Steps to Success
Imagine parents with a newly adopted 3 year-old child from another country. The parents have little experience teaching children. The parents really don't know how children learn
and how best to teach them. In addition, the
parents
and the child speak different languages. There are various steps that need to occur before the parents could teach this child. In some ways, raising a dog is similar.
Dogs are a different species and many of the things we expect from them conflict with their natural behaviors. Imagine what dogs might think about bathing. The dogs have done a
great job camouflaging their scents so that no
predators or competitors can smell them. We wash off the protective scents and announce their presence to all by adorning them with sweet, smelly, unnatural scents!
Dogs might think we are poor guides with inferior senses and ignorant of our surroundings.
They already know we can't smell, we can't hear, we can't detect motion and we can't even run fast! Plus we constantly ask them (from their points of view) to ignore danger. For
example, an odd looking, dangerous, foul diesel
smelling, organ-vibrating, tall brown truck is approaches our territory. Out comes a person carrying a strange package. The person walks briskly directly towards our front door,
drops off a package, turns and walks briskly back to
the truck. The truck moves away.
During these brown-truck episodes, we never acknowledge the existence of the truck or the fast-walking stranger. Instead, we ask our dogs to lay quietly and discontinue their defensive, life saving behaviors. Surely they must think the strategy
to lay in plain sight and remain calm in such a crisis is a poor method for survival! Communicating information to our dogs is an easy method for solving this very common problem.
Many people have little experience teaching animals. Many people do not know why dogs do what they do nor do they know how dogs learn and how best to teach them. In some ways, the
parents with the adopted children have much less
to
learn than someone who is living with a dog!
Regardless of the differences, both custodians need well planned systems for success. Our school systems represent this very well. Children go through grades of learning, each grade adds more information. Like our school systems, the best
training systems teach the animals bits at a time, adding more information as the animal learns. Like the best teachers, the best trainers know their animals' limitations and do not ask their 1st grade students to perform 12th grade calculations.
The very best teachers present information in small pieces and add more information as their students' skills develop.
It's easy to succeed when you have a clear picture of the steps! We'll help you learn how to:
- provide your dog with a balanced environment by meeting his / her social, physical and emotional needs;
- create a global training program;
- understand why dogs do what they do;
- kindly communicate your wishes to your dog;
- kindly motivate your dog to want the same things as you;
- kindly teach your dog basic coping skills and polite behaviors;
- add more information and increase distractions as your dog's skills develop.
Our training services are designed with three central goals, each broken into several small steps to help you succeed. The three goals are to:
- teach people why dogs do what they do / how dogs learn and how best to teach them;
- teach people how to use dog-friendly methods to teach dogs specific behaviors;
- teach people how to teach dogs to perform when there are distractions.
| 
