Profiling 

(5th & last Concluding Thoughts)

 We have to remember that the level of awareness that a hunter has to the type of sport and its complexities surmounts a sheer trainer. I have already asserted that all types of sporting dog competitions or activities have their origin in featuring a special interest in hunting, and the reason why most working dogs are bred to suit it appropriately. In addition, the reason why there are also a variety of working breeds only shows us that there is an array of hunting pursuits that even the ability of let’s say, a Collie to herd are contrasted with livestock guardian dogs who would stand simply as its keeper, this demonstrates a coordinated quest of a pack of dogs while hunting. There are other types of breeds like Beagles, Jack Russells, and Terriers who are originally bred to dig the ground to hunt their prey. Then, bird dogs is another; where pointing, flushing and retrieving are their specialized skills. Dogs like English Setters or German Shorthaired Pointers in contrast to a flusher like Spaniels and even Poodles; who are typically considered as lap dogs, originated as water dogs and are fully capable of flushing birds, this breed has many qualities that are attractive to hunters for they are active and intelligent, Poodles are rather easy to train and can make excellent hunting companions. Then retrievers, where most of them are flushers but have a natural ability to retrieve like Labradors and Goldens. Again, even at this, there is a big contrast between these two flusher/retriever bird dog hunters since Pointers usually cover a vast open fields with birds that are being few and scattered, they are designed to locate birds far and wide, then hold point while the gunner following the dog gains position to flush and shoot. The opposite type of hunting pursuit is for flusher/retriever upland bird hunting, where a dog stays closer to the hunter or within shotgun range with pretty much profuse covers. In addition to flusher/retriever, there are also many forms of bird hunting tasks for retrievers allied to waterfowl (duck hunt) and an upland hunting that are utterly diverse. A good upland flusher/retriever bird dog is up to locate the bird within your range and put them in the air quickly, so you move with the dog as it searches the cover immediately surrounding you, a good duck hunting retriever dog is inversely the opposite, this is where the dog is tasked to stay on a platform and wait for the gunner to shoot then retrieve, and then to return quickly to the spot to wait for another duck diver.     

The other measure I want to share is the difference between a Hunter Dog Trainer in contrast to a pure Hunter whose main interest is after sheer number of birds taken, this in contrast to a Hunter Dog Trainer who is always on the lookout for something their dog needs. Hunter Dog Trainers always try to find a way to challenge their dog to learn and improve while a Hunter will not pass a shot at the expense of allowing their dog to position and increase their dog’s confidence and experience. Unlike pure Hunters, a Hunter Dog Trainer tends to enjoy more the moment with their dog than the number of downed birds.    

Now all these in contrast to a newbie who would recklessly pick a training material on the internet, which on the outset would seem to further develop one’s interest, until an untold direction pops up, which essentially is inconsistent in outfitting oneself and a dog because one only has a general fascination of that sporting event that he/she is in. Meaning, a newbie who is out of the loop when it comes to a range of selective training choices and requirements that is compulsory to the demand of a particular sporting intent, which needs to be associated to a hunting pursuit to make your dog more versatile concurrent to the sporting activity that it is in.   

 

Agenda

(4th Concluding Thought)

 After a swipe on ‘Closer to Home’ to deal with some sensitive encounters that my reader may possibly meet while deliberating either to train their dog or not, and much more the idea to hunt. It is only practical to open up this valuable lesson that I have learned when someone is already engaged in the task of training their dog or a newbie. You see, more than often, after seeing the point taught by someone who is in authority or a specialist, be it through reading or a video watch, our usual tendency is then to mimic the exact instruction to meet the targeted task as though the plight that an instructor is trying to actuate is in exact union with the condition of the dog that we are training, plus the fact that both dogs occupies a very different environment. If you fail to acknowledge this gap, you end up following the agenda of the trainer at the expense of your transitioning skill on how to teach your dog that is not in conflict to your dog’s learning curve. Or better yet, you wind up utilizing a well-established method that a trainer is utilizing without thoroughly considering the temperament of your peculiar dog. We need to bear in mind that a person who has developed this type of consciousness is able to steer a straight course toward their objective purpose without being veered towards how it is typically practiced. In other words, we need to focus on the possibilities of success, not on the potentials for failures. So here is the lesson: rather than evaluating the dog’s ‘response’ to the simple commands, you as a newbie should pay more attention to the dog’s overall well-being and how it affects their behavior, for after the training session, it will provide you a lot of information which you can use in maintaining their good behavior and improving your relationship with your dog.

