Let’s look at a good example…

Your dog gets super excited when meeting people. He continuously jumps on the person while you are increasingly embarrassed, repeatedly telling him “down… down… down” to no avail. You feel ashamed and embarrassed that you have no control over your dog. But you have no idea what to do. And now you are angry at your dog for embarrassing you and making you feel helpless.

Let’s try a different approach. What if we started by managing the environment to set you and your dog up for success? What if we started “greetings” at a distance where your dog could hold it together, could remain calm while being aware of the other person? This would keep your dog from practicing behavior you don’t want. Your dog is in a frame of mind to be able to learn.

We can now start to reinforce small steps toward the behavior we want (calm greetings). Think about how you will feel standing next to a dog who is calm? No more embarrassment… you are calm; your dog is calm… and training can begin. We have created an environment where we will have many opportunities for reinforcement… many reinforcement points. And guess what? Reinforcing your dog is very likely to be reinforcing for you because you are getting what you want.

Now, what would you like your dog to do instead of jumping on people? Let’s say you want him to sit for greetings. (Let’s say that has already learned to sit on cue.) We might start by asking the dog to sit when he is aware of the person out there. And we would practice this in many places, always at a distance at which he can remain calm.

At some point early in this process we want to turn the responsibility for the behavior over to the dog because we want the dog to choose to sit in the presence of another person rather than having to be asked to sit. So we stop asking for the sit… and just wait for it. If we have managed the environment well and shown the dog a few times what we want, the dog will sit! (No matter whether I asked for it or it was offered, we will be generous with reinforcement.)

Now gradually, we decrease the distance from the person or people… each time reinforcing when the dog chooses to sit. Can you see where this is going? We have managed the environment so that the dog can choose to sit in the presence of another person and we have repeatedly reinforced that as we get closer to the person. This highly reinforced behavior will continue to be chosen by the dog (and reinforced by us). We have built the behavior we want with many reinforcement points for the dog and, when the dog is successful, for the human as well. This makes training fun at both ends of the leash.

How do we make the choices that help us be the most successful in managing for success? My go-to is to observe where the dog was successful (showing behavior that we want), before the dog starts doing the behaviors we don’t want. So, in the case above, if the dog can hold it together while approaching a person until the person is 10 feet away, I will likely start about 15 feet (or more) away. I want to create a situation in which the dog can choose the behavior I want and be well reinforced for that choice. I want to start with success. With my clients I call this “managing for success” or “creating success”, a fundamental goal of all training. You may find other helpful ideas in my blog “Changing What We See…Looking for Good Behavior”. https://pawsandcues.com/changing-what-we-see-looking-for-good-behavior/

As a trainer committed to using positive reinforcement, I now think of management as a tool to create many reinforcement points for both the dog and the human.  Since behavior is built and sustained with reinforcement, management now allows for frequent reinforcement of behaviors I do want. and it continues to provide reinforcement for the human… a critical piece of keeping the human in the game!

Managing for success as we train our dogs now helps the human and the dog move together through the world rather than being at odds with each other. By starting with management, both the human and the dog move from “I can’t… this is too hard” to “I can”. And “I can” is powerful.

The post Managing for success! appeared first on Paws and Cues Dog Training.