The other day the family and I stumbled upon a dog training demonstration – dogs doing some amazing jumps!
The crowd was revved up and having a great time and the dogs seemed to feel the same way.
Watch this video of an 11 year old doing an amazing jump – quite similar to the signature jump from the hit movie “A Dog’s Purpose:
The crowd was revved up and having a great time and the dogs seemed to feel the same way.
Watch this video of an 11 year old doing an amazing jump – quite similar to the signature jump from the hit movie “A Dog’s Purpose:
What you will see is a dog working in tandem with two humans to jump higher than 7 feet and be caught gracefully in midair. This particular trick takes an incredible amount of trust, practice, and most importantly ENTHUSIASM to pull off.
This is what I call “the gas” of dog training. This is all about “go! go! go!” And for the most part this is the fun part of dog training everyone wants to do. It’s fun for the dog, fun for the handler, and fun for the spectators. When you are shopping for dog trainers, this is what “all-positive” dog trainers will use to sell you training packages – proof that positive dog training can give you awesome results.
And it’s true. If you were trying to train this with corrections or anything aversive, it would be less efficient and the performance would have way less heart and soul.
But now I want you to watch the video again, through a slightly different lens.
This is what I call “the gas” of dog training. This is all about “go! go! go!” And for the most part this is the fun part of dog training everyone wants to do. It’s fun for the dog, fun for the handler, and fun for the spectators. When you are shopping for dog trainers, this is what “all-positive” dog trainers will use to sell you training packages – proof that positive dog training can give you awesome results.
And it’s true. If you were trying to train this with corrections or anything aversive, it would be less efficient and the performance would have way less heart and soul.
But now I want you to watch the video again, through a slightly different lens.
You might notice that the dog isn’t holding a mark and waiting to jump – it’s being restrained by a handler. You should definitely notice what the dog does immediately after it’s jump: it runs back around, destroys the jump, and then goes on to carry the sticks around the ring triumphantly. If you were there, you’d also notice the incessant, over-excited barking of the other dogs who had performed already.
This is what you get when a dog is trained with all “go!” and no… well, “no.”
Good training should give you the performance you want, when you want it. If your training is all “gas,” then imagine what this dog, in this mind state, would look like in your home. It would be jumping over your toddlers en route to knocking over your bookshelf and carrying your books around the house triumphantly.
That’s not to say these dogs are like that at home. Skilled performance trainers can “toggle” their dogs back and forth between excited and calm – an entire art in and of itself.
Training a house dog successfully is very difficult without the other side of training: the brake. This can be anything from appropriate corrections, duration work designed to make your dog calm throughout the day, clear and explicit rules, boundaries, and limitations, and so on.
Unless you are working with an incredibly easy dog, training a dog with only the gas or only the brake will be a nearly impossible endeavor. It’s when you combine the two that you really start driving smoothly.
This is what you get when a dog is trained with all “go!” and no… well, “no.”
Good training should give you the performance you want, when you want it. If your training is all “gas,” then imagine what this dog, in this mind state, would look like in your home. It would be jumping over your toddlers en route to knocking over your bookshelf and carrying your books around the house triumphantly.
That’s not to say these dogs are like that at home. Skilled performance trainers can “toggle” their dogs back and forth between excited and calm – an entire art in and of itself.
Training a house dog successfully is very difficult without the other side of training: the brake. This can be anything from appropriate corrections, duration work designed to make your dog calm throughout the day, clear and explicit rules, boundaries, and limitations, and so on.
Unless you are working with an incredibly easy dog, training a dog with only the gas or only the brake will be a nearly impossible endeavor. It’s when you combine the two that you really start driving smoothly.
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