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Mind Over
Matter: Part Two |
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By Kathy J. Lang |
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One prominent trainer proclaims, "Wrong is wonderful." Another states, "I never want my dog to think he's been wrong." Two powerful statements from two very different schools of thought on obedience training methodology. Which philosophy is correct? Are those two philosophies really as different as they appear on the surface? According to my copy of The American Heritage Dictionary the definition of "wrong" is: "1) not correct; erroneous. 2) contrary to conscience, morality or law; wicked; immoral." The first definition is an objective statement of fact; there are no emotional undercurrents. The second definition is filled with subjective emotions and morality judgments. Let's apply these definitions of "wrong" to obedience training. One handler, we'll call "Jane," applies the first definition of "wrong" to her training. When Jane's dog makes a mistake, Jane's subconscious reaction to the error is "Dog, your actions were incorrect. I still love you and I don't hold the error against you." Contrast that with another handler we'll call "Alice" who subscribes to the second definition of "wrong." When her dog errs, Alice's subconscious reaction is "You are a 'bad' dog. You should have known better. I'm disappointed in you. You let me down and I don't like you for that." Now, draw an analogy to the mistakes of your children or spouse or loved one. Put yourself in the position of being the one who was "wrong." Let's say you were doing the laundry and included a new shirt that your mate recently purchased. You're in a hurry, don't notice the care label and pop the shirt into the washing machine. When your mate finds you taking the shirt out of the washing machine, here are two possible reactions: 1) Mate looks at shirt and points out care label that instructs hand washing in cold water, then says "Oh well, no visible damage, but in the future could you take the time to double-check care instructions?" You'd feel bad for having made a mistake, but you'd sense that there were no hard feelings and your mate's love for you was not conditionally based on whether or not you were "wrong." 2) Mate looks at shirt and indicates care label, then says "You idiot. Can't you do anything right? Sure, there's no noticeable damage now, but just wait. I'm sure you've ruined it." After this emotional, judgmental response, you'd feel awful because of the moral overtones. Your mate is criticizing you personally, implying that not only are you a person who was "wrong" but also that you're a person who's "bad." Both of the above scenarios make the same assumption: that the person who was "wrong" actually "cares" about being "right" vs. being "wrong" and has a desire to please either him/herself and/or his/her mate. Most of the dogs I see in obedience training have either an innate desire to please their owners or a desire to avoid the consequences of being "wrong" as a form of self-protection. There are some truly wonderful dogs who have both qualities. There are very few dogs (but they do exist) that really don't care about pleasing their owners or about protecting their own interests. ************ The perfect dog has yet to be born, and don't hold your breath. Even the most fantastic, highest scoring dogs make mistakes and encounter training problems. It has been my observation that the happiest working, longest lasting (career-wise) dogs are the ones whose owners have dealt with the dogs' mistakes on a non-emotional basis. These dogs have been told they're wrong (otherwise, how could they know what's "right?"), while being reassured that their owners still love them. I have yet to see a happy working dog with a long career come from a trainer who emotionally berates and downgrades the dog for his mistakes. Dogs--like people--can handle corrections for mistakes when the underlying message is positive: "You're okay, it's your actions that are wrong." Dogs lose self-confidence and become unnecessarily stressed when the underlying message is negative: "You're a bad dog and I don't like you." I have also found that most training problems can be fixed faster when the approach is non-emotional. An emotional response actually prolongs the problem and drags the dog's attitude down to very low levels. I also see a correlation between the trainers' self-esteem and attitude towards the dog and training in general, and this positive vs. negative approach to the dogs' mistakes. In my experience, handlers with the most positive feelings about themselves and their personal lives outside dog training are better equipped to handle mistakes in a positive manner. I often see handlers create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The handler begins a training session with negative emotional undercurrents due to events unrelated to dog training. The handler is upset and wants to vent his frustrations, so regardless of how well the dog had previously been working, the handler will unconsciously create scenarios that cause the dog to be "wrong" so the handler can react in a negative, emotional manner. The handler takes it out on the dog, then feels bad, then blames the dog for making him feel bad, and so the spiral winds lower and lower. ************ I firmly believe that the training methods one chooses to employ are much less important than the trainer's emotional state of mind when structuring a successful, productive, positive training session. Obviously, I have methods that I prefer and choose to use. However, I have seen other methods