Clean Run - December 2012 - 49

rewards only as reinforcement for the behavior they just presented. Because reinforcement builds behavior, it becomes likely the dog will repeat the incorrect behavior, progressively building this his incorrect training. This lack of clarity can be quite damaging to the dog’s understanding of the game. For example, in class Fido pops out of the weave poles at pole 10. His handler gives him a cookie anyway, in the hopes of keeping his focus on her and his motivation level high. However, in the simplest possible terms, the handler has just reinforced completing 10 of 12 poles. And, it is likely that the handler will also reinforce the dog when he completes all 12, and then maybe again when he pops out at the 10th pole. So the weave criteria can easily get muddy to the dog. Eventually, the handler will probably want to reward 12 poles only, but because the dog has been reinforced for a variety of different behaviors and has not had the opportunity to work through failure, there is a strong chance that getting all 12 poles will be difficult and unreliable. This is where

we might see the dog begin to stress, shut down, or lose interest in repeating the obstacle.

Finding the Balance: Just the Right Amount of Success and Just the Right Amount of Failure
To have clarity of understanding, we must allow the dog to fail and work through training to figure out how to earn reinforcement. This allows us to reinforce only the behaviors we want, and to set and maintain clear, consistent criteria for obstacle performance, focus, handling, and more. But exactly how much failure should be allowed (or set up) before it becomes too much failure? Here are some things to keep in mind:

teaching a new skill or retraining or proofing for competition. Take notes or videotape so you can track exactly how often your dog gets it right and gets it wrong. Before every training session or competition run, play with the dog to get him into the proper state of arousal for his game with you. If he is in a low state of arousal, he will be less resilient to failure and less likely to keep trying if reinforcement is not immediately available. When the dog is young or new to training a certain skill, you should minimize failure and maximize success. To do this, I suggest shaping the behavior (rather than luring) while managing the environment so there aren’t many distractions or other options for the dog. This will help achieve a high rate of success to build value for the new behavior. During shaping, however, there is some failure built into each session when the dog offers a behavior that does not get reinforced.

The only way to know how much success and failure your dog is having in training and competition is to keep records or a training journal. This is particularly important when

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Clean Run - December 2012

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