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Three Training Phases
It can be helpful to
break the training process of any skill into its
component parts. Effective training can
be broken into three phases
-
Establishment of the
behaviour
-
Introduce new
locations
-
Proofing of the
behavour
To
begin with we ‘establish’ a behaviour. This phase
is where we show the dog what it is we like him to
do, and connect it with a cue word or command.
Next we begin to ‘generalise’ the behaviour, or
help him to understand that the command applies in a
variety of different locations or situations. Dogs
are very poor at generalising and need some help to
understand that the ‘here’ command applies in the
garden for example, in the same way that it does in
the house. Finally we ‘proof’ the command. This
is where we get the dog to perform the actions we
require under more and more challenging situations.
Phase 1.
Establish the command
This is often the
quickest and easiest part of the training process.
Most people work quite hard on establishing a
behaviour, often in a very positive and kindly way.
They take care to lure or gently place the dog in
the correct position. They give lots of practice
and opportunity to learn and loads of positive
feedback and rewards. This stage is usually
successfully completed by many dog owners.
Once your puppy has been
conditioned for several weeks to associate the
recall command with the act of flying towards you,
then you can begin to use the command as a command,
rather than just as word association. Don't be in
too much of a hurry to introduce compulsion into
your training. It is perfectly acceptable to
wait until your dog is four or five months old
before you start this kind of formalised training.
The younger the puppy is, the more important
it is that you use effective generous rewards, and
avoid corrections. Start in one enclosed
place, free from distractions (your kitchen
perhaps) and be generous with praise when he
arrives. Use food if you want to, you
don't have to continue forever, and can phase
food out once the command is well learnt. To begin
with, make it easy, only call him if he is not
busy with anything else. If he ignores you at any
time, go and get him. Bring him firmly
to where you were when you called him and then
reward him as if it was all his own idea. This
will rarely be necessary if you use rewards that
your dog appreciates. For some dogs,
praise is simply not sufficient and if you insist on
relying on praise alone, you may find yourself
having to correct mistakes far too often.
When the dog is 100% reliable you can gradually
reduce the ratio of responses which you reward.
When he is 100% reliable with just the occasional
reward, in your first training location, you can
move on to Phase 2.
Phase 2. Begin to
generalise
Here is where things may
begin to go wrong. Not realising that the
command has not been 'generalised', the new owner
often goes straight into this part of the training
using corrections. The dog has learnt to sit in
the kitchen, so the owner tells him to sit in the
garden. He fails to obey - not having a clue what
she is on about - and gets a smack or a
scolding. He learns that sit means sit in the
garden too. He will probably get a few more smacks
or tellings-off, before he works out that sit
actually means sit pretty much everywhere. In the
meantime, a little more confusion is already
creeping in because he finds out that actually, sit
doesn’t always mean sit, even indoors. It might
not mean sit if the phone rings, or someone comes
to the door. It might mean ‘sit’ when one member
of the family says it, but not when another one
does. Frequently it doesn’t mean ‘sit’ unless it is
said three times in a row ....sit, sit, SIT!
It’s a lot for a dog to
remember. And coupled with that, the once lovely
kind owner is now turning into a bit of a grump.
To avoid this scenario,
begin the process of generalisation by teaching your
dog each command in a variety of locations in just
the same way as you did the very first time. Use
plenty of rewards and avoid distractions. You will
see when 'the penny drops' and he starts to obey the
command in lots of different places. Teach him to
come in different rooms in the house, in your
garden, in a friends garden, in a tennis
court, any safe enclosure you can find. Each
time you go to a new location make sure he is
successful and give lots of praise. Remember to
avoid all strong distractions (other dogs, people,
high winds, animals, traffic - anything which is
taking his attention away from you). Some dogs
take this on board a lot quicker than others but
they all get there in the end. Each new skill that
you teach, will be generalised more quickly than
the last. Remember to be consistent.
Don't give commands that you do not have time to
follow through. Insist firmly that he obeys
each and every time you give the command.
Don't give the command unless you are in a position
to enforce it. If you are frequently having to
correct the dog you are probably not adequately
rewarding him, or are trying to train where there
are distractions. Set the dog up to win. There
will be challenges enough for both of you in Phase
3.
Phase 3. Proof the command
Having begun to generalise the command, with or
without multiple corrections, it is quite normal
for the dog owner to now consider that his work here
is done. He may well now completely omit the
longest and most important stage of training
in its entirety. In reality, he has only
just begun.
Proofing is really the major part of teaching your
dog to generalise this command. It is very
challenging, as it includes practicing all the
situations your dog is likely to meet on a regular
basis, in which he may be required to obey your
command. It concerns the introduction of a
wide variety of distractions or 'factors of
difficulty', which the dog must completely ignore
whilst obeying the command he has already learnt and
begun to generalise in a simple way. This takes
time, patience and repetition.
The
recall must now be taught under a variety of
increasingly distracting circumstances, all of which
must be controlled by you and presented in a
structured and logical manner. Determined proofing
(not some kind of magical talent) is usually what
separates the successful dog trainer (amateur or
professional) from those who fall by the wayside.
The whole proofing process will be far more easily
accomplished if you follow three basic rules.
Structured training
introduces new skills, and proofs them, in a
logical sequence. Simple skills should
obviously be taught before advanced ones, but this
is often forgotten or overlooked. Make sure
you Introduce mild distractions before strong
distractions. Take care to introduce the most
challenging distractions last of all - the most
challenging distraction for a gundog is often live
game or livestock. If you cannot recall your dog
away from another dog, for example, you probably
have little hope of recalling him away from a
bolting rabbit. The Gundog Club training
guides set out a structured training programme for
you to follow.
For example. When you
first recall your dog away from another dog, make
sure that the other dog is sitting
quietly on a lead. Don’t have the other dog running
around. That is far too tempting and can come later.
Make sure you are close to your dog -
distance erodes control. You need to set this
situation up. Don’t wait for it to ‘happen to you’
on a walk. Get a friend to help you and practice,
practice, practice. Make the exercise more difficult
gradually. If you do not have a friend with
a suitably quiet dog, join a training club or book
yourself onto a
training course where you will have opportunity
to train with other dogs in a controlled
situation.
Anticipate problems and
figure out how to avoid rehearsing mistakes. Set
the dog up to win. Keep an eye open for other dogs
(your long distance eyesight is probably better than
his) and if you see other dogs coming whilst out
with your puppy, don't wait for him to spot them -
make a lot of noise to attract his attention and
run in the opposite direction, keep the noise up if
necessary, to hold his attention and
keep running. He will come after you. Never
'poison' your recall command by using it on a dog
in a situation you have not trained for, and where
you cannot enforce it. If you fail to anticipate a
problem and put him in a situation he isn't trained
to cope with, it is your mistake not his. You
need to refrain from giving impossible commands, and
if necessary, to go and get him. You will also
need to think about how to avoid the situation
arising in the future. People get
themselves into a dreadful pickle worrying about
what to do when the meet other dogs in Park X.
They feel that their dog should be better
behaved there, or that they should be
able to cope with him there. They convince
themselves that everyone else's dog is better
behaved than theirs or that they are a failure as a
dog trainer. When actually it is an inappropriate
place to train off lead, and they are trying to
achieve the unachievable. It is easy to
get into a routine of going to a particular place
without really considering what purpose it is
actually serving. Very often the simple
solution of avoiding Park X until the dog is better
trained is a great relief to them.
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