While this is a serious topic, you may get a kick out of the video.

Conditioning a dog to a muzzle can be a difficult task. The methods I show in this DVD will work for police service dogs or the family pet. We do it with markers - so if you are not familiar with marker training I suggest that you visit the article I wrote on that subject. http://leerburg.com/markers.htm

The hand touch game is something that 8 week old puppies or 8 year old rescue dogs can be trained to do. Once they learn it every dog loves the game.

The hand touch is trained with markers, you can either use a clicker or you can use a verbal mark, or both, when you hold your hand out your dog comes and touches it with his nose. When he does, he gets a really nice food reward.

The application of the hand touch is only limited to your imagination.

This short video demonstrates free shaping a dog through marker training to pick up a piece of PVC.

Free shaping means you mark behaviors that are progressively closer to the end behavior that you are looking for.

In this case Cindy wants Raine to pick up this piece of PVC pipe. Raine has not been trained to retrieve an item yet – so this is a new concept for her.

http://michaelellisschool.com

This lecture is part of Michael's course at his school for dog trainers in California.

10 Minutes of the 1998 Belgium Ring One championships