This has been one of my busiest summers. We went to several seminars, traveled to teach a camp, did some puppy sitting/training, taught many classes (mostly new topics!), went to an agility trial, trained my dogs a lot, and helped with the 4-H program at the local and state level.
No matter what I was doing, there were the same themes:
- It’s important to have appropriate reinforcers for the task. You need to be able to reward your dog in a way/location that will enhance the training. If a dog doesn’t want what you have, it’s going to be hard to get anywhere. If a dog really wants what you have but doesn’t know he can access it through his behavior, you need to teach him those skills before the skill training can begin.
- Attention is a side effect of strong reinforcers.
- The human-animal bond is both helped and hurt by the training styles used. It’s important to have empathy but to try and avoid any mis-interpretations.
- Understanding can come from unexpected places. I don’t do a lot of demonstrations with Griffin, it doesn’t seem like he has as many “showy” behaviors as my other dogs. But I am realizing how important it can be for beginners to see the final picture (and to be reminded along the way). This had some strong buy-in when we were at 4-H camp and I appreciate that the other instructors prompted me to do the demonstration. Another example: A student who had been in agility for about six months had watched a youth agility event and suddenly all of the side changes and handling made complete sense to him and he could easily see how important and functional those skills can be.
- People have a hard time recognizing discomfort in dogs. Fear/anxiety/pain can be hard for dog owners of different experience levels to recognize.
And now onto our fall projects. We have a few more seminars, many new classes, and I’m getting my dogs into classes and trials.