The Importance of How we Sequence our Training
How we sequence our training can have a huge affect on our dogs attitude ( and ours for that matter ). Both in a positive way and negative way.
You may be asking what do I mean by how we sequence our training. Let me give a couple of examples of what I mean.
Let's say you are going through the force fetch process and collar conditioning process with a dog. Both of these can be stressful for a dog even when it goes well. If during this stage of the training you don't incorporate some relaxing and fun type of training you can end up with a dog with a sour attitude toward training. Short term and with some dogs long term. And I mean sequencing as far as the long term week by week, month by month training as well as sequencing day by day, session by session. When a dog is going through the process mentioned above I believe it is important to break up the day to day training, and session to session training so the dog does not begin to resent the training process as a whole. This is especially true of sensitive and soft dogs. There are some dogs who this sequencing is not as important but as a general rule I think it applies. And saying that, and since dogs have different personalities, some dogs will need more of the fun stuff in between the stressful stuff in order to keep the whole training process going as smoothly as possible. This is especially true when going through the more stressful parts of training.
And incorporating more fun into the training process can be throwing marks that will build and cultivate confidence, in other words lots of success. Giving the dogs lots of birds and live flyers can also do wonders. The key is to do things with the dog that it enjoys and yet is still productive. This will really help you and the dog get through these stressful times of training. And by the way I think it as good for us as it is for the dogs.
My next example is one I have been guilty of. As we get into advanced training it is easy to get so caught up in the advanced concepts that we forget to implement the attitude building "fun stuff". If we do this training can become a real grind for the dog. And this can wear the dog down to the point where there attitude really gets soured, which then usually adds to the problem as the dog tends to get into more trouble. This can become a vicious cycle that is hard to break. Then we wonder why our dog is not performing well and why we are frustrated. I feel it is very valuable to sequence our training in such a way that the dog experiences enough of the "fun stuff" so that we keep the dog enthusiastic about training. And this "fun stuff" does not need to be just throwing happy bumpers, it can be setting up training so that it is attitude building as well as productive.
For some dogs the sequencing needs to include every other session being one of building up attitude, for other dogs one out of four sessions may be all we need. The point is to make a conscious effort to incorporate attitude building training sessions into your overall program. And to really be aware of this when you are going through more stressful training times than normal, which all of us go through at certain times with our dogs. It will not only help your dogs attitude but yours as well. I know, I have been there.
It's at least something to think about.
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