#of course now i’ll probably go prematurely grey because i have my dad’s genetics

[fingertipsmp3]

Dyeing your hair solidly throughout your entire teenage years and most of your adult life is all well and good until you realise you’re not sure what your natural colour is

[cynological]

Hey so concerning that post about flip your card that you jsut reblogged, i'm super intrigued by your comment; would you mind sharing some of those ideas you can pull from it? Or referring me to someone/something that would?

Oh boy, buckle your seat belts y’allbecause I’m about to seriously brain dump and write a novel. Hi, my name isNovice Dog Training Nobody and I got some opinions and examples of my terriblyN00bish training mistakes.

Everything you do in dog training relies on communication. Iliked @attackfish’s explanation a LOT, because they address so many good pointsand I’ll try to expand on them and not just re-articulate what they said. One poster mentions how “talking out of turn” got themmoved, and so they never spoke up in class again. Clearly, that is someonesensitive to punishment- a simple verbal warning probably would have worked. Myfirst dog? Raising your voice was more than enough of a punishment for her.Before I knew anything about dog training, I put a prong on her to try to teachher to stop pulling. She hit the end of it once and I don’t think I ever had anissue with her trying to pull on the leash again- and then even so much as apull enough to jingle her tags got her to step way back. And just as moving theabove poster’s card to yellow prevented the poster from being disruptive again,putting a prong on my sensitive cattle dog/bbm and fixing her pulling issue,made them both overtly cautious and left an obvious emotional impact. It does not address the WHY. WHY what the person speaking upin class? WHY was my dog pulling? Were they too amped up and excited? Were theypreemptively answering a question? Trying to chase a car? Did they know theywere not supposed to speak during that time and made the conscious decision todo it anyway? Did my dog know any better (no)? What is barely a punishment forone student/dog can be devastating for another. Of course in humans, you caneasily get accused of favoritism if you alter the way you apply punishment tofit the individual, which is why most jobs have some sort of escalating ladderof punishment (verbal, written, suspension, termination) to cover their bases.Applying too harsh of a punishment for that individual will also break downyour trust- (”I never spoke up in class again.”) That is not something as ateacher you want to do to your students (or as a trainer, that you want to doto your dog), or at least not often, because then you’re going to have to spendtime rebuilding that trust, which I’ll try to touch on later. And if you’re tooharsh, you’re going to start encroaching on learned helplessness, when instead,you want to build resiliency. In dogs, the response to an unfair or overtly harshcorrection can present in a variety of ways. Some dogs will shut down, becomeovertly cautious, growl, whine, bark, muzzle punch, try to tag you, or come upthe leash. In agility, my dog has started this utterly OBNOXIOUS trend ofbarking. The easy and most obvious answer to this? Flip your card. Punish thebarking. Except for the part where it made the barking worse, which brings usto the next point: Emotional regulation. When I punished my dog for barking while we were running, Iwas not necessarily looking at why he was barking. I wanted the short termsolution: stop your damn barking. Well, it turns out, that made it worse. Why?Because he was barking out of -frustration- and not anticipation or excitement(as I’d assumed it was, and it might have been and then escalated). At the timeI did not realize it, but I was not effectively communicating what direction Iwanted him to go in, where he needed to be. So he was getting frustrated andvoicing his protests. Verbally correcting him, physically correcting him, andeven ending the run prematurely and removing him off the field thus far has notworked-he thinks it’s unfair because he does not understand why and he istrying to tell me that something is wrong. If I have him on leash and he startsfrustrated barking and I don’t do something to bring down his emotional state,he may try to muzzle punch or tag me or grab the leash.  At that level of frustration, heloses clear headedness and he’s all worked up with no outlet. As with most animals, too much or too great of apunishment, even if it’s -P, and he starts to shut down and/or escalate,especially if he does not understand -why-. And I’m getting frustrated becauseno matter what I do, my dog won’t stop screaming at me and it’s like a horrible feedback loop of confused yelling. “WHYWHYWHY.” “WHY ARE YOU YELLING.” “WHY ARE -YOU- YELLING?” “WHY-”  It wasn’t until my training mentor saw us practicingone day and basically said “Hey dumbass, stop being unfair to your dog. This isyour fault, not his. Look at where your body is facing; it’s the oppositedirection of where you are pointing/ want him to go. You’re also too late on tellinghim where he needs to go. You haven’t been working him when he’s in driveenough. And-” several of my other sins and character flaws. Guess what, improving mytiming and body language works wonders, as does working on exercises where hehas to think through that emotional state and has an outlet. It’s differentwhen he’s barking or screaming out of sheer excitement. Again, issues withemotional regulation. That can and has evolved into frustration barking,because he is much closer to that threshold. And again, we need to work onthose thresholds and work on increasing resiliency, and also trying to find away to address the barking and give him direction on what to do -instead-.  