[cookieface]

I think the real difference is that if you just ask the dog to look at you and hold eye-contact, they've got this looming awareness of the other dog. They're ramped up and nervous and on edge and you're asking them to just... not look at the thing but look at you instead. I don't like Look at That, but I would use it before stopping at eye-contact with me. Ie: I'd ask for eye-contact and attention from the dog, but then I'd be asking for other stuff. Sit, down, play, running back and forth on leash, whatever. It's sort of like... really distracting the dog versus asking the dog to just sit there, feeling like there's a target on their back, you know?

If you can get watch me, you can get sit. If you can't get either, you may still get a dog willing to chase you around in circles. Or be interested when you jump up and down or wrestle with them or whatever your dog is into. If you can't get anything or panic/flail is already happen, move away if you can and move on if you can't. Just... activity (any activity) so their MIND is off the other dog, not just their eyes. I want the dog to stop CARING about the other dog, not just stop looking at it and reacting to it. Much harder when their attention isn't being grabbed fully by something else.

So, maybe I'm taking things too slow?? At a distance where Tyson isn't freaking out, work with him. Forget all the behaviorism stuff (gah, my profs would disown me) and just play / work with Tyson in the presence of the scary dogs. Forget Pavlov. Forget Watson. Just keep Tyson engaged and happy.

We are always ready to talk people off the ledge!

Personally, I feel like most of the stuff our dogs do is just stuff they're hardwired to do and that most of the time we haven't messed them up. I see pretty clueless people with really awesome dogs, and really awesome people with dogs who are a mess, so I think the people are only a small part of the equation. The real challenge is taking what you have and then coming up with a plan to fix it - not always easy!

I'm an inch or two away from the ledge. I do think Tyson's temperament is less confident, more timid than Katie's, so not entirely my fault. But, I'm sure there's so much more I could have done with him. Instructional plans are so much easier to develop when you don't have a vested interest.

Well obviously I'm trying to give helpful advice. To me it WAS helpful when it clicked and I realized 'oh wow, you mean I can really build on this engagement/drive/whatever?' It made dog training infinitely easier. It helped a lot more than 'give a treat now' 'don't give a treat for that' because I saw WHY I was doing everything.

Ymmv. Was just trying to help. I'll bow out now.

Your advice is helpful. I just need more specifics, especially when I'm in panic mode. I've seen the results of building value in engagement. Your posts prompted me to look up the materials from the recall class Katie and I took. It was mostly about making yourself more interesting than anything else in the environment and I've seen huge improvements in her recall (hasn't been tested against deer, though).

 

[elrohwen]

Yes. I think you and I are actually extreme opposites (in this conversation), but in my case a good deal of it comes from having had dogs long enough that things seem blindingly obvious to me that maybe aren't really. My instructor tried a step by step to teach me how to do that bleeping switch (tandem turn, whatever) for MONTHS. In fact, if we go all the way back to the point where it was introduced, it was a year. I got absolutely nowhere until I started running full, more difficult courses, and saw what needed to happen and then, and only then, was I able to teach my dog how to do it. Without using a single one of her methods. I didn't need a method or a strategy or step by step, I just needed to understand what I was trying to accomplish and why. I got there on my own after it. Before that (with the instructor's step by step) I succeeded in teaching my dog to do a 180 degree turn and go back over the obstacle she'd just taken.

I think the instructor wanted to strangle me a little before it was over.

I'm totally the person in the class who nailed all of the crosses and exercises after one specific explanation from the instructor. But then my dog was the one who ran away from me 1/3 of the time because I don't have a good feel for how to get engagement all the time. lol I'm very good at following specific instructions, but it takes me a lot longer to get a feel for something.

I know from playing cello and riding horses that it was probably 5 years of work before I felt like I had a "feel" for what I was doing a lot of the time, instead of working through specifics.

 

[CptJack]

So, maybe I'm taking things too slow?? At a distance where Tyson isn't freaking out, work with him. Forget all the behaviorism stuff (gah, my profs would disown me) and just play / work with Tyson in the presence of the scary dogs. Forget Pavlov. Forget Watson. Just keep Tyson engaged and happy.

That would be my suggestion. Of course, if you keep him engaged and happy, you're still probably conditioning a response of sorts. Or at least changing his mental state around the other dogs. For me, you may be changing his mental state MORE/still using behavioral stuff because honestly I've seen dogs in the presence of other dogs, tense and growling and unhappy but taking the food. ...and barking and growling through having a full mouth, which is mildly amusing. Anyway, yeah. Can't hurt to try, right?

