Patience - quiet, steady perseverance; even-tempered care; diligence:
I wanted to post this video because I believe it shows the degree of patience needed for positive training. Impatience does not belong in dog training. Impatience fuels anger, which in turn causes a shift in our thinking. Impatience leads to anger which leads to the idea that our dogs are doing something wrong. This is sadly how many dogs are trained, via the yank and choke “stop” method. The collar “corrections” are meant to simply stop the dog from doing something. Just stop, nothing learned. I hate the term “correction” in dog training because it comes from the old training style of leash correction.
A correction can really only be used once a dog has learned a behavior, fully and clearly.
The term error marker is much more appropriate. If I am training a new behavior I rarely use an error marker unless a dog needs help. Even then it is just a sound emanating from me and not a verbal cue. So as I stand patiently waiting for Riggs to “get” what I am wanting from him, I am quiet. I don’t move my body, I don’t say anything because at the point of just learning, noise and movement are distractions. He can be almost there as far as the steps that I am asking (silently) for and one movement can throw him off.
I had the goal very clear in my head. There are many steps to the end result. Here are my step by step goals for this video.
Acknowledge ladder
Touch ladder with nose
Touch ladder with foot
Leave foot on ladder
Step onto ladder
Two feet on ladder
Two feet on ladder, staying there
Every dog is very different so how you long you linger on each step behavior will factor in on the individual dog.
When dogs are taught to offer behaviors it can make for some really great learning fun. I often bring out a new object and put it in the middle of the floor. If I sit and look at it, Elsa will immediately do something with it. She offers what she can think of and draws from her past behaviors of learning new stuff. Riggs is coming along, he is offering more behaviors but he is not as fast as Elsa. Elsa is a blast to train because she is really fast; fast moving, fast reacting and driven to go further. I love it.
As you can see I am not saying anything except for the occasional praise moment. There is silence, and only the clicker lies between me (the trainer) and Riggs (the trainee). He pays close attention to the clicker, because it means that he has succeeded when he hears it; which means he gets his food reward for it.
If and when I get impatient, and it will happen because I am a mere human. When it happens I stop training. I ask for something simple that the dog can offer me successfully and we end the game (training). Impatience just means you need to step back and see why your dog is not “getting it.” And 100% of the not getting it is how we are teaching. Once we can clear things up, see where we are creating a foggy message, they get it easy peasy.
Frustration can be brutal. When you are training a new behavior, dogs can become frustrated easily. Each dog is different but frustration can ruin training. We must keep a close eye on frustration. Meaning, if our dog is not getting it quick enough which means not getting their reward, we need to break it down into doable pieces. Baby steps to success.
Training should always be fun, sometimes serious but never impatient.