respond to it no matter where they are or what they are doing.

Adding subtle distractions to the process such as in puppy play, or meeting and greeting a person or dog on lead. or walking out the door, jumping out of a car or truck or at the end of a boundary. Distractions can be toys, food in the beginning or prompting away from play with another dog friend. Increase distractions to real life situations from barking to the UPS truck, and practice with prompt aways from food on the floor, toys nearby or yard play. There are an endless number of distractions, such as bicycles or joggers going by. Practice and keeping the dog successful are key to reliability.

If a dog doesn't respond it simply means progress was forwarded too fast. It means to go backwards in the process and move up incrementally once again.

Off lead response and reliability is the goal and once obtained is priceless.

When a dog turns on a dime to race back, or eagerly stays near always waiting on an off lead trail walk, or willingly ends play at a dog park it is genuinely priceless. Consistency and reward is the key to strong responsiveness.