 

[CptJack]

I'm totally the person in the class who nailed all of the crosses and exercises after one specific explanation from the instructor. But then my dog was the one who ran away from me 1/3 of the time because I don't have a good feel for how to get engagement all the time. lol I'm very good at following specific instructions, but it takes me a lot longer to get a feel for something.

I know from playing cello and riding horses that it was probably 5 years of work before I felt like I had a "feel" for what I was doing a lot of the time, instead of working through specifics.

Yep, absolutely my polar opposite learning style. I took a year with saxaphone to be not horribly awful. I picked up a clarinet a year later and was first chair after 3 weeks, my freshman year (in band) because I had melody with that, and was able to know what it was supposed to sound like and how the music moved. I tried to learn how to knit with instructions a dozen times, couldn't do it, and finally learned because I watched a gif for a while and I figured out the rhythm of the thing.

I can not do ANYTHING without having a cadence and feel for whatever. Once I have that I can add in the technicalities, but without it I'm just clumsy and awkward and stilted and bad - with EVERYTHING. Crafts, music, dance, MATH, even. I'd probably prefer to be able to actually figure things out via detailed instructions, but grass is always greener or something or another.

 

[Laurelin]

Sorry guys, I just got frustrated. It all makes perfect sense in my head and I can't express it and it's frustrating. Why can't you all get in my head and understand what I'm saying? lol

I find step by step useful when teaching a specific behavior but not when thinking in a general sense. Like if I'm teaching weaves knowing to put sets of 2 and work around the clock and throw the toy is helpful. Anything dog vs environment falls under more general training though in my head. Similarly distractions and refusing to work in distraction falls under more general issues to me. If he's not paying attention to me regardless of why my answer is 'be more engaging'. But if he's missing poles, I'll start thinking of specific things to change with my setup.

I don't think I've ever followed any training by the book completely. If I know my dog can move faster then we go faster, if I know my dog needs another step then I add it. The people I really admire as trainers are people who put their relationship with their dogs first and you can tell their training revolves around it. I get absolutely nothing that is actually applicable to dog training from reading scientific articles or books about dog training. I have never thought 'I am going to use operant conditioning now' or 'I am going to use counter conditioning now' or 'is this really purely positive?'

I feel like dog training is as much an art as a science, maybe more.

 

[elrohwen]

Yep, absolutely my polar opposite learning style. I took a year with saxaphone to be not horribly awful. I picked up a clarinet a year later and was first chair after 3 weeks, my freshman year (in band) because I had melody with that, and was able to know what it was supposed to sound like and how the music moved. I tried to learn how to knit with instructions a dozen times, couldn't do it, and finally learned because I watched a gif for a while and I figured out the rhythm of the thing.

I can not do ANYTHING without having a cadence and feel for whatever. Once I have that I can add in the technicalities, but without it I'm just clumsy and awkward and stilted and bad - with EVERYTHING. Crafts, music, dance, MATH, even. I'd probably prefer to be able to actually figure things out via detailed instructions, but grass is always greener or something or another.

Even after 10 years of playing the cello, my music could lack real feeling or emotion a lot of the time. The music was so technically difficult at that point that it took all of my brain to do the technical part and the feeling part often got left out. On easier pieces, sure I had feel, but that's because my technical skills were so far advanced that I didn't have to think about them anymore on easier songs. But getting the feel for something is absolutely the last thing that comes. But if you can explain what to do, I can totally do it exactly like you say.

 

[Laurelin]

Yep, absolutely my polar opposite learning style. I took a year with saxaphone to be not horribly awful. I picked up a clarinet a year later and was first chair after 3 weeks, my freshman year (in band) because I had melody with that, and was able to know what it was supposed to sound like and how the music moved. I tried to learn how to knit with instructions a dozen times, couldn't do it, and finally learned because I watched a gif for a while and I figured out the rhythm of the thing.

I can not do ANYTHING without having a cadence and feel for whatever. Once I have that I can add in the technicalities, but without it I'm just clumsy and awkward and stilted and bad - with EVERYTHING. Crafts, music, dance, MATH, even. I'd probably prefer to be able to actually figure things out via detailed instructions, but grass is always greener or something or another.

I get a lot of questions in art and dog training. 'How did you know to put that blue color here when the object is not actually blue?' or 'why did you reward that when he didn't do the thing you wanted?'

I can't ever explain beyond 'Because that's what the picture needed or that's what my dog needed.'

There's no real reasoning going into it, it just... works? and I know it will work? It is subconscious decision making.

I can't even make it through reading instruction manuals for things lol. I get bored too fast.

