Fenzi Food For Thought

Can you find ways to use punishment where the dog always wins?

Wait! You won’t solve your behavior challenge in two months! My dog brings some tremendous benefits to the table but we are far from out of the woods! Remember, my process is not your process. Take your time, especially if you have a challenging dog, and celebrate what goes right. We also talked about managing your own anxiety with overaroused and reactive dogs.

This live explored the difference between flooding and habituation, and discusses why I choose to put out information on dog aggression, reactivity and over arousal, even though I know some of that information will be used poorly or misunderstood.

In the past, I have done several IG lives where I talked about components of over aroused or reactive behavior in more detail. On this one, I tried to summarize how I use those qualities when working with my own dog. In short, I tend to think about arousal rather than worrying about controlling the environment. Because I cannot control the environment and the triggers; there are too many of them. But I can control his arousal via techniques that work for both of us.

We covered more than that, but in effect, we had a conversation about what happens if an undesirable behavior has a reinforcing quality, even if it’s not obvious to us with that reinforcing quality might be. The short answer is that your choice of reinforcement might increase the behavior you want, but it won’t necessarily decrease the behavior you don’t want. Or at least not to the point of extinction.

This is primarily aimed at dog sports competitors, but applies to pet dogs too. When reducing reinforcement, focus on your goal. What are you trying to accomplish? Recognize the trade offs of your choices when you select your route to ring readiness.

As with most things, it’s not black-and-white. Some dogs benefit from more splitting, patterns, higher rate of reinforcement, and easier training sessions with less puzzling than other dogs. Those dogs might benefit from more lumping, more behavior chains, and more unpredictable/challenging training sessions with plenty of puzzling. In all cases, you need to watch your learner to determine how your interventions are being received. As a general rule, force free trainers err on the side of patterns and high rates of reinforcement for too long, making behavior chain goals hard to reach, and balanced trainers err on the side of the unpredictable and challenging training with too much frustration and lack of clarity in the work. You could pick your poison, or better still, watch your learner carefully and pick that just right path!    

Dogs react very differently to a singular event or a mass distraction. This is another one of those personal qualities that you’ll want to know about your dog when you work on matters of overarousal or reactivity, or you might find yourself doing exactly the reverse of what is most helpful to your situation.

In this live, I describe how I am going to train my dog this weekend away from home. What is my route? What is my plan to ensure that we have as much success as possible? It’s important to have a plan when you are training, especially when you are away from home or have limited opportunities for away training. This one applies to both behavior work and Dog Sports competitors.

We’ve all been there. Watch this live to get some ideas for how to handle it when you’re ready to throw in the towel over a single bad day.