Phew, it has been a really busy couple of weeks. Not only did the number of training sessions I do in a week triple last week, but I also had a lovely board & train. Don’t get me wrong I am so grateful to report that my business is doing well and growing, and that I truly enjoy and relish all aspects of the biz. Okay in all frankness, I don’t enjoy it when I am going to someone’s home for the first time and I get lost … a well-known aspect of my personality. Especially here in NM, make a wrong turn … and you are lost for-e-ver with no possible turn around in sight. Truly, getting lost when I have a schedule appt. makes my blood pressure rise, way high.
As part of my love affair with training dogs (and other creatures too) and how much I get out of interacting with dogs and their funny (sometimes really mysterious ways) I train my two dogs on a weekly basis. When I say that I train my dogs weekly, it means that I actually have specific goals for them in mind. I create training plans for these goals based on which dog I am working with, carve the time to do the training and perhaps most challenging…. figure out what to do with the other dog while I am training one of them.
My favorite ways of keeping the one not training busy is by feeding their meals or a super yummy – lasting treat out of a Kong, a food-dispensing machine that dispenses kibble at a preset time or a chewy bone. However, an interesting occurrence happens where I chuckle and I roll my eyes at my two dogs followed by a: what gives? What they do is the one working with the food-dispensing machine also wants to come train and abandons his/her food. Wow, talk about a grand stroke to the ego. My adolescent dogs want to hang out with me????? They prefer whatever I am doing than their chow? Ah, life is grand isn't it?
Ego stroking aside, I do have a problem. For some training sessions, I work with both dogs at the same time, for others working with them individually is the appropriate way to teach them.
This morning when my little alarm rung to remind me that I had a training schedule with Deuce and Rioja I chuckled… and thought about the last time I trained them “this formally." I think it has been 8 days.
Now the reality is that even though I am committed to working with my dogs (and have always done so) on a regular basis in an organized, well planned (and recorded by video - most of the time, depending on what I doing) training sessions, our dogs are always learning. Very similar to children, no? Where you better watch what you say, but most importantly what you do (which in many cases it is actually the opposite of what we say they should do).
I call this type of learning “passive-learning” or learning by “osmosis” not technical terms that I am aware of. For sure learning by “osmosis” does not appear in the animal learning lit. Either way, I like to frame these types of learning experiences like this because they make me aware that learning is always taking place and that I must also teach them in control settings (with a training plan, a location in mind, contingent plan, etc.)
Take the case of Rioja. She would eat anything at anytime that food is presented to her. Yes, call her Ms. Piggy and one of my challenges is to keep her waist nicely trimmed. In order for Deuce or Rioja to get fed their meals, they must be sitting or laying quietly on their mats (beds) in the kitchen area. Okay, mea-culpa I have not “formally” taught Rioja what going to her mat means… so it is not entirely her fault that she gets up and wonders around the kitchen hoping that this will get me to hurry up and just dish her meal out.
Yes, I do have a specific (super fun) plan in mind to teach her almost seamlessly how to go to her mat as I point my finger to the location. BTW, even though most of us take for granted the fact that our dog actually respond to our finger (arm, leg) pointing in a given direction as no big deal (perhaps never consider that they actually do so) it is an ENORMOUS advantage to our living together and sharing our lives. Not even our closest relatives the chimps can do that with the finesse that our dogs do! It is part of their genetic – thanks to domestication make-up. The research behind this finding is intricate and reads almost like a spy-novel.
I was aware of the capacity for dogs to follow our fingers – a contextual visual cue, but I never imagined how important this is for establishing our relationship with them as [wo]man’s best friend. If you want to learn more about this, which I totally recommend you do, read Brian Hare Ph.D. and Vanessa Woods newest and terrific book: The Genius of Dogs, you can buy the book here:
http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DEG166
Okay, I am digressing here, in the meantime while Rio learns that: impulse control (her staying on her mat) pays in the form of me feeding her more readily and that in order to get fed she must be quietly on her mat – I’ll take a sit, but down-stay is the future goal is the ONLY way she will get fed I have stopped acting like an amateur trainer and repeating myself with go to your mat thing when I known that I have not formally taught her that behavior to fluency so why the heck would she be able to perform it???
So my options are:
1. Teach her the behavior pronto - to fluency so that then I can just point my index finger and direct her to her precious mat for a accelerated meal experience.
2. Ignore her ambling around me – NEVER feed her when she does this.
3. Pay her big time when she goes and sits or lays on her bed by throwing her and Deuce a little sample of the menu that day. Now this is a perfect example of learning by osmosis. Actually the “technical” term for this type of learning/training is capturing: when you pay for something that your dog did without you requesting it but it is still something you want him/her to do more of.
We acknowledge the behavior that we want to see more of when it is voluntarily offered. Now remember, law of learning tells us that whatever behavior we reinforce…. Ta, ta, ta, ta…. We will see more of in the future… LAW of learning is not my opinion, I should point out.
No magic tricks here, no head scratching for an answer, just follow that simple rule of learning. And most and foremost, please let go of: She SHOULD know that bla, bla, bla… No! She shouldn't. Why would she?
In reality, the sooner we forgo the notion that dogs must do what we want them to because they should, the faster they will surprise us with their ability to learn. It is all about finding time and again (in that moment, that day, this dog) what motivates the dog to do so.
