A short while ago, one thread here diverged into a discussion of whether dogs think. As a retired Wildlife Research Scientist, I knew that there was much research that showed dogs and many other species had superior (beyond their brain size) cognitive ability.
Tonight, I watched a Nature of Things documentary that discussed this very topic. I was surprised at how much has been learned in recent years. The documentary described research from whales to birds, to fish to reptiles to pigs and more that showed quite advanced thinking. Some of it involved problem-solving, memory, and decision making- that's what we ask out dogs to do all the time-make decisions. Frankly, I do not know how our dogs remember quads as well as they do! As they said, many species can remember better than humans! But it goes way beyond memory.
I was particularly impressed with a lizard experiment. A lizard watched a movie of another that had been trained to open a door to get food. The "popcorn" lizard quickly learned to do this after watching the movie!!
I have long known that wildlife watch others and learn some simple things but I did not know how valuable this really was for training retrievers. For several years I have been observing retrievers and their learning from watching other retrievers.
I use what I call a 3 x 3 method to transition dogs into cold blind retrieves. I document this in my 25 Essential Drills DVD as well as Retrievers ONLINE magazine articles. Basically, it is using sets of 3 walk around blinds, 3 cold blinds(3-peats- a term I coined thanks to Chicago Bulls!) and 3 repeated earlier blinds. The proportions depending on the dog and its progress.
I have now added to this a 3 X 3 Plus or 3 x 3[SUP]2[/SUP]procedure based on what I have seen from some young dogs. The additional to the 3 x 3 is to allow the learning younger dog to watch an advanced dog do a blind and then send the young dog for that blind. They do remarkably well especially if it is a 3-peat walk-around. It's just another technique to help what many find to be the biggest struggle-cold blinds with good attitude and understanding!
So my bottom-line is there is way more thinking going on that we recognize. And yet we must never forget that most of their consistent behaviour and response to command is developed through all the principles of learning theory including positive and negative reinforcement and punishment(Operant conditioning).
Conditioned responses and consistency in our interactions remains a key! But please remember that these dogs are smart thinkers! Smarter than some trainers!
Cheers
Tonight, I watched a Nature of Things documentary that discussed this very topic. I was surprised at how much has been learned in recent years. The documentary described research from whales to birds, to fish to reptiles to pigs and more that showed quite advanced thinking. Some of it involved problem-solving, memory, and decision making- that's what we ask out dogs to do all the time-make decisions. Frankly, I do not know how our dogs remember quads as well as they do! As they said, many species can remember better than humans! But it goes way beyond memory.
I was particularly impressed with a lizard experiment. A lizard watched a movie of another that had been trained to open a door to get food. The "popcorn" lizard quickly learned to do this after watching the movie!!
I have long known that wildlife watch others and learn some simple things but I did not know how valuable this really was for training retrievers. For several years I have been observing retrievers and their learning from watching other retrievers.
I use what I call a 3 x 3 method to transition dogs into cold blind retrieves. I document this in my 25 Essential Drills DVD as well as Retrievers ONLINE magazine articles. Basically, it is using sets of 3 walk around blinds, 3 cold blinds(3-peats- a term I coined thanks to Chicago Bulls!) and 3 repeated earlier blinds. The proportions depending on the dog and its progress.
I have now added to this a 3 X 3 Plus or 3 x 3[SUP]2[/SUP]procedure based on what I have seen from some young dogs. The additional to the 3 x 3 is to allow the learning younger dog to watch an advanced dog do a blind and then send the young dog for that blind. They do remarkably well especially if it is a 3-peat walk-around. It's just another technique to help what many find to be the biggest struggle-cold blinds with good attitude and understanding!
So my bottom-line is there is way more thinking going on that we recognize. And yet we must never forget that most of their consistent behaviour and response to command is developed through all the principles of learning theory including positive and negative reinforcement and punishment(Operant conditioning).
Conditioned responses and consistency in our interactions remains a key! But please remember that these dogs are smart thinkers! Smarter than some trainers!
Cheers