 

[elrohwen]

Sorry guys, I just got frustrated. It all makes perfect sense in my head and I can't express it and it's frustrating. Why can't you all get in my head and understand what I'm saying? lol

I find step by step useful when teaching a specific behavior but not when thinking in a general sense. Like if I'm teaching weaves knowing to put sets of 2 and work around the clock and throw the toy is helpful. Anything dog vs environment falls under more general training though in my head. Similarly distractions and refusing to work in distraction falls under more general issues to me. If he's not paying attention to me regardless of why my answer is 'be more engaging'. But if he's missing poles, I'll start thinking of specific things to change with my setup.

I don't think I've ever followed any training by the book completely. If I know my dog can move faster then we go faster, if I know my dog needs another step then I add it. The people I really admire as trainers are people who put their relationship with their dogs first and you can tell their training revolves around it. I get absolutely nothing that is actually applicable to dog training from reading scientific articles or books about dog training. I have never thought 'I am going to use operant conditioning now' or 'I am going to use counter conditioning now' or 'is this really purely positive?'

I feel like dog training is as much an art as a science, maybe more.

I agree, I just think some us need more specifics to start I think this is why I love Denise Fenzi so much. She understands that it's an art, and she puts relationship above everything, but she's able to break it down and explain how to build that relationship for particular dogs and handlers. I think that's what makes a good teacher. Some people are just good at things naturally and aren't that great at teaching. Others are very good at explaining no matter how clueless the audience.

As far as reading stuff goes, I don't read much at all about behaviorism. But I do read books on ways to build engagement, ways to play with your dog, what to do when the dog is distracted, etc. It's helpful to get that specific information for me because there is often a ton that I haven't thought of. But I'm not thinking about what quadrant I'm working in or whether it's counter conditioning or not. I do find that stuff interesting on an intellectual level but it doesn't come up in training much.

And I will always be a more scientifically minded person than an art minded person - I need to understand why something works before I can do it correctly. Once I understand "why", I can modify it for my own uses, but I need to read that instruction manual. Haha

 

[CptJack]

Honestly, I disregard so much of the step-by-step teaching even in agility classes. They use a LOT of food targets at the end of obstacles to get the dog to drive through (or over) obstacles. Didn't work for me with either dog. Kylie didn't like the food, didn't like the instructor that close, and wasn't going to eat off the sandy ground, anyway. Molly does not need encouragement to drive more toward any danged thing. Teaching 2o2o when I needed it with Kylie as a separate cue and without the target worked fine, and it SEEMS to have worked for Molly. If it doesn't, I'll back up and try something else.

It's at the point now, though, where even in class, they just pick up the target and move when Molly is running. They know I don't use it, they know she's doesn't need it, and thankfully they're pretty willing to let me steer my own ship.

I'm teaching Molly weaves 2x2, but how I taught Kylie was basically a strange combination of luring, sharping, and a tiny bit of 2x2. I'm pretty sure my instructor would fall over and faint if she realized how I taught them, in spite of having a dog who weaves better than any novice dog in our club, and better and more reliably than many of the elite dogs. I don't know why it worked. I don't know what to call the method. I couldn't explain it again if my life depended on it. But it worked.

And yeah, I don't read instruction manuals, either. Just give me the thing and I'll poke at it for a while and figure it out. I know what it's supposed to look like/do. Good enough to get there.

 

[CptJack]

And I will always be a more scientifically minded person than an art minded person - I need to understand why something works before I can do it correctly.

This is actually very much my husband. He frequently wants to strangle me. We balance pretty well though! And usually cover most/all our bases. He's actually been really good at helping me with agility by providing feedback. Like what I'm doing and what it's making happen, now that he's watched me enough.

 

[elrohwen]

Does anyone read the Naughty Dogge blog or FB page? She is a prime example of the type of training advice that I hate. I mean, I think she's really cool and a good writer and I read her stuff all the time, but a lot of the time I come away from it thinking "All you did was talk about feel! I can't feel what you're feeling so that is not helpful! Tell what the **** you actually did!" LOL MrsBoats and I have conversations about this all the time.

Of course the people who just feel it are the best actual trainers, but I don't think they are necessarily the best teachers of humans. It's like the person who is awesome at math but can't teach a kid how to do fractions - it's so obvious to them that they can't break down what they are doing.

 

[CptJack]

I don't read her, but I'd probably agree with you. I mostly work by feel but I don't think it's useful in sharing information, necessarily? There's a reason I'm not a dog trainer and don't want to be, and also a reason I love my agility instructor. She'll break it down step by step and explain what and why and how. And then she'll, you know, get out of my way, pick up the targets, and let me do what is working for me.

I definitely agree though that there are some great trainers/doers who aren't great teachers, in almost all things. I really think they're two different skill sets.

