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!