Why I believe in positive training
April 28th, 2011
By the time this post goes live, I will have just had surgery.
Basically, for the past two weeks, I’ve been walking around on two broken feet and didn’t even know it. Well, okay, I knew about the first foot, but only yesterday did I get the second foot X-rayed (long story). That’s when I got the word that not only did I break a bone clean in two, but that I’d need surgery to have the broken bone realigned properly. Hence, my date with destiny today.
Meanwhile, for these past two weeks I not only trekked through Greece and London but also, when I got home last week, faithfully walked Allie, my Golden Retriever. My Golden girl sometimes gets boisterous on our walks–but, amazingly, over the past week or so she has been careful to match her pace to mine. As I venture down some steps with her on leash, I can ask her to “Wait” at each step–and she does. I can remind her that I need for her to “walk nice,” and she does. would. And every few steps, she turns around and looks at me, as tbough she’s asking, “Are you doing okay?”
Moreover, if we walk uphill, Allie walks out in front of me as far as the leash can stretch so that she is literally pulling me up the street. She’s not running as she does this; she’s walking slowly. But her pulling action really has helped me get up the street, even if it’s also kept me from realizing what a number I did ‘on my foot.
And now that I’m home, Allie’s been right here with me, staying out of the way of me and my walker, but not staying too far away. I can walk along with the walker and ask her to sit next to me, I can direct here where I need for her to go by pointing. And she’s been coming over often to offer kisses and other forms of canine encouragement. (But before you tell me that she’d make the perfect therapy dog — well, that’s not gonna happen. Allie’s not keen on car rides to health care facilities or anywhere else. But she’s turning out to be the perfect therapy dog for me.)
What, you may ask, have my foot-related woes got to do with positive training?
Simple. When we use positive training with our dogs–particularly shaping, either in training or in games–we encourage our dogs to think for themselves. We encourage them to strategize. A game like “Show Me Something Else” prompts our dogs to try figure out what we want them to do. Instead of our merely expecting them to respond to our commands like canine robots, they’re responding to our cues from true understanding, and also bringing something of themselves to the interaction.
The clearest difference between command-based training and positive training that I’ve ever seen was on the TV show Greatest American Dog, which was telecast on CBS a few years ago. There were a number of very well-trained dogs–but the differences between two dogs, Galaxy and Andrew, were remarkable. Galaxy did whatever she was told to do, but she seemed afraid to do anything at other times. She seemed timid, almost frozen. Andrew, on the other hand, was totally confident in what he was doing. Guess which dog was a positive training alumnus?
I’m not the gifted trainer that Andrew’s person, Laurie Williams, is. As I’ve readily admitted, my dog isn’t perfect (and I’m not either). But by using positive reinforcement to train Allie, I’ve encouraged her to think for herself. Communication flows two ways between us. I won’t be able to walk Allie again for a little while–thankfully, my husband can and will handle that detail. But when I am back to dog-walking, I suspect that because Allie’s been encouraged to think for herself, she’ll discern whether I can handle her leash-walking antics or not. And if she decides to resume those antics, I may even be glad that she does.
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One Response to “Why I believe in positive training”
Susan McCullough has been a professional writer for 30-plus years, but didn't start focusing on dogs until 1996, when an overzealous Sheltie attacked and shredded a message that had been faxed to Susan's office. Instead of merely telling the sender "My dog ate your fax," Susan decided to see seek expert advice about how to share an office with one's animal companion. She turned that advice into an article for a national pet magazine, and she's been writing about dog behavior and care ever since.
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