In the past I rarely used a dog to help with demonstrations.
Concerns: Part of it was that my dogs weren’t really appropriate (Blaze – unpredictable/impulsive, Luna – nervous, Griffin – not trained in manners), part of it is that my dogs weren’t trained to be calm and present until their turns, and part of it is that I wasn’t sure of the value. I know some people learn well by seeing things – but a demonstration with my dogs isn’t really realistic of how a student and his/her dog will progress – there’s an element of fake and an element of ‘dog and handler with a different type of working relationship.’ As a student I did have instructors demonstrate with their dogs at times. Sometimes the demonstration just went poorly – dogs are dogs, but also it didn’t make me impressed. And sometimes it felt like there wasn’t a learning value through watching the demonstration – the instructor was just getting in practice time (fine in a very small class, not something I enjoyed when the class was big and ‘my’ paid time was taken) and I didn’t seem to benefit from watching.
I also had concerns about whether I could be working my dog in a useful manner – would I be able to draw attention to the correct points and would students even be able to see those?
Example:
If I demonstrate heeling in a rally class or in a polite walking class – can I draw attention to Griffin’s understanding of parallel? How it’s his responsibility to stay in position – I’m not working to keep him there? The way he moves his rear to stay parallel? The steadiness of his position? Or will they just see it as “yes the dog is moving with you, that’s easy, look my dog can do it too – and then show me a far different set of behaviors than what I had demonstrated. Or will they see it as “look! The dog isn’t pulling on leash! That’s magic and impossible!”
Motivation: Last summer while doing some teaching one of my co-instructors prompted me to do a demonstration with Griffin and later gave me a bit of a talk saying I should use him more and that it could be inspiring and helpful. So – I started adding him into some of the classes as a demo dog.
Set Up: The training facility now has an interesting set up with a set of rooms built off of one of the long walls – I crate/x-pen him in there and bring Griffin out as needed. It’s not a long walk, he’s also not out on a stay or in a crate/ex-pen where he could be startled or excited by someone getting loose or wandering over. Early on I gave him chews or used a remote feeder. Over the early spring I also experimented with having Griffin station at the remote feeder in the main room – I had a helper holding his leash “just in case” he decided to have an adventure. This was excellent and easy – I could call him away from the feeder or send him back to that spot.
Demonstrations: I pull Griffin out 3-5 times in many of the manners classes to give a visual demo of either our training steps (how to reward at side, beginning leave it, etc) or of what our final picture is going to be (two-on-two-off in agility, advanced versions of self control around food/toys in manners class).
Result: I have found that many people do better seeing a demonstration and so even though I’m taking away “their” time, it speeds up learning enough to be valuable. While Griffin has been on restricted activity I have seen how things go when I -don’t- have a demonstration.
Challenges: It may be detrimental to Griffin’s competition training and training overall to be ‘working’ while I narrate what is happening. When we do public demos and I’ve narrated I know it hurts our training and sometimes it takes a few sessions for me to repair the damage. In basic classes it’s not as big of a deal – these behaviors are so different from his competition behaviors. I do think it’s harder for him to listen for clear cues – I’m talking most of the time.
Things to Think About:
- Reliability – Demo dogs need to be likely to perform well. They don’t need to be perfect (and probably shouldn’t) – students need to see how to respond to errors. But if a dog has a tendency to not engage or be worried/excited about dogs in the class, it can make the demonstrations less effective. I’m lucky in that Griffin is at his best in this type of context.
- Safety – Again – I don’t typically leave him out, I don’t want to risk him running off (he never has), but I also want him safe if a student drops a leash or is inattentive and gets too close).
- Happy – Demos look better when the dogs are engaged. Griffin exaggerates this a little… Stressed dogs don’t make good demos, many dog owners are able to pick up on this even if they haven’t formally been taught about body language.
- Goal – There should be a specific reason for the demonstration. I do not demonstrate everything we do with a real dog – I keep testing and find the activities where a dog demonstration is the most useful. There is only so much teaching time, I want to use it as effectively as possible. We talk a little before and after the demo, and sometimes I will do a second demonstration if I want to further draw attention to more details.
Demo dog Griffin
Next Steps: I need Griffin to be back to 100% so that he can help me more! I need to be planning and getting him out more in some classes. If I’m feeling lazy I don’t go back and forth to the room or sometimes I leave him up front in the office – and that’s too far to go and get him for class demonstrations. Up until this week I prefaced Griffin’s demos with “he’s been trained for competition things, he is just learning to be a demo dog.” But now I think he knows the routine and does a good job.
As a student when have you found demos to be helpful or not? As an instructor – do you use demonstrations – what impact does it have on learning?