Berners with The Edge, Week Four

The kinds of things that we have focused on in the beginning weeks of our online community adventure are understanding the value of thinking micro, the value of reinforcement, and we have also offered specific ideas for training.

I started the first week with a video about Vulnerability because learning requires an ability to embrace and expose our imperfections; that is not easy, and especially for adults. Thank you to those who have shared videos — they are valuable learning opportunities for all, and your willingness to be vulnerable is honored and appreciated.

This is the week in which I want us begin to more explicitly consider the parallel tracks of training dogs and the whole human side of things. Yep—we are going to start tackling the monster that is Ring Nerves.

The name is misleading even as it gives us a shared concept to discuss. It isn’t really nerves nor is it limited to a ring — rather, it is a physiological response to a perceived or real threat that happens to so many at dog events.

Why do people experience this response at dog events? Are dog events dangerous?

Note that the threat can be real or perceived. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if a dog event is actually dangerous or not. If a person perceives a threat, the response is activated and it is real (and unpleasant).

But that response does more than make humans sweat, tremble, and need to run to the facilities — our fight-flight-freeze response distracts dogs.

Keenly attuned to us because of eons spent evolving the hard-wiring to be that way, our stress response triggers dogs to be on high alert for the threat. I bet you can imagine that when sirens are screaming about impending attack, it is hard to focus on anything else — like heeling.

Dogs do not understand the concept of perceived threat and we cannot simply explain, “Never mind that I am a Hot Mess of Screaming Stress Hormones right now. There is not actually not a lion, tiger, or bear — I just perceive a threat to my self-image.”

And so the dog is on alert for the danger, scanning the environment to be ready for the imminent attack and preparing to get the heck out of Dodge — and the human cannot understand why the dog is not happily engaged in the ring.

I left my camera in Boise — sigh. Therefore, I am photo-deficient these days.

This week’s video invites consideration about both the impact of perceived threats at dog events AND how to figure out what those perceived threats are; they are not the same for everyone. If we understand the perceived threat(s), we can change things — I promise.

In addition, I pose what I think is an important question — what are we practicing when we continue to show a dog whose ring performance is disengaged and/or not what we want to see?

This is an honest question and not asked with judgment — I really want to know what drives people to continue to show a dog who does not seem ready to achieve the human’s hopes and dreams. If we understand what drives such decisions, maybe we can be helpful.

More Interesting Than Dirt: Harder Than It Seems

Dogs have evolved with humans, and therefore are very, very keen on what works with their two-legged companions. Not in an evil, manipulative way but just in ways that are effective.

For example, many dogs have learned that the way to get their humans to be fun and engaging is to sag. I do not mean literally, of course, but rather a general sag of attitude and attention. I imagine the conversation at Dog Class goes like this:

Dog 1: How do you get your human to play so much and to hand over all those great cookies?!

Dog 2: Easy Peasy Liver Squeezy. You can head off to sniff — that works well. Or you can just stop looking like you care — you know, look around, don’t make eye contact, look all sad.

Dog 1: Wait — what?! Are you serious???!!!

Dog 2: Yep. Just act disinterested and the toys and cookies will rain down on you. Humans are so trainable!

Oh Dear.

We train dogs to disengage when we provide rewards for disengagement behavior.

That said, sometimes the dog disengages because of external factors, including handler anxiety, and even internal-to-the-dog factors that we may not understand. Nothing is really black-and-white, except maybe zebras.

We should, however, be aware that we may have inadvertently trained our dog to disengage, and we should definitely stop reinforcing disengaged behavior.

Personally, I do not believe in adding anything mean when a dog disengages. Instead, I am a fan of training what I want to see in the future — and that does not include a disengaged dog.

Unless we are intentionally using food or toys to lure during a training phase, cookies and play should happen ONLY when we have desired behavior. And even when luring, one should not release the reward when the dog is disinterested!

So what to do if we have failed to be more interesting than dirt? Here are some options — I would save #3 and use only as really needed.

1. Wait. Say nothing and see if the dog will engage. If she does, have a verbal praise party and ask for a couple of easy behaviors before the reward. You do not want to set up: sniff, look at human, get cookie. How does the dog understand that the sniff is not actually part of the behavior chain?

2. Walk away and do as above if the dog finds you.

3. End the train session — even for just a few minutes.

But I need to say this — prevention is better than intervention.

If a dog has a disengagement issue, the human needs to work harder to keep the dog engaged by being more interesting, consistently rewarding engaged behavior with play and treats, and quit training sessions before the dog has a chance to disengage.

Happy Training!

B is for Breaking It Down AND for Bounce

When I was in Salt Lake City for the Holidays, I trained with Dear Friend, Elizabethanne. She teaches at a local training facility and so we met there. A related aside — Elizabethanne is one of the smartest humans I know, and her understanding of the process pieces of dog training are keenly informed, and ethical.

I worked Claire in our session, and Elizabethanne kept asking me, “how did you train ________.”

My answers perplexed her and made us both laugh — I just kept saying that I wasn’t really sure and/or that Claire just arrived doing it (her square auto sits, for example).

I have thought a lot about her questions since December.

Obviously, I trained Claire to have the skills AND the attitude she has — but Elizabethanne prompted me to consider HOW I have done that.

Hmmm.

What I came up with is this: I break things down, and although I do not consider myself a patient person — apparently I am better at it than I think (who knew?!).

That is the short version of my complicated, multi-part answer and the one that is most relevant for this week’s challenge: Breaking Things Down (even more!) in a systematic way, and celebrating micro-successes.

I am learning to use a new technology for my online courses at the university, and so I made my practice session meaningful by making a video for this week’s work; you can watch it HERE. I cut things off, did not make eye contact, and felt unnatural — but it was great practice!

I invite you to consider and diagram an aspirational goal as I have in the video.

Jot down the various behaviors that support your aspirational goal on index cards, and make notes on the cards of the micro-skills that can support success for that behavior. Each time you are training, select one or two of the cards and focus your brief session on those things.

In the video, I mention this book:

The book inspired me to offer this recipe to help support A is for Attitude training:

When my dog does not offer a desired behavior in response to a cue, I will say out loud in a happy voice, “Huh. That is interesting.”

By doing that, you will be prevented from imposing a de-motivating error message and you will remind yourself that “mistakes” are simply data to inform your training.

Happy Training!