 

[Laurelin]

I am actually a math major and I tutor my sister a lot and we run into problems because I can't explain things that are so obvious to me. I was originally going to be a teacher. That's why I'm now in data management and not teaching lol. I get to a point and then I can't explain. And then she gets frustrated because its not intuitive to her.

I find in dog training a lot of exercises are things I have done and have been doing for many years without knowing it was a 'thing' or a method. I didn't know about positive reinforcement as a kid but I did it. A lot of the drive building games are things i did as a kid before knowing what drive was. Am I better at it and more efficient now? And do I now have more ideas on how to carry that concept further? Yes and i can explain it better now but the concepts were there before in the 'what just makes sense to me' category. I can't remember what the specific exercise was recently in an agility class but I had never heard of it before and yet it was something I had done forever.

It is kind of frustrating because especially in my ring rental groups I get asked a lot why I do this or that specifically and not something else but I can't ever seem to explain it. I just kind of keep to myself because I just confuse people trying to explain. My art teacher used to let me just do whatever and he'd say 'I just never know what Lauren is doing but I just let her do her thing and it comes together'

Later on in art I realized that color theory was a thing and my color choices made sense scientifically but it was just something that 'was' to me. Dog training is the same. Theory has really reaffirmed and streamlined the things I've already been doing.

I can't play a musical instrument to same my life. Fwiw

 

[Laurelin]

The flip side is things that don't make sense probably aren't going to ever make sense no matter how many times people take me through it step by step.

 

[elrohwen]

It's funny because my husband and I are both engineers, both scientifically minded, but we both think the other is horrible at teaching. lol I know I am much better at explaining things that don't come naturally to me, like riding a horse or playing the cello. I am much worse at explaining math and science type things that are more intuitive to me. I'm also pretty good spatially (especially for a woman, since I do notice gender gaps there) but am apparently terrible at explaining spacial things. My husband always stares at me blankly until I draw a picture of what I'm talking about.

 

[Laurelin]

I am decent at science and math (obviously since I have a degree in math) but I'm an art person when it comes down to it. I'm kind of a hippy. I like feel and balance and energy. That kind of thing.

So, maybe I'm taking things too slow?? At a distance where Tyson isn't freaking out, work with him. Forget all the behaviorism stuff (gah, my profs would disown me) and just play / work with Tyson in the presence of the scary dogs. Forget Pavlov. Forget Watson. Just keep Tyson engaged and happy.

I would definitely forget Pavlov and all that. Or maybe just don't make it the focus so much. But like I said I'm a dog hippy, I think.

 

[cookieface]

I definitely want the science and principles and the how and why does this work type of information, far more than feeling and art aspects. I completely understand that they're part of good training (and many other things), but until I have a solid grasp of the foundation, I'm not comfortable experimenting or following intuition. Some day I'd love to be the type of trainer CptJack and Laurelin are and just know what is needed for that dog in the moment. For me, I think that's a far, far distant destination.

So, closing the animal learning and motivation text and moving forward with more "art" in our training.

 

[ireth0]

I agree that I work much better when I know the whole picture so I can make decisions or tweak my technique toward the end goal.

I find my work is much more awkward and sloppy when I'm just fed piecemeal instructions phase A phase B phase C. When I understand the end goal and overall process, I can string it together more effectively for a better overall result. VS missing things that aren't important now but might matter down the road.

 

[CptJack]

My agility instructor actually remarked about how much better I'd gotten all of the sudden, and all I could say was that it was because I finally knew what I didn't know. You can TELL me all the things in the world, but until I'm putting it into practice and really understand what I'm trying to achieve as a whole I just can't put it together as anything real. I mean for some of the pieces too (like I was talking about switches) but also just the whole. Probably really impacts my ability to effectively teach it to the dogs, too, though I had a really great 'get out' long before I learned how to effectively use that get out on a course (for something besides a barrel).

Also cookieface, I get wanting instructions and needing them but don't be too afraid to experiment. As long as you're using positive methods it's not like dog training is ever going to have big negative consequences. Worst case scenario really is you don't get anywhere and you have to start over.

 

[elrohwen]

I agree that I work much better when I know the whole picture so I can make decisions or tweak my technique toward the end goal.

I find my work is much more awkward and sloppy when I'm just fed piecemeal instructions phase A phase B phase C. When I understand the end goal and overall process, I can string it together more effectively for a better overall result. VS missing things that aren't important now but might matter down the road.

I am a big picture person, so I find that I grasp the overall picture and goal very quickly. But I am not going to figuring out the details on my own, which is where I tend to need help.