Dogs are Born To Learn

Dogs are Born To Learn by Kay Laurence | Key Skills and Training , Puppies First Year Tremendous Learners Dogs Are Born To Learn What do we want our dogs to learn? What skills are going to be of greatest value to them? Learning to learn is a skill. It is full of critical elements that will transfer to everything they do for the rest of their lives. A pup can learn to recognise signals and movements from people: when food is coming, what affection is available, what to watch quietly and study their world. A blend of observation skills, memorising patterns and distinguishing sounds. Where to pee and when rewards are bonuses. Selecting what is relevant and what is not in connection with what directly affects them. Learning to move with balance, coordination, power: negotiate staircases, climb in an out of cars, walk with a different people, balance to be able to pee, run without crashing into trees. Learning motor skills that can underpin lifelong movements begins with simple disciplines, such as siting, with good form. Poor form can lead to discomfort, injury and inflexibility. Learning to run to a stop, run to grab a toy, racing with friends, dancing for butterflies can be enjoyed when the foundations are sound. The learning skills do not happen by accident. Any dog can develop these at any time when given the right opportunity to learn. This begins with their natural enthusiasm for learning combined with a plentiful choice of rewards. When a dog feels safe and comfortable learning will happen when given the right guidance along their individual learning pathway. A pathway planned for their individual future. Not too much too soon, not too difficult to progress from one stage to the next, not struggling to learn for tricks or to “impress” but to become a Tremendous Learner. A pathway that is filled with ease and pleasure. This pathway is laid by our skills to be able to see what they are learning, adjust that learning and design situations to build flexibility and strengths. A pathway to bloom and flourish. Learning to See Learning Happen Instead of “training the dog to …” Training the dog to sit? Dogs already know how to sit before we come along. The process gets dirty when we try to train them in how they sit or when they sit. Training implies it will be done in the way we expect, repeated on demand and expected without question. A lack of clarity to see poorly executed movement that gets reinforced because: “well, the butt hit the floor”, can develop a body with injury, discomfort and inflexibility and dog that avoids movement or only performs when the

y have little choice. Wonky sits, two-steps-back-before-a-plonk sits, sit-hopping are all demonstrating a lack of the skill in the movements. These 6 week old pups are lacking muscle structure. If we carefully watch the process of sitting of a skilled dog we can see the order of the muscle engagement. Do you know the good form required for any movement your dog will learn? Looking at these we can see that the movement is carried out in different ways, even though the outcome: A Sit, is the same. These 6 week old pups have yet to develop muscle and structure and learn good form. This is very much "butt hits floor". We need to consider what we are rewarding. What learning is happening? Learning follows a pathway of stages and then by gradually integrating different processes. Learning begins with knowing WHAT to do: which muscles must be engaged and HOW they will do it. The movement of muscles is coordinated and executed in a specific order: ~ Information as to WHICH muscles will contract ~ the FORCE with which they will contract ~ ORDER and temporal phasing (timing) of the contractions As the specific actions take place there is feedback and adjustment happening when the output of the muscle action is monitored. If the order is incorrect we see the dog step backwards, often without sitting. This is a balance change happening before the rear leg muscles have contracted. If a dog is choosing to sit forwards (front feet remain stationary) then the back feet need to step forwards before contraction. If the dog is to sit backwards the front feet need to be moving backwards as the rear legs contract. Getting the order right will affect the outcome. We can develop a skill of monitoring the movements before the resulting sit position to identify what learning is happening. Learning the forward sit: the rear legs coming towards the front legs. Learning technology By learning the underlying technology in detail we become skilled at being able to build a plan and guide the dog to gain more rewards. It matters little how your dog chooses to park their own butt, but it matters a great deal that you understand the learning needed to be able to do this successfully and assist a dog that struggles to complete this or any other movement. Is your dog comfortably walking at your side or ambling, strolling, pacing or trotting? Do you know the difference and know good form? Is the dog able to move with ease and comfort or compromised by the equipment or reinforcement process? If you are familiar with horse riding then you will be aware that knowing these gaits is critical to

success but the dog world is poorly backward in teaching this basic understanding. Dogs who need our guidance can benefit significantly when we become diligent students of learning. We can build tremendous learners when we get beyond the idea that “dogs are trained”. We can build learning skills so that they can: process faster and develop the learning skills with ease make changes and adapt their learning with flexibility develop their abilities to assess and process situations read the environment and begin physical preparation in anticipation increase perceptive skills recognise and remember more stimuli, environments and situations Are you moving towards designing learning for the way that learner chooses to learn or just carrying on training the way you like to train? It’s Not Training A carefully planned learning pathway, paced to suit that particular learner for their life ahead. Read More Be-toothed Learning Machines The thing they don’t tell you is that raising a puppy is DANGED HARD WORK. Biting everything, peeing everywhere, eating anything; not for the faint hearted. Read More Building A Generous Future Maybe it feels like a doddle because my life with her wasn’t one of competing against who she is, trying to mould her into something else, or even just worrying about the potential fallout of every decision I made. Read More A New Puppy. Oh Joy. Impulse buying the wrong sofa can be rectified if you swallow the expense. Impulse buying a puppy can result in personal grief for you and your family and quite possibly result in a very unhappy future or end the life of that puppy. Read More Surprising Puppy Surprising Puppy. With obnoxious moments. After introducing the obnoxious puppy as a youngster I am knocked over by the Delightful Young Man he is turning into…… Read More The Experienced Dog Knowing your dog has receive sufficient preparation does not mean every eventuality, but a range of different conditions so that when the unexpected happens they will draw on their skills and solve the issue. Read More A Family of Multiple Dogs Another addition is not just an extra bed and bowl. It is important to build a home that is healthy, content and well-balanced. Read More How do you know what you don’t know? The age of trusting the professionals is fading fast. I am not sure anymore what exactly is a professional and the difference between genuine, self-styled and fake? With so much information freely available and shared when we open the gate to “looking for a xyz” we are struggling to recognise authenticity from smart marketing. Read More Heartbeat

of living with dogs I like to regard a “teacher of dogs” as someone who meets dogs in their world and teaches them how to be their best whilst living alongside us in our world. Read More Changing is growth We are naturally attracted to familiar ways of training or living with our dogs. We have often worked hard to learn those habits and there is a reluctance to make changes since this is hard work. It takes mentally energy to note what we are not doing well, recall what changes we need to make, find the prompts that can move us to the changes and then work on the skills those changes require. Read More Wheat or Chaff? What is the purpose of this video? To sell a product, to instruct or to inspire? It should be clear from the first viewing. Often we are seeing an unhealthy blend of talking head, dripping treats into bored dog, convincing you of their innate expertise. Read More Approval or attention seeking? Jumping up is nearly always viewed, by both positive and negative trainers as A Major Sin. It rates near the top of the list of an undesirable behaviour. Read More Submit a Comment Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment * Name * Email * Website Δ