Book by Liz Laidlaw

Introduction

Chances are we all started out as pet owners wanting a well-behaved dog – then found out how much fun training could be as we taught our dog basic manners and more! The transition from pet owner to dog sports owner (to pet trainer to sports trainer!) is very common, and often there are some mental gaps that we need to fill as we learn the language and ideas used by dog trainers.

If you are new to training, to sports, or to instructing, then this book is the perfect place to start filling any gaps and to give you the tools you need to take on anything you wish to learn! The main goal is that you will be able to go into most other classes after reading this book, and not be surprised or derailed by any of the ideas, concepts or terminology you come across. It is not designed as a how-to guide – all the rest of the classes through the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and Pet Dog Training Program will help you with that!

We will start by introducing some of the most basic science behind dog training, and how to get the behaviors you want and reduce the ones you don’t want, including the factors that impact learning. We will talk about the difference between training and management, and the concept of choice and consent in relation to dog training. Finally, we will look briefly at balancing what we want, what the dog wants, and what society expects – a critical element in ensuring positive ongoing relationships in all aspects of life!

If you come across a term you are not familiar with while working through the book, flick to the terminology guide in the last chapter to get a definition and basic explanation before you move on.

Let’s get started!

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is learning through consequences, and through the rewards and punishments that follow a behavior. It originated in the work of psychologist B.F. Skinner, and the four quadrants that a lot of trainers talk about are rooted here.

Another term in operant conditioning that you will hear is the ABC model, or Antecedent > Behavior > Consequence, which demonstrates how operant conditioning works.

The antecedent (A) refers to whatever comes before the behavior (eg. the extended hand for a nose touch), the behavior (B) is what the dog does in response to that antecedent (eg. touch his nose to your hand), and the consequence (C) is whatever comes after the behaviour, which will act to reinforce or punish that behavior.

For a deeper understanding of operant conditioning, the Science of Training class at FDSA is an excellent choice, but for our purposes here we will simply outline each quadrant so you can see how it works. For a demonstration of operant conditioning in action through positive reinforcement, take a look at the videos in the chapter on Getting the Behaviors You Want, which illustrate the idea well.

There are four areas in the operant conditioning quadrants, based on whether a consequence is added or taken away, and whether the behaviour then increases or decreases in response.

• Positive reinforcement – behaviour increases (R) when something is added (+)
• Negative reinforcement – behaviour increases (R) when something is removed (-)
• Positive punishment – behaviour decreases (P) when something is added (+)
• Negative punishment – behaviour decreases (P) when something is removed (-)

It’s entirely possible to argue endlessly (especially in an online environment!) about whether a particular application falls into one quadrant or the other, or more than one! In the end, however, it can be more helpful to be aware of the quadrants so that we are crafting our training in a way that is grounded in an understanding of the science of how dogs learn, and then just go ahead and start training. Every dog is different, and often the most value will come from training the dog in front of you and remembering to check in to see how things are for that individual dog.

If your training is progressing nicely and you and your dog are happy and enthusiastic in your training sessions, then all is well! If you are not progressing, or if you or the dog are losing enthusiasm or training becomes hard work, then it’s time to change things up a bit.

As students of Fenzi Dog Sports Academy and the Pet Professionals Program, you have access to the amazing online communities on Facebook that can help you reassess in those moments, and think through the issue you are having. Once you have taken a class or workshop, joining those alumni groups is highly recommended – they are full of kind, thoughtful and knowledgeable trainers who are always very willing to offer a listening ear and a helping hand when needed.

Observational Learning

Observational learning is exactly what it sounds like – learning through observation. While it is the least common in terms of how people consciously train their dogs, imitation and mimicry have been shown to work, with dogs learning new behaviours either from watching and copying another dog, or their trainer.

It is worth being aware of observational learning because, as with children, dogs are learning all the time! They watch us and learn our habits, our routines, our moods – so being aware of what we are showing them is worth having in the back of our minds.