This also is to ward off some catchy training practices customarily applied these days, which after all, an inept trainer holds a lesser significant value to an already trained dog, though continues to promote it because it is now part of the prospectus highly commended and promoted in modern dog training that is aligned to a culture that wants to see swift results. One of them is the use of an electric collar. This came out as a brilliant substitute of a cruel way of pinching a dog’s ear to hasten a dog’s learning curve to hold an object in its mouth while on leash. A brilliant substitute because, you can now remotely inflict a dog and have a similar control as soon as the dog is off leash. Then came the popularity of ‘positive training’ where discerning trainers would still utilize the same expensive gadget but using them with a very low vibration, and for what? Simply to enforce a command that the dog already knows, as if that is the only way to do it. My point is, if one knows the fundamental purpose of inflicting a dog similar to what the mother dog does, who knows every individual puppy she has, the whole issue of ‘punitive’ and ‘positive training’ will start to make sense. You see, dogs have different temperaments; some are just simply stubborn while others are not, some hardly need to be chastened while others do. The only cordial benefit that this newer discovery on ‘positive training’ is the reality that though you need to inflict a dog to correct its behavior (not viciously though) you must always end up with a positive note to assure your dog that censuring them is over for now.  

 

Closer to Home (6)

Concluding Thoughts

Experiencing Rustic Living & it's Benefits

Another fading heritage we have is ‘Rustic Living.’ This includes cooking, I do not mean the ability to cook which is rather handy these days, but the type of rustic cooking that includes everything, from hunting, butchering, meat preservation, conserving water, gathering wood for fuel to  preparation etc. Rustic living is a means of reconnecting ourselves to our food sources that involves killing, for most consumers these days have made it possible to think that meat from the grocery does not involve this seeming cruelty. This also involves the kind of comradeship that is embroiled in it, so that as a whole, it nestles not only true art and science but more notable is the purposeful activity and a meaningful experience. Rustic living is filling our life with experiences not filling it with belongings; it is to have stories to tell and not materials to show. This is precisely the reason why many are getting back to camping, hiking, mountain climbing etc. It is the idea to pause and reflect after being in the majority side; it is to go off-the-grid. In essence, it is an attraction of a more evocative environment and not what is the ‘in thing’ or ‘what’s out there’ in our consumer society today. It is to post those long hours just to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ which leaves us with less time for the things that really matter in life like friends, family, or community engaging in an activity to obtain the basic necessities in life like food, clothing and shelter.  Besides, the best way to fix our fragile ecosystems is to stop our sickening hunger of over consumerism, for by and large, everything we consume basically comes from nature itself, and all our consumer wastes will eventually end up there also.  

Hence, for people who love dogs, there is no better retrieve to the charm of rustic living than to go hunting with our dog, to start to train them to recapitulate their instinctive traits. It is also to get involved in this emerging social movement to help our next generation to have a taste of a simpler form of life beyond our consumer culture. A direct life instead of an obscure one. It is to patronize in thought and deed, a more sustainable shift in conservation strategy and the potential viability of a permitted hunting system here in the Philippines rather than advocating to destroy our heritage. Besides, studies have proven over and again that ‘habitat loss’ through industrial innovation and urbanism is responsible for more imperil and extinction of species than hunting itself. In addition, who else would want to care about dog utility, handling the land and its habitat than the very people who want to preserve this legacy? Yes, action matters but it must primarily be a matter of one’s frame of mind and a set of attitudes.

