Have you ever wondered what gives us the right as human beings to own a domestic animal and be in charge of it? Well there are a number of possible answers. The radical animal liberation people might say that we have no such right. My problem with that response is that it seems to ignore the reality that domestic animals are quite literally made to live with people. I have been in third world countries where the people are too busy trying to survive themselves to do a very good job looking after dogs, and the result is hard to look at. On a recent trip to South Sudan, the first dog I saw was dead and the second one was headed in that direction. When domestic dogs don’t have a person to look out for them, they suffer terribly.
Another answer might be that because we have, by an act of our will, made the decision to have dogs in our lives (and homes), we are responsible for their well-being. Our far greater understanding of the dangers of the world in which we live dictates that we have a moral responsibility to look out for their well-being. A dog doesn’t know and cannot have it explained to him what happens when a car traveling at 40 mph encounters soft tissue, but we know, therefore it is incumbent upon us to keep them out of that situation (and many others) either by means of training or at least restraint.
I first became seriously interested in dog training when I read Vicki Hearne’s book entitled Adam’s Task: Calling Animals by Name. The title is a reference to the account in the book of Genesis (2:19-20) in the Bible where God brings each animal to Adam to see what name he will call it. According to the story, this is how God gave dominion over the animals to man. Subsequent to The Fall, when Adam and Eve doubted God’s goodness and consequently disobeyed Him, that dominion was severely diminished, but I believe we still enjoy the remnant of it in our relationships with domestic animals. Although I wasn’t a Christian at the time and was only vaguely aware of the biblical reference, even then, it did seem to be an explanation of the reality that I had experienced.
In recent posts, I’ve written about four important tools in the dog trainer’s tool belt. They are: the dog’s ability to reason, association, repetition, and accuracy. Here are four more: consistency, coherence, timing, and incrementalism.
Consistency is often mentioned as an important element in child rearing and it is no less crucial in dog training. Consistency is the means by which dogs see patterns develop in our responses to them, and it is by these patterns that they come to understand what we are trying to communicate. Dogs learn by experience. If that experience is random, the result is a failure to learn. Being consistent can be difficult because it requires us to be disciplined— that is to be always aware that the way we interact with our dogs carries meaning for them whether we intend it or not.
Coherence and timing are closely related so let’s look at them together. Coherence simply means that our responses to our dogs need to be appropriate to what we are intending to teach them. Calling your dog to you and then punishing him for being slow about it is incoherent (and cruel) because it cannot produce the desired result. Timing is an important component of coherence because dogs live so much in the moment. When a dog is first learning to heel, he may only be in good heel position momentarily as he prances past you. If you’re a second and a half late with your praise you will be praising your dog for being out of position, thus making it harder for him to understand.
Last but not least is incrementalism. It can be a life saver with difficult or not so smart dogs because almost any exercise can be learned if broken into smaller bites (pun intended). Recently I had two different dogs that gave their owners some difficulty on the down exercise. They allowed themselves to be placed, but when we tried to get them to go down with just collar pressure, they stiffened their front legs and refused. Using incrementalism, both dogs learned to lie down reliably on command.
In my next post we will explore where our authority comes from. Bye ‘til then.
In my last post I wrote about how a dog’s ability to reason is a foundational assumption in dog training. It is because of this ability that it is fair for us to hold a dog responsible for remembering rules and for following through on commands, assuming of course that we have laid the necessary groundwork. But what exactly does that groundwork consist of? In addition to the dog’s ability to reason there are seven more essential components: association, repetition, accuracy, consistency, coherence, timing, and incrementalism.
Let’s start with association. When teaching a dog a new exercise, our first objective (and obligation) is to make sure that the dog understands exactly what a command means. To accomplish this we start with what I call the show-and-tell phase of the training. This entails placing the dog on the exercise while simultaneously giving the command. When you think about it, this is also how we teach most nouns and adjectives to babies; we point to something as we say the name for that object: mama, daddy, bird, tree, hot, cold, wet, etc.
