Simplifying Dog Learning Science-Part 3

[RetrieversONLINE]

“Don’t get paralysis from analysis!”

“Don’t point your finger at the problem!” (Use Indirect Pressure)

“Just go train your dog!”

Now guess ‘who said these things?’
None other than Rex Carr. They are words of wisdom. I follow them religiously despite my scientific background and interests.

Understanding all of this stuff well enough to use the terms and incorporate into everything you do is a difficult task. It does not come easily for most of us. I hope that your main response to Part 1 and 2 is to think about what you are doing from the dog’s point of view-nothing more-nothing less. What is he doing in his mind?

As a trainer I like to focus on increasing good behaviours rather than stopping bad behaviours (helps me teach instead of test).

I try to say “I want my dog to sit nicely on line” instead of “I want to stop my dog from creeping”. I have become better at the way I use praise or an aversive and when I give it or remove it.

For me, retriever training is an endless journey in which I never know for sure how to get there or where I will end up. The journey itself is the biggest reward- I enjoy it! The Blue is just dessert!

“Amen!” The end of my sermon.

[DEDEYE]

Aren't you the guy who comes over here to train in the summers? There is someone who comes with a big dog trailer and says "online retrievers of retrievers online" something... If you are here next summer, why don't you run some of our sweet tests?! If it is you anyhow...

Thanks for posting your info here by the way....

[dr_dog_guy]

Analysis at the technical level may best be left for pretraining planning and around the kitchen table at night, but for me it adds another dimension to think about. I hope, like you, it leads to better training and more focus on increasing desired behaviors.

As you noted in an earlier post, most of the technical, dog-related books out there are by "all-positive" trainers and not too useful for field training. This discussion is very helpful.

Regardless, its always nice to WHY things work just because.

[RetrieversONLINE]

Aren't you the guy who comes over here to train in the summers? There is someone who comes with a big dog trailer and says "online retrievers of retrievers online" something... If you are here, why don't you run some of our sweet tests?! If it is you anyhow...

Thanks for posting your info here by the way....

It's not me. If I came to AK I might get too busy fly-fishing or hunting to train! Actually AK is on my TODO list for all of it's good things.

[DEDEYE]

It's not me. If I came to AK I might get too busy fly-fishing or hunting to train! Actually AK is on my TODO list for all of it's good things.

LOL! Gotcha...

[Poodlegirl]

As you say, the analysis is better left for pre-planning or post-analyzing - however I have a tendancy not to do these things and then get in a fluster when something happens. It is probably just being a newbie at it all since I don't have enough "muscle memory" in training dogs to be automated in my responses.

Time and practice, and that darn patience thing...

[FOM]

Did I miss part 1 and 2?

Dang it....

“Don’t get paralysis from analysis!”

Interesting phrase, as it was part of my last class I took - creative leadership. The main point of the author in the text book was leaders tend to get in an analysis phase and then do nothing....analysis paralysis is what he called it.

I think it is the same with dogs - you can read all the books, watch all the videos, talk all the theories but it means nothing until you walk to the line with a dog and get out to train, trial, test or even hunt....

Good to see you posting Dennis!

FOM

Edit: http://www.retrievertraining.net/for...ad.php?t=34317 (This is part 1 - in case someone else missed it too)
And: http://www.retrievertraining.net/for...ad.php?t=34327 (This is part 2)

[Vickie Lamb]

“Don’t get paralysis from analysis!”

“Don’t point your finger at the problem!” (Use Indirect Pressure)

“Just go train your dog!”

Now guess ‘who said these things?’
None other than Rex Carr. They are words of wisdom. I follow them religiously despite my scientific background and interests.

Understanding all of this stuff well enough to use the terms and incorporate into everything you do is a difficult task. It does not come easily for most of us. I hope that your main response to Part 1 and 2 is to think about what you are doing from the dog’s point of view-nothing more-nothing less. What is he doing in his mind?

As a trainer I like to focus on increasing good behaviours rather than stopping bad behaviours (helps me teach instead of test).

I try to say “I want my dog to sit nicely on line” instead of “I want to stop my dog from creeping”. I have become better at the way I use praise or an aversive and when I give it or remove it.

For me, retriever training is an endless journey in which I never know for sure how to get there or where I will end up. The journey itself is the biggest reward- I enjoy it! The Blue is just dessert!

“Amen!” The end of my sermon.

Excellent posts here, Dennis, on all these threads

A few more quotes from Rex:

"Make book."

"Focus!"

"Talk it out with your dog."

"Go for the bird."

"Monkey see...Monkey do."

"When in doubt...Simplify!"

[Miriam Wade]

I had to read parts one and two twice, but THANK YOU Dennis. Your explanations of indirect pressure are really helpful-as is everything you've written. Even better since not only do you train your dogs, but clearly they understand what you're conveying.

M

Dennis wrote:

"We use the term generalization when dogs learn some behaviour in a particular environment or context and then adapt it to more situations. They generalize the lesson in one place to many places or from one set-up to many set-ups. The great dogs are adept at this!

In examples 1 and 2 I wasn’t expecting the dog to generalize the "lesson" per se to elsewhere but to respond better elsewhere because of the pressure. Sometimes Rex would do something totally different to get an effect and I try to do this also.

I also like to refer to indirect pressure as an attention getter-see my reference to getting Johnny back in school above. But, it’s more than just attention - it changes the mind set because of the pressure added. After all we hope the whistle is the attention getter and he stops!"

Dennis wrote:

"I’m going to wave a little red flag here. As retriever trainers we should focus on observing our dogs and how they respond to their environment and what we do. As Marilyn Fender identified, this Applied Behaviour Analysis is a difficult topic to fully understand. We should strive to understand and use the principles and knowledge of learning theory but not get distracted too much by terminology. For example, there are about half a dozen types of "reinforcers" and their definitions get very intertwined with subtle differences. I don’t pretend to understand them all. I think we all need to be careful about trying to label everything."