365 DAYS OF TRAINING

For the next few months let’s work on training through opportunity and generalization.

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are training our pets every minute of every day. Just like children they watch our every move and test the boundaries to see just what is or is not allowed, and what they can get away with.

People often talk about how their dog has them wrapped around their little finger and can get away with anything. We trained that.

Let’s look at training in a different way. Everyone probably already does this to some extent, but we just aren’t aware that we are doing it. Training through opportunity.

How Training Through Opportunity Works

Training through opportunity works by being aware of your dog’s behaviours, then capturing and rewarding the behaviours we want to see. So instead of shaping behaviours, we want to capture the behaviour when we see our dog doing something that is natural to them, then mark and reward the behaviour in a positive way. These rewards can take the form of praise, touch, treats, or anything else your dog is motivated by.

A good example of training through opportunity could occur if, for example, your dog tends to paw at the air on occasion, and you don’t mind the behaviour, you could start marking and rewarding that behaviour whenever it happens and turn it into a ‘wave’ or a ‘high five’. Put a name to the behaviour, and through repitition and positive reinforcement, you will be able to ask for that behaviour on command.

Keep a handful of treats or kibble in your pocket, or in a dish on the counter, and reward your dog throughout the day whenever you see a behaviour you would like to capture and reinforce.

GENERALIZATION

In the simplest terms generalization means to take something specific and apply it more broadly.

We often think that our dogs are doing great, because at home or in class, they are so smart, obedient and seem to learn the behaviours we are teaching quite quickly. A few days later, we’ll take our dog on an outing and it’s like they haven’t had a day of training in their life. This is because of a lack of generaliztion.

A wise trainer once said that dogs see things like a picture. So a sit at front postion isn’t the same picture as a sit at side position. Obedience in a classroom or at home is not the same picture as obedience on a walk or in a social situation. It is our job to create different pictures in several different places to create success for ourselves and our dogs.

As handlers, once we know our dog understands what we are asking of them and performing the skill reliably, we need to take those skills out and about, and practice those skills so they can begin to understand that the same rules apply everywhere you go.