It is also very relevant to be aware of what they may be learning from other dogs, and from the social contexts we put them in. Many a dog “learned” to be a barker at a kennel or even at flyball training! On the flip side, it is not uncommon for a braver and more confident dog to help a nervous and anxious dog to become more confident simply by watching and learning from the other.

In essence, knowing and understanding the variety of ways that dogs learn helps us to make better choices, both in our training sessions and in everyday life with our dogs.

Capturing

Sometimes the terms shaping and capturing are used interchangeably, but it is helpful to separate them since they operate differently for the learner. Instead of successive approximations, in capturing the trainer is simply seeking to “capture” and mark and reward the target behavior in its final form. For this reason, capturing is going to be applicable only to behaviors that the dog performs on their own anyway, like sitting, lying down on a mat, or even jumping up and putting front paws on a person or sneezing – if the dog can offer it, we can capture it!

Capturing also usually works best with a marker of some kind, such as a clicker. In order to get the timing right, it can be helpful to think of your marker as a kind of camera; when you can see that the picture you want is about to happen, you need to press that button to capture it!

This technique is also very useful in a more relaxed way for everyday around-the-house interactions with your dog. Dogs do what works for them, so if we can make a habit of capturing them doing the very things we want to see more of, our lives together will become much more enjoyable. A popular example of this is the “place” or mat behavior, where the dog is consistently rewarded for being on a particular mat, or in a particular location. By capturing and rewarding this desirable behavior, over time the dog will tend to choose to be in that place much more often!

Prompting

A prompt is anything that manipulates or influences the behavior of the learner. Some examples are listed below:

• Gestural prompts, such as crouching down or clapping hands to encourage a dog to come to you
• Physical prompts, such as touching a dog’s paw to encourage them to pick it up
• Verbal prompts, such as the continuous “shhhhhhh” noise sometimes used to encourage agility dogs in the weave poles
• Positional prompts, such as making sure that the article you want the dog to interact with is the first one they come across
• Equipment prompts, including things like platforms

The most productive use of prompts as you progress in your training are the final two, especially in combination with shaping techniques. An equipment prompt such as a platform makes it clear to the dog where they should be, and often what position they should be in (for example front paws up on a pivot platform, or sitting on a sit platform).

With all those variables taken off the table, it is much easier for both the trainer and the dog to work on other parts of the behavior chain. An example from the world of competitive obedience is using a platform to ensure a straight sit in front when the dog comes to you, so you can focus on the dog taking the correct jump located off to one side.

Punishment

It is important to have an understanding of punishment, how it works and its potential impacts, even for trainers who plan to train only with positive reinforcement. It matters for two reasons – firstly, the use of punishment or coercion has some fallout, which will impact both the training relationship and other aspects of training such as the energy and enthusiasm your dog brings to the table when you train. Perhaps even more important, though, is the fact that sometimes as humans we forget that WE are not actually the ones who decide when punishment is being used … the dogs are.

Scientifically, we know a behavior is being punished when it reduces in response to the consequence of that behavior. While we won’t go into any depth about using punishment as a training tool since we have other tools in our toolbox now, it is important to understand that sometimes an outcome can actually be punishing for the dog, even if the handler did not intend it to be. As a trainer, it is our job to keep that in our minds – if we see certain behaviors becoming less frequent, then it is very much in the interests of our training and our relationships with our dogs to dig a little deeper and try and work out why! It may not be because that behavior is being accidentally punished, since there are always many factors in play including stress and extinction, but it is our cue to start thinking about what could be going on for the dog.                                                                                   

There are two types of punishment, both of which have the effect of the behavior reducing; positive punishment (P+) involves the handler doing something aversive to the dog in response to the behavior, while negative punishment (P-) involves the loss or removal of something the dog wants. Examples are the old school knee in the chest for a dog who jumps up on people (P+), and putting away or eating the treat that the dog would have gotten (P-). 

