A simple training technique....

A lot of people spend time debating (to put it nicely) the merits of various techniques focusing on positive vs negative reinforcement. Corrections vs no corrections. I have my own views both on what is right and fair as well as what is effective.  However I won't make that the subject of this post (I have to go to bed soon). Regardless of the method however I have a picture in my head of what I want the dog's work to look like. I want him to look confident. I want him to look like he trusts me. I want him to look like he understands the exercise. I want him to be precise and accurate but I don't want him to look like a robot.  I want him to look HAPPY.

My dogs are all primarily working dogs. High drive, knock you over and steal the toy out of your hands dogs. I want them to be that way. However it poses some challenges in training for more precise work such as competition obedience. Jill is about the craziest toy drive dog I have ever had. She is not much for tugging but will fetch literally for hours.  She bounces like a kangaroo (ironic given her Australian roots).  I want all the drive she brings to the game but she also poses a particular challenge in terms of getting precision. However I have been utilizing a training technique with her that I have found works quite well to sneak precision in without getting all hands on and fussy with the dog and risk reducing drive.  In spite of her crazy toy drive Jill is also quite sensitive and eager to please - act like you arent happy with her work and she starts to worry.

To simplify the explanation of this technique - you basically set the dog up in the place where they are wrong and ask them to do the exercise. They can't do it wrong because they are already wrong so they have to experiment with something else. When they get it right you then reward.  Here is an example I recently used for Jill. She swings her butt out too far when she comes to sit in heel position. This is in order to make eye contact and, more importantly, remind me just how extra badly she wants the toy.  To fix it I put her in a sit, moved myself the the place where she would be positioned wrong and then asked her to come to heel. She couldn't sit with her butt out too far because she already was. Her solution was to schooch closer to heel position. Shape a bunch of these and then I am getting a straighter heel position.

Similarly, you can use this to shape a closer front position. Just put the dog in a sit. Take half a step back so the dog is a teeny bit too far out and ask the dog to front. Reinforce heavily when they move forward and are in the correct position.

I love this technique because it forces the dog to develop muscle memory on his own moving from the wrong to the correct position. It also encourages thinking during the exercise and teaches, in a fair manner, that there are subtleties to the exercise. The expression on the dog's face can also be quite comical. When you issue the command with the dog in his "wrong" position they are kind of like "I thought I already was!!" It is important to note that this is NOT the same as issuing a second command and asking the dog to correct himself AFTER he has done it wrong. Do that too many times and there is a good chance that the dog will learn a behavior chain which would look something like this: come to heel/sit crooked/wait for fix it command/fix butt. Also remember that this will take proportionally longer to fix if the dog has a strongly established muscle memory for doing the exercise less accurately.

There..after all of the craziness of the past couple of weeks it is nice to see that I can still think dog training. I still cant quite wrap my head around the fact that I am living in Mississippi, probably about the least likely state I would have expected to end up in. However the dog training brain cells appear to still be working so it isn't all bad!



Jilly "I will do anything for a toy" Bean