produce top working dogs. But again, one common denominator seems to be the emotional mindset of the trainer implementing the techniques. I have also found that certain breeds of dog seem to be more effected by the trainer's emotions than other breeds. And within each breed there seem to be specific bloodlines, and individual dogs, that are more effected than others. As a result, a very emotional trainer may do quite well with his first dog, enjoy that breed, buy his next puppy from totally different bloodlines and run into a lot of problems because his new dog does not respond well to emotionally driven training methods. When I watch a bitch raise a litter of puppies, or a group of dogs interact, I never see what I would call "emotional" interactions. When mother dog corrects or disciplines a puppy, the action is quick, direct, intense and immediately followed by some type of "making up" that is usually initiated by the puppy. Mother dog doesn't hold a grudge, and the puppy's life immediately returns to normal. There's no negative carryover to mom's discipline. When I observe older dogs interacting, for example when a friend's dog comes to visit at my house, I see lots of posturing and dog communication. My dogs typically take a moment to remind their visitors just whose territory they're on. If the visitor is an adolescent, or particularly "uppity" then one of my German Shepherds usually sees the need to chase the offender around the yard once or twice, roll it over and stand over it. None of this is nasty; my dogs simply make certain that their visitors know who the home team is. After their greeting routine, everyone interacts well and plays together nicely. There were no emotional outbursts and no negative carryover. Contrast this with people I know who cannot even allow their own dogs to live together, for fear of serious dog fights. In all the cases that I'm personally familiar with, the owners are emotionally driven trainers, and all of their interactions with the dogs are emotionally driven. I'm certain that if I reacted emotionally to the way my dogs greet their visitors, I, too, might have dog fighting problems. ************* Everyone who reads this article is familiar with a typical first night with dogs in a beginners home obedience class. Tension is high, dogs are on edge and, depending upon the mix of dogs, there's the potential for a dog fight. Owners enter the building emotionally charged. They're usually quite nervous and often worried about their dogs embarrassing them. The dogs react to their owners' strange body language with uncertainty--who is this person at the end of my leash? This causes the dogs to become more stressed--irritated, hyped, fearful, etc.--which typically results in jumping, barking, whining, mouthing and strong eye contact between dogs. Now the owners get even more upset because of their dogs' behavior and suddenly, we have the perfect spiraling effect and the ultimate question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Whose emotional state actually started the beginners class chaos--the dogs' or the owners'? If my beginners students leave the first class with only one thought, I want it to be "Pack leaders are always calm, cool and collected. Nothing upsets a pack leader. Regardless of what your dog does, or how he behaves, you must put on this act of being calm, relaxed and in control." Handlers are instructed on how to praise their dogs (softly and calmly), how to pet their dogs (slowly, in a massaging fashion), how to give commands (firmly, calmly, without yelling) and how to maneuver their dogs into various positions (slowly, firmly, calmly). Handlers do not yell in my classes. There are no emotional outbursts. I started one beginners class recently that had the potential to be an awful experience. Picture 14 medium to large dogs in a room with poor acoustics. A schnauzer and westie are both doing the typical terrier bark/scream combination (out of excitement and over stimulation). A two-year older rottie is coming on like gangbusters, with strong eye contact to every other dog in class, excessive barking and lunging. The highlight was the mini doxie who wanted to attack every dog in sight, while barking non-stop. Within 10 minutes the room was silent, the dogs were calm and the handlers were relaxed. The noisy dogs were being given lemon juice and/or Bitter Apple squirts for every vocalization. My demeanor as instructor was calm, lighthearted, yet very much in control of every aspect of the class. By removing the emotional stress from the classroom, everyone--people and dogs--relaxed and we had a very productive class. If this non-emotional, calm, cool and collected approach works so well with a group or rowdy beginners, doesn't it stand to reason there's going to be some benefit for us "competition" trainers? ************** In the advanced exercises, there are certain, predictable learning stages that all dogs go through. Instructors and trainers who've been around long enough are aware of these phases and they prepare themselves for them. As an instructor, I try to forewarn my students that every dog will eventually bring back the wrong scent article, that every dog will freeze at some point in heeling, that every dog will anticipate the drop on recall. The students who trust my judgment when I tell them their dogs' mistakes are normal--they're just learning stages--and who react to their dogs' learning stages non-emotionally, work through these phases the quickest and easiest. The handlers who fear failure, who get very upset when their dogs make mistakes, never really accept the fact that "mistakes" are valuable and normal steps in the learning