What I love about training
Dog training is so much more than obedience and stopping dogs from behaving in ways we don’t particularly enjoy. It’s teaching our dogs skills they can use to navigate our world.
I’ve had brutal cold for the last few days and life has sucked at Casa del Bulldogge. While some people’s dogs seem to be sympathetic to their guardian’s suffering, Hank is not on of those dogs.
Boredom can take on many forms, and in Hank’s case, Penelope has been far more interesting than she’s ever been. Normally he doesn’t give her the time of day even when she’s launching assaults from the table as he passes by. I found him following her around the basement no doubt assessing if she’s worth trying to play with. Or so I assume.
Last night Hank did something else that was out of character for him. He picked up Hazel's ChuckIt! ball and brought it over to me as I lay wheezing on the couch. Now you’re probably thinking “and this is interesting why exactly?” Allow me to explain.
Recently Hank and I have been working on retrieving. He’s gotten pretty good at fetch to hand and picking up different objects and dropping them into a box. We’ve built a solid reinforcement history at this point, working upstairs in the dog room.
Having tried his usual approach of wiggling his big bum and barking to get me off my ass, he decided to put his new skills to use by bringing me that ball. That in and of itself is very cool but what’s really impressive about it is that he was able to apply the behaviour in a different context. Outside of a training session, without being prompted and without the usual context cues of boxes and toys lying on the floor.
That’s what dog training is all about for me. It’s about teaching our dogs skills, however silly or pointless they may seem. Those skills allow our dogs new ways to interact with us and to move around their environment. A very human-centric environment. Learning new skills builds confidence, reduces stress, frustration and anxiety. It makes them smarter, calmer and ready to take on more challenges. It enables them to seek attention, feedback or information in much less offensive ways than the barking, scratching, jumping and other annoying behaviours.
It goes beyond bids for attention and boredom though. Lucy provided another example this week. We’ve been working on crawling under my legs while I’m sitting down, under tables and chairs. Normally when my feet are up on the ottoman she’ll wait for me to lift them up so she can hop up on the couch beside me. She surprised me by confidently shoving her way under my legs to claim her spot. Another “trick” put to good use!