Today's Life Solutions / Pets / Woofology
Training Your Dog using the Laws of learning!
Barb Bocci
January 15, 2002
The first step to successful dog training is to have a clear understanding of how dogs think. Without a firm grasp on how dogs process information, people and dogs can easily conflict. Because dogs think differently than humans do, chewing, barking digging, urinating at will, jumping up and yes, even biting are normal behaviors that make perfect sense to dogs depending on their learning opportunities.
When training a dog most people think that they must teach them to understand not only correct (right) behaviors but also to recognize incorrect (wrong0 behaviors. In reality, the most effective training method is to train a dog to do the things you want. In order to do this, it is necessary to prevent dogs from engaging (learning) in the predictably repeated. Teaching a dog not to do a behavior is usually a study in futility.
Additionally, dogs and owners often conflict because dogs have no moral codes (a human condition) and are inherently incapable of knowing right from wrong. Canines "guilty" of unacceptable behaviors are actually behaving perfectly according to their nature. Herein lies the rub. Problems will predictably erupt if dogs are brought into foreign environments (human) and are trained using human learning methods (such as talking). The process is further complicated if unrealistic expectations are placed on the dogs; human values that dogs cannot relate to.
Owners typically train their dogs to do certain tasks such as "Sit", "Down", or "Come". Unfortunately they also insist on trying to train their dogs not to do other things such as chewing belongings, soiling the home, or jumping on guests. Keep in mind that dogs struggle to understand punishment associated with a "Don't" approach. The reason for that is that dogs simply make their decisions to repeat or avoid situations depending on the consequences that only occur within one second of an activity. For example, if a foreign person spewing out a flurry of unintelligible words yelled you at, angrily gestured and shook their heads in disgust, you would probably be confused. So you may try to appease them, however you would still be unsuccessful in understanding what they were trying to convey. In much the same way, dogs, when faced with angry outbursts, cannot pair the outburst to the inappropriate behaviors unless it is during the activity.
When training your dog keep in mind that humans communicate using language; dogs do not. Although dogs cannot fully grasp the meaning of the spoken language, they can, with repetition and reinforcement, become "conditioned" to respond to select words. Owners should be committed to teaching their dogs single word commands, ten rewarding appropriate responses. It is through this series of positively reinforced repetitions that dogs will be happy to comply (learn" with your "human" rules, thereby successfully into your very human world.
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