progression. As a result, these handlers and their dogs struggle for unnecessarily long periods of time trying to overcome typical learning phases. Back to Jane, the non-emotional trainer and Alice, the emotional one. Both have dogs that are just starting to anticipate the drop on recall. Jane approaches her training sessions with the attitude "Anticipation is normal, I'll handle it just the way my instructor told me to--non-emotionally, no big deal, just fix the mistakes and let the dog work through it." Jane's dog anticipates a few times, Jane fixes the mistakes without blaming the dog, and the whole exercise is no big deal. Granted, the dog is not performing the "perfect" drop on recall, but Jane's instructor already prepared her to be ready for this learning stage. Contrast Jane's training experience with Alice's. Alice heard her instructor's comments because she's in the same class as Jane. But Alice is an emotionally charged person who cannot tolerate mistakes. Someone long ago told Alice that if a dog is ever allowed to anticipate a drop, it'll be patterned into the dog for the rest of its life. So, even though Alice respects her instructor, she doesn't believe this business about anticipation being normal. Alice begins her training session worried about the drop, and of course, the dog anticipates. Alice gets upset and emotional. The dog gets upset and stressed. The training session goes terribly, with Alice stopping before really making any progress. Both dog and Alice are emotionally exhausted. This anxiety carries over into the next few weeks of training sessions. Alice anticipates "problems" and, sure enough, they occur. Meanwhile, Jane's dog has worked through the anticipation phase and their drops are progressing as their instructor had predicted. I strongly believe that if you believe something will happen, it will. The power of positive, or in this case negative, thinking. ************* When I have a student who gets particularly uptight, over-emotional and over-reactive to training or showing, I tell them to play a trick on their mind. Instead of worrying about the dog's lack of confidence with articles, say, or anticipation on the drop, I tell the handler to recite the alphabet backwards, count backwards from 100, sing the Mickey Mouse fan club song, or whatever. This causes the handler to deal with the dog on a non-emotional level--the handler's brain is so busy singing "M-I-C-K-E-Y..." that it doesn't have time to get upset at what the dog is or is not doing. The handler simply fixes the problem on "auto-pilot" while singing about Mickey Mouse. ************** I recently conducted an experiment in my Heeling, Fronts & Finishes classes. I started each class by praising the students, telling them how well their classmates had done at recent shows and how much fun we were going to have in their class today. I then started calling heeling commands, instructing the students to praise their dogs continually, and work on attitude for the first few minutes. Corrections were given whenever necessary, followed by immediate praise. When dogs were released, there was lots of praise and play. I then told the handlers to switch to "show mode"--no extra talking or praise and I required that everyone SMILE the entire time they were heeling. I jokingly told the class if they didn't SMILE, I would come and tickle them. I called commands and the dogs heeled beautifully. Handlers were relaxed, dog's tails were up and they were grinning back at their handlers. I then released the class and told them I now wanted to try an experiment. I wanted them to remain in "show mode" for the next heeling sequence, and I wanted the handlers to visualize and remember a recent unpleasant experience--not necessarily related to training--something that caused negative feelings. In addition, I wanted the handlers to FROWN during the upcoming heeling segment, but they were not to sound mad when giving commands. The difference in the dogs was AMAZING! For a minority, the somber approach produced a more accurate performance--those few dogs took their work a lot more seriously. However, the majority of dogs fell apart. Their tails were tucked, faces tight, bodies much lower to the ground. Some even moved back in heel position by an inch or two. It was if there was a giant weight placed on everyone's shoulders. After a few minutes I released the class, told them to sit and relax, and tell me what they saw in their own dogs and how they felt. Every handler could "feel" the difference in their dogs. And one handler asked the magic question: "It's obvious that negative emotions upset my dog. But how do I control my emotions? Sometimes when I start a training session I know from the beginning that it's not going to go well. Now, I realize it's me. It's not the dog's fault, it's my attitude." ************* Ninety-five percent of the time I train my dogs away from home...for two reasons. First, the distractions. Second, but even more important, I need to get away from the stress of my home-based dog training business--the zillion phone calls, paperwork and mailings waiting to be done. The travel time to my training site is my time to unwind and get into a positive frame of mind. I blast the radio, sing along and forget all my cares. By the time we get to the park, I'm hyped, happy and raring to go. I recommend that all trainers set aside a "transition period" prior to training--a time to clear the mind of negative thoughts, to relax and unwind. This time should become part of the training routine--before training our dogs we must first train ourselves to the right frame of mind. |
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