Team Dog: How to Train Your Dog--the Navy Seal Way by Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek

Author:Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2015-01-28T22:00:00+00:00

REWARDS AS A TEACHER

If you establish from the beginning that when your dog does what you want, he gets some kind of reward, then you’ve taken the first major step necessary to get your dog to do most anything you want him to do. The thing to keep in mind about all aspects of training, whether it is basic obedience, tricks and stunts, search and rescue, or detection and apprehension, is that one irrefutable fact underlies your dog’s behavior:

When a behavior is consistently rewarded, it is most likely to occur again.

As a result, you have to become incredibly self-aware and situationally aware to make sure that you are rewarding the right things. You have to reward with conscious and precise intention. If you have kids, you know that the foundational statement about rewards and repetition is true. If your child is in a high chair eating and tosses something onto the floor and you smile or laugh or make some kind of sound that indicates pleasure, he is damn sure going to repeat that behavior. Even if you think you were looking stern and discouraging that kind of behavior, you have to be absolutely sure that you are acting out your desired intent. That is even more important with dogs. Kids can pick up on a lot of unintended nonverbal cues, but dogs, as we’ve already established, rely almost entirely on nonverbal cues. An unintended reward is still a reward.

It is equally important to reward a dog for doing a good thing even if you haven’t expressly made a demand for it. Let’s say you’ve worked with your dog to go to his bed or some other area of the house after greeting company. Reward the dog by going over to him and offering a few simple words of praise. More important, get down on his level, pet him, and spend a few seconds with him. I’m frequently surprised by how seldom some owners interact with their dogs on the dog’s level—not acting like a dog, but physically moving into the space the dog occupies. Once you have a good relationship with that dog, doing so is a reward. Not doing so is a way to send a negative signal. Dogs are highly social creatures who live in groups. When you make the move to join a dog, to form a small group, you’re tying into his elementary nature and needs. There is an enormous difference between rewarding your dog with attention or affection when he approaches you and when you approach him.

Notice the difference between how your dog responds in terms of behavior and body language when either you or he takes the lead in establishing contact. Think about what a difference it makes in your day if your boss approaches you to tell you that you’ve done good work.

It is important to send negative signals as well as positive ones. Just as never rewarding a dog is a bad idea, so are unending rewards. Dogs need some context in order to understand what is acceptable and what is not.

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