Train Your Dog, Trust Your Training

Thoughtful Thursday

There is much time, work, and sweat that are in front of 'trust your dog'. I see a lot of teach the dog and a little bit of train the dog. People then go into testing the dog. I see it in students and in myself. We forget to train all the iterations needed for appropriate generalization. We forget the number of repetitions it truly takes in multitudes of environments to build a fluent behavior.

We get bored.

We expect the dogs to make jumps and generalizations. When the dogs make the jumps in the wrong direction we are confused as to why the dog learned the wrong thing. When they make jumps in the right direction, we think we are brilliant trainers.

I am as guilty as anyone. I set up problems and then am frustrated when my dog struggles to much. Or I have to step in and ‘help’ too much.

The humans want to get to the finished product as fast as possible and are willing to skip steps to get there. This leaves holes in our training. It also trains things into the detection chain we do not want.

I must take the time to teach and train the dog, following a progression plan laid out to teach, train, and hone the skill sets needed accomplish the task at hand, I can then test the dog and it will succeed.

First teach the dog.

Then train the dog.

Then train the dog some more.

Then test the dog.

Only then, will I trust the dog.

What step in your progression plan are you working on today?