Now, shouldn't you give this a try? If you choose to do so, you will be surprised to see how your dog learns faster with his confidence level soaring and both of you can then take a break to sit on a couch and read about fingers pointing and the dogs that follow them.
As part of my love affair with training dogs (and other creatures too) and how much I get out of interacting with dogs and their funny (sometimes really mysterious ways) I train my two dogs on a weekly basis. When I say that I train my dogs weekly, it means that I actually have specific goals for them in mind. I create training plans for these goals based on which dog I am working with, carve the time to do the training and perhaps most challenging…. figure out what to do with the other dog while I am training one of them.
My favorite ways of keeping the one not training busy is by feeding their meals or a super yummy – lasting treat out of a Kong, a food-dispensing machine that dispenses kibble at a preset time or a chewy bone. However, an interesting occurrence happens where I chuckle and I roll my eyes at my two dogs followed by a: what gives? What they do is the one working with the food-dispensing machine also wants to come train and abandons his/her food. Wow, talk about a grand stroke to the ego. My adolescent dogs want to hang out with me????? They prefer whatever I am doing than their chow? Ah, life is grand isn't it?
Ego stroking aside, I do have a problem. For some training sessions, I work with both dogs at the same time, for others working with them individually is the appropriate way to teach them.
This morning when my little alarm rung to remind me that I had a training schedule with Deuce and Rioja I chuckled… and thought about the last time I trained them “this formally." I think it has been 8 days.
Now the reality is that even though I am committed to working with my dogs (and have always done so) on a regular basis in an organized, well planned (and recorded by video - most of the time, depending on what I doing) training sessions, our dogs are always learning. Very similar to children, no? Where you better watch what you say, but most importantly what you do (which in many cases it is actually the opposite of what we say they should do).
I call this type of learning “passive-learning” or learning by “osmosis” not technical terms that I am aware of. For sure learning by “osmosis” does not appear in the animal learning lit. Either way, I like to frame these types of learning experiences like this because they make me aware that learning is always taking place and that I must also teach them in control settings (with a training plan, a location in mind, contingent plan, etc.)
Take the case of Rioja. She would eat anything at anytime that food is presented to her. Yes, call her Ms. Piggy and one of my challenges is to keep her waist nicely trimmed. In order for Deuce or Rioja to get fed their meals, they must be sitting or laying quietly on their mats (beds) in the kitchen area. Okay, mea-culpa I have not “formally” taught Rioja what going to her mat means… so it is not entirely her fault that she gets up and wonders around the kitchen hoping that this will get me to hurry up and just dish her meal out.
Yes, I do have a specific (super fun) plan in mind to teach her almost seamlessly how to go to her mat as I point my finger to the location. BTW, even though most of us take for granted the fact that our dog actually respond to our finger (arm, leg) pointing in a given direction as no big deal (perhaps never consider that they actually do so) it is an ENORMOUS advantage to our living together and sharing our lives. Not even our closest relatives the chimps can do that with the finesse that our dogs do! It is part of their genetic – thanks to domestication make-up. The research behind this finding is intricate and reads almost like a spy-novel.
I was aware of the capacity for dogs to follow our fingers – a contextual visual cue, but I never imagined how important this is for establishing our relationship with them as [wo]man’s best friend. If you want to learn more about this, which I totally recommend you do, read Brian Hare Ph.D. and Vanessa Woods newest and terrific book: The Genius of Dogs, you can buy the book here:
http://www.dogwise.com/ItemDetails.cfm?ID=DEG166
Okay, I am digressing here, in the meantime while Rio learns that: impulse control (her staying on her mat) pays in the form of me feeding her more readily and that in order to get fed she must be quietly on her mat – I’ll take a sit, but down-stay is the future goal is the ONLY way she will get fed I have stopped acting like an amateur trainer and repeating myself with go to your mat thing when I known that I have not formally taught her that behavior to fluency so why the heck would she be able to perform it???
So my options are:
1. Teach her the behavior pronto - to fluency so that then I can just point my index finger and direct her to her precious mat for a accelerated meal experience.
2. Ignore her ambling around me – NEVER feed her when she does this.
3. Pay her big time when she goes and sits or lays on her bed by throwing her and Deuce a little sample of the menu that day. Now this is a perfect example of learning by osmosis. Actually the “technical” term for this type of learning/training is capturing: when you pay for something that your dog did without you requesting it but it is still something you want him/her to do more of.
We acknowledge the behavior that we want to see more of when it is voluntarily offered. Now remember, law of learning tells us that whatever behavior we reinforce…. Ta, ta, ta, ta…. We will see more of in the future… LAW of learning is not my opinion, I should point out.
No magic tricks here, no head scratching for an answer, just follow that simple rule of learning. And most and foremost, please let go of: She SHOULD know that bla, bla, bla… No! She shouldn't. Why would she?
In reality, the sooner we forgo the notion that dogs must do what we want them to because they should, the faster they will surprise us with their ability to learn. It is all about finding time and again (in that moment, that day, this dog) what motivates the dog to do so.
Now, shouldn't you give this a try? If you choose to do so, you will be surprised to see how your dog learns faster with his confidence level soaring and both of you can then take a break to sit on a couch and read about fingers pointing and the dogs that follow them.
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