{"id":704,"date":"2011-12-21T13:32:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-21T03:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=704"},"modified":"2021-08-02T14:53:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T04:23:13","slug":"mcgreevy-general-dog-training-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/dog-training-dog-behaviour\/mcgreevy-general-dog-training-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"McGreevy: General Dog Training Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McGreevy described animal training as \u201ca bit of an art and a bit of a science\u201d. \u2018Training\u2019 animals means changing the frequency to which animals show certain behaviours. Learning theory is a universal language that clarifies the nature of training, explaining what will work and will not work, and its general principles apply regardless of the species being trained.<\/p>\n

Training often seeks to establish connections between two or more events, and does so by using operant conditioning (i.e. rewards and punishments) and classical conditioning, and often these two work together.\u00a0 \u2018Conditioning\u2019 is any relatively permanent response that occurs as a result of exercise (that is, any responses formed by maturation or debility are not from conditioning).<\/p>\n

Trainers often have exquisite timing, and have the ability to self reflect on their progress.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photos \u00a9 Ruthless Photos<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cLife coaches\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

McGreevy prefers to use the term \u2018life coach\u2019 to describe the relationship between a dog and a person.\u00a0 Life coaches have opportunities for the dog to have success, but also rules.\u00a0 (The concept of \u2018alpha\u2019 asks for people to adopt an unrealistic, pseudo dog role that is not very useful for dog training.)\u00a0 How dogs and people interact is relevant to the dog\u2019s success.\u00a0 The handler of a dog needs to be relevant to the dog \u2013 a boring or passive life coach is irrelevant for the dog, and the dog will not work. \u00a0Dogs will form a bond with their owners, and a trust, but this trust is not generalisable to all situations or to different people.<\/p>\n

\u2018Trust\u2019, itself, is an interesting concept.\u00a0 It is difficult to measure, and is built on consistency.\u00a0 During training, trust is built be trainers being caregivers and companions rather than \u2018leaders\u2019 or \u2018dominant\u2019.<\/p>\n

Generally in dog training, we seek dogs that will respond to cues (e.g. the word \u2018sit\u2019) with appropriate behaviours.\u00a0 It is an ongoing process that requires maintenance in many contexts and environments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dog social order<\/span><\/p>\n

Dogs with one another have a social order, but it\u2019s not so much a hierarchy. Dog social order is built on difference, not dominance.\u00a0 This \u2018difference\u2019 is a different desire for different resources, meaning some dogs are more inclined to seek some resources than others.\u00a0 The ideas of social order shouldn\u2019t be \u2018thrown out\u2019 with dominance theory.\u00a0 In short, dogs have evolved to compete with one another.\u00a0 Excellent coaches tap into the resources that dogs compete over, and use them in training (as rewards).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This concludes our section on training dogs, but we will continue to investigate more McGreevy topics in posts to come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the meantime, I wonder:<\/p>\n

What do you think are the \u2018art\u2019 and the \u2018science\u2019 bits of dog training?<\/p>\n

How does your self-reflection as a trainer go?<\/p>\n

How would you measure trust with your dogs?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This post is part of the McGreevy seminar series. Click here for the index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McGreevy talking about dog training: Our relationship with dogs as life coaches, and talking about dog social order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[12,284,164,11,214,13,232,219,283],"class_list":["post-704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-training-dog-behaviour","tag-dog","tag-dog-trainer","tag-dog-training","tag-dogs","tag-human-animal-bond","tag-learning","tag-mcgreevy","tag-paul-mcgreevy","tag-trainer-animal-relationship"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4913,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}