This article is not an advocacy that we become hermits, neither is it masking the potentiality of hunting’s adverse impact towards our environment when abused, but it is endorsing ‘recreational hunting’ as a means of not only a tool kit to make people savor a more viable makeshift against the complexities of our contemporary society in a more expressive manner than any other recreational activity, to thus allow  us to understand how this role has changed, as rural societies become urbanized and so consumer oriented and its down side effect. It also means, hunting not for subsistence, not as commercial harvesting akin to our intensive agricultural practices, or commercial harvesting of wildlife for profit, but facilitating a well-managed habitat as a more doable solution to our depleting forestry in exchange of  the massive land urbanization of our native land.    

 Closer to Home (5)

Concluding Thoughts

Are you a part of our Fading Heritage?

I had a hard time evaluating what might have been the best title to give to that previous article that I posted on ‘pet dogs.’ I am aware that we are still on the same series of ‘closer to home,’ but giving an account of what psyche my reader might be carrying regarding their thoughts about dogs, the prevalent arguments that surround it, and how to decode them, would indicate that I am wrapping up all that I have said about my training principles and how this is primarily tied up to the dog owner’s psychological criterion, or how those issues being circulated is affecting them. However, since that last article ‘pet dog’ scarcely allowed you to uncover what sentiment you carry when it comes to hunting, I hence humored in designating another series of ‘closer to home’ under a subtitle called ‘concluding thoughts.’ This is now seeking to make you evaluate your thoughts on some hindsight issues currently dominating the world of dogs, contradicting disputes on the science behind them, account of moral values and concepts, its tail sayings, and how this will affect a dog’s utility and the corresponding responsibility of its owner.

Speaking about the second highly contested issue after ‘pet dog’ is our hunting heritage, and the first thing up is its abuse. How many have consequently endangered our wild species that help destroy our woodland are exploiting this, is somehow not the issue here? For this relates to the voices of men and women behaving as pioneers to wildlife habitat conservation in transforming public spaces for hunting accessible to people to preserve our hunting heritage. These are active groups that help promote ground conservation and scientific studies to improve, manage and expand our landscape habitat. However, the drawback of this work is the rage and anger that is dominating social media these days on a contested misfortune of the slain or the hunted. This of course does not include the perpetrated cruelty against animals. But this has nonetheless something to do with the basic irony behind these sentiments where the continuous slaughtering of animals day in and out for food, does not bother us at all. Why is this? The unmistakable discrepancy is again no less than the psychological influence of the person towards our popular culture that portrays some animals talking to one another, protecting their entitlements, coddling future dreams, or falling in love just like we humans do. When men’s ethical practice toward animals get wrong, or to carry the false impression that the very reason for this is because the animals themselves have a moral claim to deserve it, this somehow would only radiate the balance towards the moral issues of men instead of simply an issue of men’s decency or civility toward animals. Hence, deformed are those supposed moral arguments that detractors claim which are haled by many to the point where we are somehow losing our hunting heritage and largely utilizing our dog mistakenly. For our hunting heritage and the utilitarian use of a dog are undoubtedly tied to each other.

Consequently, the most sustainable way to bolster critical habitats and our dogs’ declining usefulness from this massive deterioration is no doubt to bring back our lost heritage. For the idea of hunting without a dog is inconceivable, their essential help makes hunting benign since they greatly aid us to find the prey and manage to retrieve the trophy, the bond between the hunter and the dog is magnificently stimulating and inspiring for both men and women, young and old. Yes, this enchanting stimulus carried by our forebears is a legendary heritage that we must not leave behind or let our next generation forsake. Besides, this somehow is also the epitome of all types of sporting activity relating dogs that we have today.  