I was trying to solve it the ‘flip your card’ way,and my dog started giving up. There are two steps to learned helplessness:Nothing I do is going to be right so I’m going to escalate to try to get mypoint across, or I’m going to shut down and not want to play anymore and giveup. We don’t want either of those. My dog is generally motivated to want towork with me and to run agility. He thinks it is a blast and he -wants- to workwith me. The problem is Dad Is a Horrible Navigator and Can’t Direct Worth aShit. There is the WHY. Addressing that is the first step in fixing ourproblems.This is not to say that punishment is ineffective; just that –unfair- or –unclear-punishment is ineffective, especially if you are not working on the root causeof the issues. But that is a lecture for another day and one I’m sure peoplefar more qualified than me have written extensively on.Which, ironically, brings us to our next point: Bias. This may come as acomplete and utter shock, but there is a lot of bias in dog training, and eventhe best trainers can struggle with it. From everything concerning dog breeds, ageof the trainer, training methods, gender of the trainer, even gender of thedog, everyone has an opinion and a world view that is going to affect the waythey train. I’m biased, you’re biased, we are all biased. Identify your biasesand find a way to become less biased. Now, choice. Animals learn best through play and through decision making-comingto their own conclusions and working out problems on their own vs being toldwhat to do. This is why the FF movement has taken off in recent years. It’s notnew information by any means, but more people are becoming aware that they wantsomething beyond the bare minimum obedience out of their dog. Shaping is agreat intro to this. Try to do 101 Things To Do With a Box with a dog who hasonly even been told –what- to think, instead of –how- to think, or even play It’sYour Choice with them… compare them to a blank slate or a dog whose foundationwas in learning how to think, and the difference is remarkable. A dog who isjust working for food or a toy or to avoid punishment is going to look a lot differentthan a dog working because he is engaged in the work and understand the work isintrinsically motivating. Resource guarding is another example of this. Iabsolutely love Patricia McConnell’s method of dealing with it. Punishingresource guarding is going to make it worse. Trying to –make- it stop is goingto make it worse. But giving the dog a choice and letting it come to its ownconclusions that it’s not worth it? My dog was a resource guarder and now –brings-me stuff that he used to try to guard. I’ve watched the progress of another dogwho would have mauled someone for a ball show significant improvement in lessthan two weeks just by being offered a –choice- and not being pushed.    Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation: Think about your job:If you are only working just to get a paycheck, you are doing so out ofextrinsic motivation; you are doing it to obtain an external reward (yourpaycheck) or to avoid an external punishment (being homeless). Now, if you havea job that you love doing, and you work in that job for the sake of enjoyment,you are working out of intrinsic motivation. People who do a lot of volunteerwork, work with animals, or work with children, or who work in public servicetypically do so out of intrinsic motivation. A dog that is intrinsicallymotivated does something for the sheer joy of doing it. The name of the game wewant is Engagement. We want to build intrinsic motivation in our dogs to work –withus-. A dog who only works for food or a toy is doing so out of extrinsic motivation.It works, but it won’t be as strong as a dog who works intrinsically. Geneticsplay a huge role in this. I personally want a dog who is born motivated to work.I love watching my dog track, because he does not want to stop, even afterreaching the end and getting his ‘reward.’ He loves tracking for the sheer joyof tracking. In training, we use extrinsic motivators to help create a bridgeto building the dog’s intrinsic motivation.Now nothing is black and white, there are all kinds of grey areas and overlap.Try to communicate with your dog effectively, above all else. At some point, Flip Your Card may be appropriate. I have found that if what you’re doing isn’t working-try something else.  Forgive me ifanything is unclear; it is 0540 am and I’ve tried to address as much as I couldin less than 2,000 words.