Whilst dogs have a different view of colours and life in general over us humans, if you adopt a black and white approach to your dog training then you will reap the rewards of a well trained dog faster. A dog is driven to do what makes them feel good, they dont do things simply because we ask them too, just to make us feel good, they do things because its rewarding for them, or stop doing things because its unrewarding to them.
So Rewarding = Black
Unrewarding = White
When teaching a dog a new exercise or new behaviour if we remain VERY Black and White when we are training teaching the new behaviour the dog is going to learn faster, and the end result more consistent
Example: When you ask a dog to sit - and it sits for a split second and stands up and you praise it for being a good boy or girl, you have wasted your time. You have blurred the edges discoloured what you wanted the dog to do. In actual fact you have praised the dog for standing up on a sit command, so have really taught your dog NOTHING useful.
SO, change to Black and white for a moment.
You put your dog into a sit, (in any of the various ways individual trainers will show you), then you use the word SIT, and shortly after praise a good SIT, then release the dog from the SIT with something like ‘OK’ (We most commonly use) Or ‘Play’ then the dog knows to sit there until it hears its release command.
The dog is being praised for a good sit, while it is doing exactly what you want it to do SIT, and then rewarded with freedom on the release command to do what it wants.
It’s the same with teaching loose lead walking, ‘HEEL’ means - Hold on tight I am going backwards in a minute, as the dog is yanked backwards when hearing the word, and depending on the distance the dog pulls, depends upon the Volume used in Shouting HEEL at the dog.
So use a method that allows us to get the dog into the heel position, and then we tell the dog HEEL - Good HEEL, whilst the dog is walking on the loose lead beside you. Then OK when you reward the dog in the HEEL position.
Training in BLACK & WHITE is not Easy, but so easy that we as humans have to cock it up, by thinking our dogs understand EVERY SINGLE WORD THAT COMES OUT OF OUR MOUTHS. Well here is the NEWS - The more you come out with when talking to your dog the less they are going to listen !
Want to see this method in real time, book a 121 with Steve by emailing steve@brecklanddogtraining.co.uk
