My goal as trainer is to teach people to become better trainers for their dogs. Not just the dog they are currently working with, not just the sit exercise they want to improve. To become better trainers for all dogs they may have in future. To teach to fish rather than give a fish.
Cześć! Nazywam się Agnieszka Janarek i jestem prowadzącą program The Dog Real Talk oraz założycielką Tromplo – platforma treningowa zwierząt
Pierwszy odcinek nowego programu „The Dog Real Talk” już jest dostępny!
Formuła programu to rozmowy o zwierzętach. O pracy z psami, końmi, ludźmi a nawet innymi zwierzętami, ich zachowaniach, nawykach. Rozmowy bardziej przyziemne i te filozoficzne. Czekają na Was rozmowy z trenerami, naukowcami, behawiorystami!
Będziemy mówić o nauce, teorii, praktyce, rozkładać koncepty na części pierwsze!
Zapraszam! Czytaj dalej
Hi! My name is Agnieszka Janarek! I am a host of The Dog Real Talk Program and founder of Tromplo Animal Training Platform!
The first episode of our brand new program, “The Dog Real Talk,” is already available.
We’re going to talk about animals and it will get geeky! We will discuss the training of dogs, horses, humans and other animals. We will facilitate philosophical and practical conversations on topics ranging from behavior science to general concepts related to animal training. These conversations will feature interviews with trainers, scientists, animal handlers, behaviorists and many more!
This post will start a series about nosework foundation skills. Each post will cover one skill. Today: Start of the search.
We rely heavily on our intuitive understanding of communication. We think that somehow animals will understand what we are saying, in our verbal language. One of the pictures that I have in my head is a friend coming with a visit to my house. Majority of people want to make some interaction with my dogs. It usually starts with asking my dog to give high five or sit. The result is pretty much always the same. My dogs keep wagging their tails and having no clue what they were asked for. What do guests do? The repeat the cue, they ask over and over again usually, they try to change intonation (at the end they ask me why my dogs are not “trained”). Like if there is some magical connection between human and a dog and that if we try really hard, they will understand what we are saying. Our guest behavior is definitely strongly influenced by the history of reinforcement. At some point in their life this behavior was reinforced, usually by accident, when the dog sat after all the talking.
Marker: A marker is a stimulus which has become a secondary reinforcer by the process of both classical and operant conditioning.
What is the function of MARKERS?
First of all, their function is communication with the dog. If used correctly, they constitute a clear way of conveying information to our pet.
This is the second part of this article. Okay so we already know antecedent arrangement is something to look into when we talk about problem behaviors. But does it relate to sports training? Or any dog training at all?
To sum it up, I would say your success depends on how you setup the training session. And this means a lot of antecedent arrangement. I will cite some paragraphs from my article about shaping cues, but it will be best if you also read it as an addition to this article.
Antecedent arrangements can help you achieve success! But I think that we don’t spend too much time on considering the use of them in our training. They can literally make your life so much easier. Before I go into more details let me just tell you a story.
When I have done a poll on my Facebook fan-page I received 79 responses. 30 people said they use time-out the rest said no. It was 38% yes, to 62% no. But the thing is, when those who said yes in the pool explained in the comments what they actually meant, it turned out to be a sports time-out. A break, a time off from training, a play, tossed treats. Which actually makes me really happy. But also is a great example that we often argue about two different things. One person says she uses time-out and the other says no, and they start an argument, but the problem is they have different definition of the procedure that they are taking about. That’s why I believe we should either relay on scientific meaning of a certain term. Or if not, we need to always explain what we mean when we say “time-out” or any other procedure.
