Clean Run - January 2015 - 20

being an innovative

dog trainer:

optimising learning
without

Fallout

By Tom Mitchell, photos courtesy of author except where noted

Dog training is a passion we all share.
The enjoyment that comes from
changing the behaviour of an animal
in a positive way, working as a team,
is a powerful feeling. This feeling of
achievement is addictive for both dog
and owner.

Take, for example, the behaviour of a
running contact. Is it not in a dog's interest to be aware of the placement of
his limbs, to repeat what was eﬀective
in the past in that context and without
active thought, and to do this consistently? That's what makes for consistent running contacts and, of course,
it would be in our dogs' interests to
possess these skills. These skills greatly
beneﬁt the survival of dogs in terms of
safety and most eﬃciently using energy-eﬀective reward-based training
can harness and promote these and
apply them to the agility setting.

Reward-based dog training is a simple
and powerful process, a process
whereby we are selecting and promoting behaviours and skills our dogs are
capable of, and that we want, whether
it's for sport or companionship.
Through the training process our dogs
gain a ﬂexible but predictable, secure,
and fun framework. They can use this
to inﬂuence their environments, which
are often unnatural, worrying, or full of
expectations on their behaviour.

Let's take another example: a dog's
decision to work with the trainer in a
ﬁeld full of sheep. This goes against
what many breeds of dog came into
existence for and presents a common
training problem-that of distractions!
But again, is it not in a dog's interest
to choose a more valued behaviour
over another, irrelevant of breed? Using eﬀective reward-based training to
make the behaviour we want the more
valued behaviour is something we will
discuss further throughout this series
of articles.

Promoting the
Behaviors We Want
Eﬀective reward-based dog training
means we move from an attitude of
working to inhibit and restrict our
dogs' natural behaviours to instead
enhancing and promoting the behav-

iours we do want, and I'll share with
you the way I visualise this process so
that you can apply it to your dog training later on. The ability to manipulate
behaviour through eﬀective rewardbased training is truly inﬁnite and, as a
dog trainer, that is an incredibly exciting prospect. The issue of breed is an
interesting one, but a dog is primarily
a dog. Further to this, from my clinical
experience, I would always argue that
the force that is "selective breeding"
in changing an individual's behaviour
cowers in the face of the force that is
reward-based training.
The capacity for change in dogs is phenomenal; reward-based training facilitates this and allows us to take control
of training outcomes, right here and
right now. Consider the case of the
dog that ate his own tail as a way of
coping with stress in his life. There are
three things to learn from this case:
1. Learning is powerful. If a dog can
ﬁnd it rewarding to eat his own
tail, despite the pain he was likely
feeling, surely we can build value
into performing any behavior.
2. Emotion is a powerful motivator
for behaviours. Remember that
behaviours may make up a coping
mechanism for the stress that an
individual dog is feeling. We will

The capacity for change in dogs is phenomenal; reward-based training facilitates this
and allows us to take control of training outcomes, right here and right now.
20

Clean Run | January 15

Clean Run - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - January 2015