Clean Run - September 2013 - 14

rEINForCEMENT

rEALLY MATTERS
By Laura Manchester-Derrett
Photos by Greg and Laura Derrett except where noted

Many dogs live a life of abundance,
where anything they desire is easy accessible. For most of the day, these
dogs can take what they want, when
they want it. This is often in the form of
toys laying around, free-fed food, chasing wildlife, and playing continuously
with other dogs—basically having few
to no boundaries in life. I equate this to
a “trust-fund baby” who has no regard
for the value of money since it is always at their disposal; they don’t have
14

to do anything to access the good things
in life but ask or demand them.
This “trust-fund dog” is now suddenly
told he has to do a lot of work for one
hour a day before he gets his money,
when 23 hours a day it’s all free for the
taking. The dog’s owner wonders why
the dog seems soooo slow and disinterested during this hour and often blames
external factors or makes excuses for
the dog’s lack of enthusiasm.
© istocKphoto

Before trying to teach your dog any behavior, it is important that you have the
correct reinforcement to offer to your
dog. Failure to have rewards that your
dog really really wants will prolong
your journey and likely give you less
than desirable results. In fact, many of
the people who struggle in agility do
so because of problems with reinforcement—from the dog that has no real
reward in his life, to the dog that has
the wrong rewards in his life, to the dog
that doesn’t understand how to earn
his rewards, to the dog that can take or
leave whatever is being offered to him.
Creating and maintaining valuable rewards that your dog loves and will do
anything to earn is the first step in being
able to train any behavior.

SoME Learning

Theory Basics

Before discussing what type of reinforcers we want to create a strong desire for,
let’s go over some basic learning theory.
The four quadrants of learning are always active in our dog’s life—whether
we like it or not—so we need to understand them in order to train effectively.
These are:
l Positive reinforcement
l Negative reinforcement
l Positive punishment
l Negative punishment

The opposite is the hard-working millionaire who understands the value of
a dollar and whose heart and soul go
into earning every penny. This person
has become wealthy not only because
of his work ethic, but because the work
itself has become rewarding to him. This
should be your goal for your dog; to create a desire in the dog to work for you.

In simplistic terms, reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior and
punishment decreases the likelihood
of a behavior. Positive means you add
something while negative means you
take something away.
Because we are looking for strong
drive and desire to work from our
dogs, while striving to create the best
human/canine relationship possible
(with concern for the welfare of our
canine partners), we want to train using
two methods: positive reinforcement
and negative punishment.
Clean Run | September 13
Clean Run - September 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - September 2013