The second element is repetition. Repetition gets a bad rap because it can be tedious, but it is also effective. Repetition is the reason soldiers can take apart and reassemble their rifles in the dark, some figure skaters can make that triple Lutz look easy, and the reason you and I can remember the words to many popular songs from our youth.
Placing Shelby on an Accurate Sit
Accuracy is the third element. When we teach a dog the automatic sit for instance, (sitting in heel position when the handler stops walking) the more accurately we can place the dog, the better he will understand what we want. Sure, accuracy makes your dog handling look sharp, but the primary reason is to help your dog’s understanding.
We’ll look at the last four tools in the dog trainer’s tool belt in my next post. Until then, have a Merry Christmas or a Happy Chanukah, and Doggy New Year.
In my last blog entry I posited that one of the building blocks of the way we train is the assumption that dogs can reason. What makes me so sure? I suppose one answer is that I’ve seen so many dogs trained using this assumption that it must be true.
More seriously though, let me answer the question of what I mean by “reason”. I would say that reason, in its most basic form, is the if/then proposition. “If I ring the bells on the back door, then someone will let me out.” “If my owner looks in the mirror and then grabs her pocketbook and keys, then maybe she’ll take me with her in the car.” This is by no means evidence of high intelligence in dogs but it is evidence that they make clear associations between one event and another. In training this often is all you need. How many times have I heard a client who has recently begun training say, “So he really isn’t as stupid as we thought?”
What is really neat is when dogs show evidence of more complex reasoning. Some years ago we had a middle-aged Airedale name Zach and a Rottweiler puppy named Molly. They loved to roughhouse, and as Molly grew she could occasionally get the advantage. One afternoon in our back yard Molly had the upper hand and suddenly Zach froze and looked intently at something in the distance. Molly stopped mouthing the back of his neck in order to see what was so interesting. Immediately Zach twisted out from under her and pounced. There was nothing there at all. Zach had simply made it up (lied, in effect) in order to regain the advantage.
Another instance was when I was working a retrieving exercise with Vicki, our American Staffordshire Terrier. I threw the dumbbell into the woodpile and as she started to climb the pile, the dumbbell dropped down between the pieces of firewood. I thought, “oh no, I’ve asked her to do something she won’t be able to do.” Vicki didn’t hesitate though, she started heaving firewood out of the way until she got to the dumbbell and then proudly finished a beautiful retrieve.
And how many times have clients told me that their dogs know their toys by name? Yes indeed, dogs do reason. I’d love to hear from you with your own examples.
The Avon PTO had a good idea: Why not use a teacher in-service day to allow Avon High School students to find out about what some local business people do for a living? They called it SPARK and the first one was held on March 18th. Teacher’s Pet was there with two dogs, our Airedale, Dazz and Izzy, a lovely German Shepherd that I borrowed from a client. We had a good time. A total of about 60 kids attended our three classes. I enjoyed the opportunity to get on my entrepreneurial soap box and encouraged them to consider that a business opportunity might await them at the intersection of where their interests and talents meet the needs of their community. They asked some good questions and obviously enjoyed having a couple of very handsome and lovable dogs with them in class.
One of the wonderful things about teaching is that it requires you to clarify concepts in your own mind so that you can articulate them in a clear and helpful way to others. Our day at Avon High School helped me to do that vis-à-vis the training process and the underlying assumptions we make about dog nature. The number one assumption is that dogs can reason. That’s important because if they can reason, then once they learn something, it’s fair for us to expect them to take responsibility for following through on what they know.
So in addition to the dog’s innate intelligence, here are the main tools in my dog trainer’s tool belt: his trust in his owner or handler (this develops further as the process unfolds), association (particularly associating words with action), timing, consistency, accuracy, repetition, incrementalism, and accountability. Over the next several blogs we will look at these characteristics and techniques in more detail. In the mean time, enjoy the pictures.