In higher level training, the use of punishment is undesirable because of the interplay between operant and classical conditioning – as FDSA instructor Amy Cook, PhD once said, every time you teach your dog what to do, you also teach her how to feel. The dog is likely to develop a more negative conditioned emotional response (CER) to the behavior that was punished, and potentially also to the place where it occurred and the person involved. Assuming that we want enthusiastic, energetic responses from our dogs when we work together, this is not going to be very helpful! Instead, in training we can be thoughtful about how we set up our environment (the antecedent arrangements) to make it highly likely that the dog will be successful and unwanted behaviours are less likely to appear.

Handling Errors in Training

No matter how carefully we set up our training environment and plan our session, sometimes things don’t go according to plan! In general, if a dog makes an error in a known skill it is either because it turns out they don’t know it well enough in that context yet, or because something is wrong (whether a physical issue, stress, etc.). Bear that in mind as you train – think of errors in training as useful information about where your dog is at right now, and use it to stop and think things through before you carry on. Video is also incredibly useful here!

It’s helpful to have thought about possible ways to handle errors before a session begins, and there are a range of options. Once again, there is no single right way to handle errors in a training session, but here are a few ideas.

• Denise Fenzi has the best rule of thumb I know of – “Don’t just stand there, do something!” Feeling paralyzed with indecision or trying to be neutral and disconnecting from your dog are not helpful strategies; the sudden removal of our approval and engagement can be disconcerting and highly punishing for our dogs.
• Instead, you could offer some help. Something that allows them an opportunity to realize what you want!
• Reset! A thrown treat to reset can be incredibly helpful. It isn’t tied to a particular behavior so it generally won’t reinforce anything you don’t want reinforced, but it gets the dog moving again and sets you both up to move on. This is especially useful for dogs who tend to get stuck and stop moving when they are unsure. However, if you find yourself using multiple reset cookies in a session, something is not working! End that session (cheerfully!) and rethink your plan. If you don’t, then eventually your dog is going to struggle to know what earns cookies – simply existing or working towards the correct behavior? – and the handler has not learned how to set sessions up correctly.
• Reconnect with your dog. If the error involves your dog choosing to leave training for whatever reason, you have to reconnect before you can do anything else.
• Simply step in and stop the dog! This is especially relevant outside of training sessions, and in everyday life with our dogs. Similar to kids, there is no reason to allow a dog to practice behaviors that are not wanted – as we said earlier, it is much easier to avoid a bad habit than to fix one!

Fading the Lure/Prompt

When we use luring or prompting in our training, we need at some point to fade and remove that lure or prompt. In general, a good way of doing this is by doing it gradually, ping-ponging back and forth between lure and no lure while the dog gets the idea.

For example, if you start by luring your dog into a sit with food in your hand, after a couple of reps with a lure you can simply leave the food in your other hand and then make the same gesture with your original hand. When the dog responds correctly, voila! The treat arrives, apparently from nowhere. If we do this early on, the dog never learns to assume that it is only worth responding if you have an obvious treat in your hand – as trainers we want the dog to assume the reward will come, even if they can’t see it or smell it!

Fading a prompt such as a platform is a similar process. In the session where you wish to start fading the prompt, do a couple of reps with it and then throw a reset treat and take the prompt away while the dog is gone. When they reorient to you, offer the same cue as usual but without the prompt there. Given that the last few things they were rewarded for are fresh in their minds, most dogs will respond to the cue almost automatically before they have time to realize the prompt is gone! Once again it can be a good idea to ping-pong back and forth between prompt and no prompt until the dog shows that they are comfortable either way.

