When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [82]
Meal time is the grand-daddy of all reinforcement opportunities. Do you want to teach your dog to start up the riding tractor and mow the lawn for you? You could probably do it if you used your dog’s dinner as a reinforcer—that is how exciting dinner is to most dogs. The sight of that food dish is invested with intrinsic meaning that can turn your dog’s eyes into pinwheels. Well, even if you couldn’t teach your dog to mow the lawn, you could probably teach him something useful to you. You could tell your dog to “go to your crate” before you feed him dinner. He will probably be so excited that he will tear off to his den and hit it with such force that it ricochets off the wall. You could also put your dog in a sit-stay and slowly lower the food dish to the floor. If he stays, he gets released to the food. If he does not, pick up the dish and try again. You could just put your dog’s food dishes on the floor, but that would not be teaching them anything. Do you see how it takes no extra effort to train a useful behavior at mealtime?
These small, daily, relationship building activities are way more valuable than an hour everyday of formal training. They teach your dog that your working relationship is a life partnership and does not begin and end in obedience class. I have only given a few examples of how you can shape your dog to be the dog of your dreams without any formal training sessions. The secret to success is that you have to plan and manage as much of your dog’s day as possible. It does not take much time, but it takes thought. Don’t be discouraged if you are not immediately transformed into an organized, well planned dog trainer who can effortlessly produce a perfect dog, just by regular daily interaction. You will get there, someday, but start small. If you can just catch your dog doing one right thing, be proud of yourself. You will find it very reinforcing that you can make a big difference with so little effort, and you will catch your dog in the act of doing something right more and more often.
Piggy Pointer
When I say that you can train your dog without formal training sessions, that assumes that you have already spent some time training basic behaviors and a few tricks. Think of those behaviors as tools that you will use in your life with your dog. If you want to build a house, you will need tools and you will have to go to some effort and expense to get them. However, just having the tools is not going to build your house for you. It is what you do with the tools after you have them that counts.
Beyond Dominance Voodoo
The Magic of Training
By now, I hope you are getting a much different picture of your Pigs Fly dog than before you started reading this book. Your willful, lazy, stubborn dog, the one who was deliberately ignoring you when you asked him to do things, is actually none of those things. He is just a normal dog. A normal dog that would love nothing better than to be trained.
But wait, maybe there is hope that you don’t need to do all that pesky training— maybe your dog is just dominant! Maybe you just need to show him who’s the boss! Couldn’t you somehow just project your dominance over your dog and have him magically become a model citizen? Unfortunately no, you can’t and for a multitude of reasons. As of the time of the publication of this book, I am not aware of a definitive study on the hierarchy within a dog-human family as a social unit. Dominance theory as we know it was based on some very limited observations of wolf behavior made in the middle of the last century. The findings themselves were suspect and are no longer the standard for the academic study of dogs, or even wolves.
Furthermore, the way that dog trainers have interpreted and applied this “dominance theory” is way off the mark. For instance, if a dog misbehaves, some trainers will advise forcibly rolling a dog onto its back and holding it there as it struggles. This is supposed to be an assertion of dominance over the dog. The