Having had the joy of training and being trained by several dogs, I wanted to stop and reflect on how to set my expectations in training. I have worked religiously with this dog, and have laid a secure foundation (at least I hope) so now it is time to start raising the bar. But along with raising expectations, comes the pitfalls of setting expectations too high, not giving adequate praise or adequate corrections. At just a few weeks over 1 year in age, I had a mental checklist of where I felt we should be, I had expected to be further along in every sense of the word. But in evaluating his mental capabilities, I looked to see that he was not retaining and progressing as I would have hoped. (Knowing of course that I expected OTCH level heeling and being trained thru articles for utility by now) Having said that, we stepped up the bar and increased the requirements in class, and low and behold, he stepped up. Now we did have some battles, and some pouting when dealing with consequences, but I realized that I had been lowering my standards and allowing him to not work to my expectations. In part this was due to lack of time, and just going thru the motions while training.
This made me rethink the effect of consequences. Dogs view everything in black and white, but I know very few trainers that are that consistent. The decision to heel in the dog’s mind is go, stop, sit. Sounds simple, but what about when you start working on precision, turns, or if your attention wanders while working….then you start giving inconsistent signals to the dog, and they start giving inconsistent results. I had a “tune up” with my trainer (ie a private lesson) and we had both lowered our standards and expectations with this dog, and it was showing, so when we re-evaluated his performance we both realized that he could do better….of course she knew it, but was waiting for me to committ to doing the handler’s part of the work to achieve this. Bottom line, it is important to track your progress, either with notes, journal entries, or the occasional blog, otherwise you can repeat mistakes without realizing it, get into a rut, or even just underestimate your dog’s performance. Every dog has a different potiential, and adjusting your goals is important, but not challenging your dog’s abilities is basically wasting the potential of your dog. Every dog has a different potiential, and adjusting your goals is important, but not challenging your dog’s abilities is basically wasting the potential of your dog. Training without consequences is begging your dog to do something that is optional in the dog’s mind. Having said that, the consequence does not have to be harsh, but it does have to be clear, or it simply results in confusion on the part of the dog. A favored saying of my trainer is any correction that does not eliminate the behavior only intensifies the behavior. At first glance, many take this to mean that a correction should be a strong physical response to stop an undesired behavior, but this is not correct. It means reading the dog’s behavior, and gauging the response to provide an adequate check on the behavior so that it stops. It may be something small, or it may take something forceful, but it is important to understand what the dog actually needs. Corrections may be both positive and negative, and a good mixture of both actually provides a very strong training response in most dogs. But some days I wonder who is training whom??? But then I realize, of course Keebler is training me!
