Busting some myths…
Time to bust some myths on dog training! I was reminded of that thanks to my long-distance classes: in each and every one of those, I realized how omni-present two "general truths" are: 1) end a training on a good note and 2) if the dog gets scared, take him back to that situation immediately to show him it's o.k....
Of course, that's what I was told too 🙂 But it's just very hard to make me believe... It's in my nature, it's there since ever, I was always a nightmare kid who questioned everything if not well argumented. Authority of the argument has always been the only authority I could stand: and anything that smells like argument of authority or "general truth", gets my head beeping in read signs, saying "alert, alert, alert". I guess that's what led me to study something as little dog-related as philosophy is. But I would choose the same again. Because after all, thinking and understanding is the most important part of dog training.
And the more I think why somebody would think you need to end a training on a good note, the more I believe its roots are in dog-unfriendly-dog-training. If training is stressful for the dog, then of course the end of a training is reinforcing and of course you want to end it with something that you would want to reinforce with something as reinforcing as the end of a torture as we could call some of the "dog training" practises. But if you're reading this, I'm sure it's not that way for your dog. I'm sure your dog LOVES working with you more than anything and doesn't find end of a training reinforcing at all.
A friend of mine reported an interesting observation with her BC: she usually started agility training with some sequences and at the end, for some extra fun, did some more dog-walks (she has running contacts), trying to always end with some extra good ones. After a while, she noticed that her dog's contacts are still perfect in sequences, but got really bad when training just the dog-walk, as usually at the end of a session. After it got too frustrating to keep trying and trying to get some good ones, she stopped training dog-walk at the end and instead did some repetitions at the beginning of the training: and the contacts magically got perfect again! After playing some more with when to train contacts and how to end the training, she came to the conclusion that when her BC thinks the end of the session is coming, she will start making mistakes on purpose to be able to do things again and again and again and keep training vs. go to the car and ride home!!! Yeap, dogs are very smart! Their heads are free to think and not made slow and lazy by general truths 🙂
So no, I don't think you need to end on a good note. When things go well, I just enjoy it and have tons of fun. When things go wrong, I simply quickly end the session, go home and think WHY things went wrong. Not only I can think better when I'm not getting frustrated about a failure after a failure, my dogs don't get a chance to practice a failure after a failure that way AND they also learn that if they don't make an effort and keep dropping bars, missing contacts, entries or whatever goes wrong, the fun might quickly end and they will only get a chance to play again after I do my boring thinking thing. 🙂
To handle things that way is just so logical to me that I must admit I obviously often don't tell it to my students loud and clear enough (BAD teacher!!!), that's why I decided to say it loud and clear here: you don't need to end on a good note!!! Have fun when things go right, stop and think when things go wrong!
I had this student tell me she did tons of plank running that day because she wanted to end with a good one and the dog was just jumping more&more... So she practiced jumping until the dog was so tired she finally stopped. Reviewing the video showed her plank set up was all bouncy and getting worse&worse and poor dog felt uncomfortable running on that bouncy plank and started to try to get off of it as soon as possible... If the handler stopped after a couple of jumps, go home and review the video, she would see the problem right away and by the next session, the dog would already forget about the bouncy set up. But as she was teaching poor dog how uncomfortable that plank is to run on for half of an hour, we needed to go back to the carpet to get the running again...
Even more... When teaching something like heeling or tricks and the dog is unfocused, if you just wait him out and then reward as crazy for finally giving you a fraction of a second of attention, you are just teaching him that he can choose when he will give you some attention and when he wants to do some other things first - and then get heavily rewarded for that! If my puppy is unfocused, I will just end a session - oh well, whatever, maybe she is just not feeling good. We can try again later. If she gives me 100% focus, I give her 100% focus back and we have some great fun. If she gives me less than 100%, I give her a break - and I always do it with no hard feelings 🙂 - but no, I won't wait there and ask her to play with me instead. I want HER to ask ME to work with her! She has all other options open in our house, she can go away play with other dogs, sniff, go out... - but they soon learn they can do that 23,5 hours per day, anytime they feel like it. And that half of an hour I have for just them is special, precious, not to be lost. And at the moment they see it's dog training time, they will all scream "me, me, me". If it goes well - perfect, if it doesn't, that's fine too, I definitely have another candidate - and they are way too smart to loose more than very few opportunities that way!
Remember: dogs are smart. And probably even smarter as we think 🙂 And they love to work with their handlers, so no, end of training is no fun. The training as such is. And if it's not, you definitely need to do something about it!
More on 2) next time.
Thanks Silvia for sharing this. Certainly food for thought! That’s one of the things I like about living with and training dogs. You keep on learning, you keep on rethinking your thoughts. Up until now I would also try to finish a session on a good note. I would not wear the dog out but lessen the criteria where possible to get that one good performance so you can end the session. I have to admit there were times that it did not feel completely right. So yes, I will rethink this with your opinion taken into account.
