Radical Canines

I spend a decent amount of time training my dogs and helping other people train their dogs. For the most part, most teams can be shown how to teach a behavior and then they’re able to work through the gist of it pretty quickly. Of course it may take some time before the behavior looks like the finished product and even more time after that before the behavior is fully trained. But what happens when the gist is barely approximating the final behavior? Occasionally, I’m tempted to push through and keep working on it until we have the gist, but in the past few years, I’ve started to realize less is more.

I see this as especially true with Rumor and in the agility foundations classes I teach. The dog who won’t go through a tunnel or over an A-frame. Obviously it’s frustrating but sometimes pushing through is the exact opposite of when needs to happen. For Rumor, I’ve learned, if I can’t help him be correct or successful in getting the gist then I need to take a break from it. Sometimes that break means finding a different method, but other times that break literally just means taking some time off from it.

In agility, it often means rewarding the attempt, a head into the tunnel even if the feet don’t touch it, or the front feet on the A-frame even if they turn around and bail once those back feet touch it. I think it’s important for our dogs to trust us to show them the way, reward them for trying, and give them the time they need to decide they’re ready to take on the next challenge. Not to say we don’t work on it, but sometimes the effort from our dogs is just as important as the final product. They are trying to do what we ask. By listening to what they are telling us, we build our working relationships. Eventually, they figure it out and the gist comes. Sometimes it’s a few weeks later, sometimes a year or more later, but rarely at the cost of your relationship with your dog. If anything I think, taking the time to work through difficult things with your dog, allowing them the time to be ready to take it on, strengthens your relationship.