Chaining

The concepts of chaining and backchaining come into play when we are thinking about more complex behavior sequences. A series of behaviors joined together is called a behavior chain, and within a chain each individual behavior cues the one following it. Behavior chains are common in the world of competitive obedience, where many of the more advanced exercises are made up of many different behaviors. The dumbbell retrieve is a good example of this, where on a single cue the dog goes out to wherever the dumbbell landed, picks it up, brings it back to the handler, sits directly in front of the handler and keeps holding it until the handler cues the dog to release it. As you can see, each link in that chain when completed acts as a cue for the dog to start performing the next part of the chain.

A useful way of training behavior chains is known as backchaining, which is quite literally starting from the back or final link of the chain, and working your way forwards. In the dumbbell example above, you might start by teaching the dog to hold the dumbbell, then work backwards until the whole chain is in place. One of the benefits of backchaining is that the dog is always working towards the part of the chain that is best known, which can help to boost confidence and maintain motivation even through longer chains with a low rate of reinforcement.

The Three D’s

The “three D’s” is another concept you will come across often as you train a variety of behaviors. When we are teaching most skills, we go through a similar process. First we need to get the behavior, but once that is done we need to help the dog to start building fluency and generalize the behavior so that they can do it anywhere, any time! This is where the three D’s come in.

The D’s refer to:

Since we are big fans of good training and making sure that we split and don’t lump, we use the three D’s to help us do this. In essence it is like a three-way seesaw, and any time we change one of the D’s and it goes up to make it a little harder, the others come down and are made easier.

A simple example is teaching a dog to go to their mat and stay there. When we first started to teach the skill, we stood right near the mat, rewarded the dog as soon as they got on it, and tried to avoid distractions. Once the dog is pretty comfortable at that level, it’s time to start with the three D’s! Usually it is easiest to start changing the duration or distance element first, ping-ponging back and forth as you build each one. Want to add duration and have the dog stay on the mat longer before you reward? Great, make sure you have the distance set back at zero and stand right near the mat. Want to add distance and send the dog from a little farther away? Excellent! Dial back the duration needed and reward the dog as soon as he gets to the mat. Distractions are often the final element to start working on, but don’t leave it too long! Distractions can start easy, like a piece of paper on the mat or floor, and can get as creative and unique as you like – the only limit is your imagination.

Consent in Dog Training

The idea of consent being a part of any of our relationships with our dogs is a relatively new one – traditionally people tended to just have their own ideas about what needed to happen and how things were going to go, and the dog had no choice but to go along with that!

This was generally true both in our everyday lives with our dogs, and in our training. While we won’t go into the details of how to go about requesting consent from your dogs (there is a class and workshops for that!), we will quickly talk about why it matters and its relevance for us as trainers.

Increasingly in the modern world, dogs have very little choice in the lives they live. The changes in society and in how we live as humans are reflected in the way many of our dogs live – in smaller and more built up areas, with a lot of time alone when the family is at work, school, and the myriad of other things that take up our time. The impacts of this lifestyle change on dogs have been interesting, with some concern that the absence of choice is creating other problems for dogs including behavioral concerns and mental health issues including anxiety and stress.

It makes a difference to a dog’s wellbeing when they are allowed to have a voice, and are empowered to say yes (or no!) to things such as physical contact, husbandry procedures, and even training! Of course, when we offer a dog choice, we need to do it thoughtfully. Here are some aspects of choice and consent to think about:

• If we ask a question about consent, we need to be ready to receive either a yes or a no.
• We need to respect the answer, if we have asked the question.
• Therefore, if “no” isn’t an option, then that is not the right time to offer choice!
• In every life there are no-choice moments, and it helps the dog when there is clarity between moments of choice, and no choice.

In essence, there is huge value both to the dog’s wellbeing and to our relationship with them if we can offer choice, and have the concept of consent as a normal part of our lives with our dogs. This is merely a very surface level introduction to the idea, since it is one that can sometimes surprise people when it keeps popping up in the various classes and workshops you might attend. You are encouraged to keep learning more about how you can incorporate these ideas into your training, whether that is through concepts like engagement and start buttons or through cooperative husbandry techniques!