 

Closer to Home (4)

Concluding Thoughts

Pet Dog 

Read the article “seven reasons why dogs are and always will be man’s best friend.” This was posted some time ago on our group’s messenger but I could not help being bothered by the popular psyche behind the writer’s second point that dogs can connect with their owner deeply. Substituting our relational empathy towards humans has something to do with our influence to that popular culture which portrays that dogs are endowed with human qualities. What’s more, attachment to dogs similar to one’s attachment to a lifeless rag doll only reveals our need for love and companionship that needs to be nurtured and protected. Both dog and a helpless rag doll will only help show us that we have a deep capacity to love and care for others under the right state of affairs; it is simply a means but not the end, for to continue to indulge in that solitude, in that circumstance, instead of being alleviated from what might otherwise have been kept hidden in us, is to misappropriate the dog’s usefulness. Besides, it is easy to deify a dog because of the therapeutic effect it brings; this purported unconditional love that they say dogs have toward humans, since it really can change our brain chemistry. Purported because again, so does a lifeless rag doll. You can also confide your problems to it, and no matter what we tell them, you will never find someone as supportive without judging you, and so it triggers relaxation, and reduces stress, etc. but this is repulsive since it is to say that rag dolls can do just as much as what dogs are doing to us. Yes, dogs have an incredible value as human companions but not as a surrogate to our human needs. Yet, myriads have succumbed to the suspect cultural buildup that puts the true value of our dogs in peril, its usefulness and its suitability in our social order. Many are made to believe that the unconditional love that the dog has towards its master is so compelling since this is a rare commodity in human relationships, when the truth to the matter is, like rag dolls, dogs have zero expectation because they are incapable of linking companionship with the person’s emotional condition. Companionship to them is companionship, it does not matter how hard your day has been, the financial state you are in, what next thing needs to get done, etc., so it wags its tail whenever they see or hear your voice simply since your presence alone excites and entices them. A human relationship however is more intense and intimate because it subsequently involves prospects and expectancies and therefore fitfully rare but more precious, therefore it rests on a higher echelon in our world’s social order.

I hope to make you see the dire consequence when one starts to tinker with this social order, and the devastating effect of the usefulness of dogs when one uses it as an end in and of itself instead of simply a means. It inclines us to prefer dogs like misfit people who would rather have their rag dolls over humans. On the other hand, while the actuality of the befitting role of a live dog against a lifeless rag doll has its purpose, it’s very limited nature to give us the sense of our need of empathy towards others is a means to help us imitate similar social interactions with other human beings. Therefore possessing a flawed companion in our house (a dog) that is indwelt with its very less human capability can occupy an amazing bridge that perfectly meets the needs and purposes that we sometimes require to make us arch over our own blind spots as crossroads to becoming fully human.   

Closer to Home (part 3)

Your Attitude in Training

The Premise behind dissecting a duty of a task one-step at a time has for all times been proven effective and vastly valuable especially in an era where ‘instants’ is unparalleled, instant meal, instant chat, or instant gratification. This is especially valuable to the dog who is mostly clueless of what we want them to do and effective because that is the only way that they can learn. Now, in a world where the milestone of positive training has created better teaching methods than its counterparts (punitive training), the proliferation of snubbing a dog or attrition which often works’ with humans, has become the worst form of pressure to the dog since they do not know how to get out of it, and this is especially true to a dog who is trying hard to please you. Putting pressure comes from the idea that we have to give them pressure to be able to make them do something: that, in and of itself is true and false. Hence, when these sentiments arise directly from us and does not emanate from the dog, the tendency is to put a little too much pressure, which the dog cannot cope, then they lose their trust in us. Then true, because the pressure should never come from us directly, but we can create an acceptable pressure that they themselves can take or where they know how to handle. That is, to calmly repeat an exercise time after time up until they get an indirect form of pressure. When you hold up to this training principle every time you see your dog being confuse at your attempt to teach it something new, then your dog will not only start to trust you, but will eventually learn what you are trying to teach. Besides, holding up to the dog’s learning curve will prove priceless to people who has issues in finding time to train their dog because of work or some other forms of outside chores. While here, you can make use of the short time you have with your dog to focus on those decremental exercises, like fetching for instance that involves many other correlating functions to make a perfect retrieve. And this often is the issue with us today since we want instant results, and as a consequence, we tend to overlook those faulty gestures that our dog makes simply because it was able to fetch anyway. When this becomes your itinerary in training them, another new task that requires the dog to heel adjacent to your side becomes a big hindrance, harder to fix or might as well tolerate those inherited delinquencies and start to articular direct pressure for an end that you want them to do.

