Dog Trainer's Log

I haven’t posted anything here since I posted the tribute to Casey, a few days after I put him down on June 9. It wasn’t because I haven’t been writing – I have – but writing about dogs other than writing about events has been really, really hard.

I’ve spent most of this time letting M. have her very first shot at my time, undivided and unshared with another dog. We started tracking. We are working on her heeling. We spend a lot of time just plain old cuddling.

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Casey, on the hill near the raspberry bushes

Last year, on the 25th of November, I wrote this post to the Versatile English Cocker Yahoo! group to celebrate Casey’s 15th birthday. I wanted to celebrate my old man while he was still enjoying life, rather than post a long memorial to the list on the day that he died. That day was last Thursday, June 10 – one of the hardest days ever for a responsible dog owner, when you recognize that it’s time to help one of your dogs move on to his next life.

I miss my red viejo every minute, and no other dog, no matter how loved, will ever fill the special place he had next to my feet on the bed, and next to my soul in my heart. But I still would rather celebrate him than mourn him, so here is that post I shared with my english cocker friends last fall.

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Do training techniques have split personalities?

I commented today (twice) on a blog written by Laurie Luck called the Smart Dog blog, on a post called “A surprising look at balanced dog training.”

Many trainers become familiar with operant conditioning at some point in their training lives – and the shorthand for positive reinforcement (R+), negative reinforcement (R-), positive punishment (P+) and negative punishment (P-). But while the trainers become familiar – sort of – with the concepts, we often let our own or our students’ emotional baggage around the words positive, negative, punishment and aversive dictate some very creative descriptions of a training technique. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Image via Wikipedia

People love rules. And dog trainers love routines.

Can you remember those old obedience class homework handouts: practice 15 automatic sits, heel forward with three left turns and three right turns, practice two fasts and two slows, practice sit/stay for three minutes and down/stay for five minutes on lead with distractions. I can. Taped each week’s assignments up on my ‘fridge. Practiced them religiously, 15 minutes in the morning and another 15 minutes at night.

There’s nothing wrong with rules. Or routines. Those homework handouts were how I trained Taryn all the way through utility, and how I earned her SOTC CD (a club title awarded to mixed breeds by qualifying three times under three different fun match judges.) Those homework handouts were still around and part of my training plan when I started Jazz, who eventually earned an AKC CD, a CKC CD, an AKC CDX and who I trained and showed in utility. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Image by Ninja M. via Flickr

Madison and I have been working on her play skills – every day, a couple encouraged and praised tosses and retrieves of her favorite toy, the ginormous Nylaknot left in the toybox by the gordon setters. I’m still focused on trying to reward the right behavior (and not commit CRAP training – constantly rewarding ‘almost’ perfect.) While it’s important to reinforce approximate performances in the very beginning of shaping a skill, the trap lies in staying at ‘almost’ and ‘close enough.’ [Read the rest of this entry...]