Just stop talking....

Yesterday I drove a few hours towards Columbia SC, where I will be teaching a beginner tracking clinic this weekend and then an advanced class next weekend. I drove the rest of the way today and as I was driving through the south (which was beautiful right now, spring is sneaking in but it has not gone crazy yet) I was scanning through channels on the radio looking for something to entertain myself with. I prefer talk radio but tend to avoid crazed political commentators as well as overly zealous religious channels. So that limits my options. However as I was scanning I hit upon someone talking on one of the (I think) religious channels. He was talking about dealing with all the issues with teenagers and how one of his most common lines of advice to parents is to "stop talking so much". I am paraphrasing a bit but he stated that:

"parents are so busy trying to prevent the kid from doing things wrong or make a mistake that it backfires on them and everytime they direct or correct it takes away the kid's opportunity to figure out something and to learn".

What a brilliant statement. And it applies perfectly to dog training. Ironically I was having a conversation earlier in the day with a dog trainer discussing a dog who had never been exposed to a style of training that encouraged him to offer behavoirs or experiment.  Without the input from the trainer or handler, such a dog comes to a stop and cannot function. Dont get me wrong, I am not a "freeshaper" - my goal is to have a dog learn a very specific task. However through maniplating the dog's environment and his reinforcement, I allow him to develop the correct behavior. I do not do so by overly directing him (as if he is too stupid to not need my help) nor by correcting him for making mistake (which just makes him worried about getting something wrong). Once the dog is performing the behavior and has developed muscle memory and skill I will then allow a little bit of room for error so that  he is able to learn the difference between being correct vs incorrect or rather, more likely - the difference between being correct vs almost correct.




Almost correct....



Correct....



Reward....