Living in the Land of Holes

Thoughtful Thursday

I am training 4 dogs to do the same thing. I have to adjust HOW I'm training for each dog. Because each dog has learned slightly different things.

Retrofitting dogs to do behaviors (heel on both sides) after reinforcing sitting on one side for YEARS is challenging. Each dog is at a different place, sits slightly differently, likes different reinforcers and each is at a different level of proficiency on ALL of the behaviors I need.

I have the same progression plan for each dog. This progression plan outlines the behavior I want, but not how I get there. The dog defines how I get there with the progression plan as my roadmap. Until the behaviors outlined in the progression plan are solid, in sequence, I can't just skip to the end.

Why?

Because then I have holes.

I am stuck in the land of 'holes' right now because I skipped these skills and went straight to the end. (Let's walk somewhat on a loose leash and go do odor work).

That is now biting me in the #$%.

Because odor work is so reinforcing, and I haven't put the structure around heeling under control, I now am in danger of walking to do detection work and getting pulled to the point where I could easily twist an ankle, hurt my knee or worse yet, do all that, drop my leash and my dog gets hit by a car.

So now we go back and fill in the holes. Learn from my mistakes.

Don't leave holes and have progression plans.