Conflicts in Retriever Trainingby Amy Dahl, Ph.D.Amy Dahl is also the co-author, with her husband, John, of The 10-Minute Retriever - How to Make an Obedient and Enthusiastic Sporting Dog in 10 Minutes a Day.  Amy Dahl, Ph.D. By considering our dog's point of view, we can recognize and manage these inherent conflicts. We can try to keep confusion, and its erosion of confidence, to a minimum. We can avoid the pitfall of drilling on one concept to the extent that we cannot get our dog to do the opposite. By employing the right balance, we can actually make conflicting commands or concepts work for us. Proper management of conflicts can build our dog's attentiveness and keep him thinking, avoiding the "rut" of approaching certain situations in an inflexible manner. It can even speed and improve his understanding of some of the concepts we are trying to teach.  Licking the lips, as Ping does here, is another indication of anxiety. Photo by: Author Tolerance for conflict, like the ability to learn from training pressure, is learned progressively through retriever training. In early training, dogs are readily discouraged by seeming contradictions in what we ask of them. If we start with the "heel" command, the green dog usually grasps quickly that he is to accompany us as we walk forward. With little experience, however, he probably doesn't understand that the word, "heel," is the key defining whether he is to walk along with us or not. When we begin teaching him to remain in place as we move, whether we employ the "stay" command or use "sit" to cover the situation, he is likely to be confused. Even when minimal correction is used to this point, dogs' body language bespeaks their uncertainty. Typically the dog just learning to "stay" sits with his head turned away, neck extended, looking as though he is trying to avoid the situation. As well he might, since he's in a "no-win" situation: in trying to meet your new requirement he's not heeling properly. Although eventually we want neat, straight sits, we do nothing to "correct" this expression of uncertainty, just continue practicing "heel" and "stay" to give the dog a chance to sort out the difference and gain confidence. Many dogs go from avoidance to simple inattention. As he sits and stays, knowing he'll have nothing else to do until after the trainer returns to him, the dog sniffs the breeze, watches birds fly overhead, and (in most cases) seems to feel little obligation to attend to the trainer. This changes quickly when we start to call him out of his "stay" with the "here" command. Usually enough discomfort remains so that when we begin calling a dog from a "stay," he is eager to come to us. Here we begin to take advantage of a conflict; if we practiced and practiced the "stay" until the dog was totally confident, we would probably have a harder job getting him to come to us smartly.  Conflict resolved. Ranger is confident and attentive, knowing what is expected of him on "stay" and "here. Photo by: Author Making Conflicts Work for Us By balancing the two commands--returning to him without calling him some of the time and varying the amount of time we require him to stay when we do call him--we avoid "losing" the stay. But we accomplish more than that. In setting up a situation where he cannot anticipate what we will ask of him, we get the dog to pay attention. At the same time, since his attention is on the command that will determine what action he takes, he develops a clearer idea of the relationship between commands and their execution. |
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