Once in a while I get a “day-off” from walking Laika and Deuce. This is great because my morning routine slows down. I can concentrate on doing some yoga or jumping full swing into emails or writing a post for my blogs.
A couple of days ago I got my “day off”. John, my husband, along with the dogs in tow went out the door. With this arrangement, there is also another ritual that I perform: As John is walking in the door with happy dogs and in search for their water bowl, I ask: How did it go? It did not take long to condition John to respond with exactly the information I am looking for.
This morning his response was: back to kindergarten with Deuce. While I am not 100% surprised by his response, he now has my full attention (even in downward facing dog) and I ask that he elaborates. He replies, Deuce is getting in the habit of not listening and just darting towards the neighbor’s house so I am putting him on a leash now.
Mmmm, too bad I think, because as they were leaving that AM, I asked John to work with Deuce-who was being walked on an empty stomach – with his recall (called when call) using roasted chicken. I asked John if he had been able to practice any of this and his answer was: yes, I called him to me while he remained on the leash clicked and rewarded him for coming.
Ahh brilliant! I thought… this is what 12 years of marriage can do to your husband! What I mean is that John is NOT in the behavioral sciences (even though he has a very high emotional IQ :)) he is in the solar industry… way far from having to treats dogs for performing a requested behavior or understanding in depth-learning theory.
Okay, I get it. You might be more interested in why John is willing to work so hard with Deuce when that is what I do. And in addition he came up with such an appropriate way of teaching him what he must learn at this stage. The answer… to John and his willingness to adhere to MY program, deserves its own post so for now, I am going back to Deuce.
Back to Kindergarten (BTK) is a concept that I learned when I was getting my chops as a trainer at the San Francisco Academy for Dog Training. In essence, if the dog that you are training (or the precious border collie that is now YOUR dog) :) is in the acquisition stage of learning a new behavior and fails i.e.: has yet not fully learned what you want him to learn, you make things easier for him… you find a baby step that the dog can perform with accuracy so that you can reward that.
From that BTK step you begin to build once again a continuation of baby steps that will ensure that your dog will not only learn better, BUT it also it removes a lot of the stress and frustration the dog might experience if one is not careful and asks repetitively for behaviors that dog cannot perform consistently.
Since Deuce is an adolescent (and the clown of the family) he chooses to explore the wide-world in front of him instead of coming to John or myself when on our daily walks, it is important that we request his attention and that we set it up so that he can give it to us. For now his recall is from the length of the leash and off leash in only certain areas. We also pay big time attention to eye contact or waiting defined by: do not move forward from where you are.
Every day is a new opportunity for learning, we must learn to be flexible with our dogs and acknowledge that today for this behavior I need to be smart, to be flexible and go back to kindergarten. Doing so takes know-how, understanding that tiny-steps will solidify a final behavior and LOTS of patience! Not bad for one day of learning!
A couple of days ago I got my “day off”. John, my husband, along with the dogs in tow went out the door. With this arrangement, there is also another ritual that I perform: As John is walking in the door with happy dogs and in search for their water bowl, I ask: How did it go? It did not take long to condition John to respond with exactly the information I am looking for.
This morning his response was: back to kindergarten with Deuce. While I am not 100% surprised by his response, he now has my full attention (even in downward facing dog) and I ask that he elaborates. He replies, Deuce is getting in the habit of not listening and just darting towards the neighbor’s house so I am putting him on a leash now.
Mmmm, too bad I think, because as they were leaving that AM, I asked John to work with Deuce-who was being walked on an empty stomach – with his recall (called when call) using roasted chicken. I asked John if he had been able to practice any of this and his answer was: yes, I called him to me while he remained on the leash clicked and rewarded him for coming.
Ahh brilliant! I thought… this is what 12 years of marriage can do to your husband! What I mean is that John is NOT in the behavioral sciences (even though he has a very high emotional IQ :)) he is in the solar industry… way far from having to treats dogs for performing a requested behavior or understanding in depth-learning theory.
Okay, I get it. You might be more interested in why John is willing to work so hard with Deuce when that is what I do. And in addition he came up with such an appropriate way of teaching him what he must learn at this stage. The answer… to John and his willingness to adhere to MY program, deserves its own post so for now, I am going back to Deuce.
Back to Kindergarten (BTK) is a concept that I learned when I was getting my chops as a trainer at the San Francisco Academy for Dog Training. In essence, if the dog that you are training (or the precious border collie that is now YOUR dog) :) is in the acquisition stage of learning a new behavior and fails i.e.: has yet not fully learned what you want him to learn, you make things easier for him… you find a baby step that the dog can perform with accuracy so that you can reward that.
From that BTK step you begin to build once again a continuation of baby steps that will ensure that your dog will not only learn better, BUT it also it removes a lot of the stress and frustration the dog might experience if one is not careful and asks repetitively for behaviors that dog cannot perform consistently.
Since Deuce is an adolescent (and the clown of the family) he chooses to explore the wide-world in front of him instead of coming to John or myself when on our daily walks, it is important that we request his attention and that we set it up so that he can give it to us. For now his recall is from the length of the leash and off leash in only certain areas. We also pay big time attention to eye contact or waiting defined by: do not move forward from where you are.
Every day is a new opportunity for learning, we must learn to be flexible with our dogs and acknowledge that today for this behavior I need to be smart, to be flexible and go back to kindergarten. Doing so takes know-how, understanding that tiny-steps will solidify a final behavior and LOTS of patience! Not bad for one day of learning!