But on the other hand, did we follow and pass this advice only for the dogs sake? Or is it mainly to give the human part of the team a better feeling? How many people did you meet that were really not frustrated when they had to end a “bad” session? I do not mean “act as not being frustrated”. How many people do you encounter that can feel that first itch of frustration, call themselves together and stop training, saying (feeling!) “how well next time better”? These people do exists but I’m afraid it’s a minority. Is not it possible that, for certain teams it still is not that bad to let the human part “fool themselves” with this better feeling of ending on a good note?
Yeap, you’re probably right -- while I don’t think dogs need it, I guess many people really do. And of course, you should try to progress at the rate that you mostly have good sessions only. But it’s important to know that when a bad one happens, you should feel free to stop it 🙂 Bad days, some slight sickness and rocky planks do happen and it’s no point in pushing it.
What an interesting article! Really looking forward to the next one as well, as I’ve never really felt comfortable about keeping a fearful puppy in the environment that scared her (or bringing her back to the thing that got her scared). But that’s what everybody tells you right? Keep the puppy/dog in the place she got scared until she calms down. It actually just seems counter productive to me and really doesn’t feel right.
Regarding this post; how do you end a session? The ‘good’ ones that is 🙂
The good ones, I always stop with some playing, a walk, a dinner, something to chew on… -- something they like. And yeah, I definitely try to get as many good ones and as little bad ones as possible 🙂 But bad ones happen too, of course.
Thanks Silvia for very interesting and good post! This makes sense, yet It’s not so easy in practise. At least I’m troubled with one of my dogs..
It’s very easy to see with active working dogs if they are tired, not concentrating or have lack of motivation etc. so it’s better to stop at that moment and go home. And I’ve actually done that with my 2 sheps but then I have this 3rd dog (mixed breed, both parents being hunting dogs, so she’s preeetty independent 🙂 ) who really challenges me.
Some days she runs courses faster and then some days she almost walks yet she still does all the obstacles correctly and listens to me. I have no idea how I could get her run faster those days and I’m not certain if I should stop since she’s at least listening and working with me -even if it’s slow. She came to me as adult and we’ve started from a point where she had absolutely no interest in me but wanted to wander off to sniff something, so I feel that just that she follows me is good 🙂 Maybe I should raise the criteria…?
Yeah, I wouldn’t keep running when she is slow… It’s always a sign they’re not having that much fun, so I prefer to not do it at all then, run when they feel like it and meantime work on motivation, play and speed away from agility equipment. Also, try to find a pattern when she is slow and when she is fast, knowing a pattern helps A LOT.
Silvia, I really need your new DVD on motivation and speed!!! 🙂
I have been training with Buddy for 2 years now and working on everything you told me in Puppy class and it’s been getting better, but there are still a lot of setbacks, especially with hunting and just running off to sniff.
Yeah, that’s the one thing that takes the longest…. But as long as you see the trend, that’s great. All you need then is a patience… The DVD is hopefully out in a month -- or maybe two…. -- I have all the material already, but too many comments to answer to work on it… 🙂
I can send you lots of material 🙂
Foundations class is really buzzing!
Your second point about the fears is interesting since taking the pup back to what scares it is basically classed a flooding. Flooding can sometimes work but I wouldn’t want to do it to my dogs. It would be like taking a child with a phobia of spiders and locking them in a small container with loads of spiders and waiting for them to stop panicking…how unacceptable would that be? But you get people who think it’s ok to do that to dogs. I prefer to use classical counter conditioning and desensitization to change the dogs emotional response to the stimulus. Sleet was spooked by the see saw when other dogs went over it and she was close by and it banged. By using the clicker and treats, I got her over it offlead and without any physical contact within 5 minutes….I also conditioned her to enjoy the bang by doing it very gently first and clicking as it banged and tossing her ball for her. She knows the game from previous excercises though..might take a dog new to this concept and the clicker a little longer. Now she’s ok at going over the see saw..in fact the CC and D sessions caused her to develop a temporary obsession with the see saw…she wanted to do it even when not asked:P
I first used the technique when I was on a walk one evening after work and we came across a burnt out car that had been dumped on the path. It was dark anyway and Sleet took an instant dislike…refusing to go within about 20ft of it. She ran all the way up the banking and round to get past.
The next day, armed with clicker and treats, I had her on a flexi leash to stop her running off up the banking and left it unlocked so she could stay back (I don’t normally walk them on flexis…just came in handy for this occasion) where she still felt ok. I then went over to the car but let her stay where she was. When she looked at the car, I clicked and threw a treat. If she stepped towards the car, even one step, she was jackpotted. Soon, I was able to reach the car and climb on the bonnet and stood there. I always believe that dogs are very much influenced by us and I wanted to act as if I didn’t have a care in the world about the car and for her to see that. It didn’t take long before she was up near the car and then I shaped her into touching with her nose and then paws…and then she was standing up against it….took all of about 10-15 minutes.
The next day on our walk, there was a little bend in the path just before the car and when i got round the bend, sleet was already standing up against the car looking over her shoulder at me…waiting for her reward:P As I didn’t give her any more reward as such, the behaviour of standing against the car soon vanished…but her emotional response to the car was now changed…so the fear did not return. The car was taken away a few days later….on coming across a few other burnt out cars since…she tends to just mulch on over and have a little sniff before moving on….