Then, after that gradual yet meaningful preparation, you’ll be surprise how advance your dog has become as you integrate all those fragmented exercises as part of a perfect performance. This is how they groom a versatile hunting dog, one who is trained to hunt, retrieve and track wounded games on both land and water. Moreover, while yours might not sign up for those things but instead join other narrower matches or shows, to showcase what you have, or just simply enjoy their enchanting company. What you will one day have is just as valuable us those well celebrated top dogs that its owner is honored to have.

Note, that in whatever activity you want to pursue, never forget the overarching philosophy of training dogs that I’ve taught, which is to play a hunting game with them per se’, or use a hunting game as a reward, in order to wield the dogs energy to radiate intensely where there will not be a dull moment for them even in those mundane exercises.   

Closer to Home (part 2)

Fear Regret more than Failure

Anyone who wants their dog to be a part of their life will spend time with them in the house and run through those routinary things with them instead of just keeping them in the kennel. But other than that, the need to aspire to develop in them special skills that they can perform extensively to make them become more reputable to you and to others is subsequently better than just granting them to be with you. Codify what goes into your mind every time you watch an accomplished dog perform, and instead of simply being overwhelmed, start to make up a notion of the likelihood that who you are watching is now your own dog. Hard to admit but it’s possible if you have the right resources. Remember, time is not a deterrent since you already have that with your dog and you can take that as your advantage. However, the thing you need to learn first is to use two words to keep your dog from being confused once you start to train it. The first is Standards; this means the level of excellence that you are going to accept. The second is Consistency; in order to achieve those standards one must always maintain them. This is often the failure of most so-called professional trainers in requiring a high level of performance when they are seasoning the dog, but when the dog comes home and is in the house, the standard deteriorates to the point where they erode all their field standards, hence the dog ends up puzzled. You cannot afford to do that either. By standards, I do not mean immediate compliance, for our problem is we often envisions the final result at the outset. No, you cannot teach a dog to retrieve by telling the dog to fetch, but you can eventually make it fetch by breaking down the entire process into smaller segments so it can in the course of time, retrieve; more about this is the succeeding discourse. This however is fundamentally what training a dog is all about. Additionally, training should never involve reacting to what the dog is precisely doing or correcting them when they are doing the opposite of what you want them to do. This mistaken notion is again very common because of our tendency to hasten an outcome, instead of reacting to correct that way, you should be asking yourself what am I doing wrong here, what can I break down further to help my dog figure it out for himself or herself? Moreover, in the early stage of teaching your dog something new to them, never use fret to get the dog to do it, you simply need to contrive a way to catch them doing the very thing you want them to do then work it over by assuring your dog for the good behavior. The way to break down the sequence if let us say you want your dog to hold an object in its mouth, is not to force it to its mouth and verbalize a command. But on leash, you can make it play; say a ball, then after a pause start to move and wait until the dog picks up the object to bring with him/her, repeat the pausing until you get the result you want. Some use treats, except that the trouble of giving it over instantaneously takes some time interval, and the dog might have a hard time connecting the treat as its award. You can use an applause as a conduit to the giving out of the final reward, but never to do it all together, one must come first before the other. This is what I mean by breaking down and contriving a way to catch them doing what you want. This also requires repetition to make sure your dog got it under any circumstances, including all types of distractions. Then a periodic repetition to rehearse or recall what it has already learned. That in a nutshell is training and teaching, correcting however must be indirect instead of the usual affront, which means repeating the entire process over and over again to correct the mistake. Once your dog has been taught well and still refuses, then another uncommon scheme is applied, but this has already been dealt in the article about conditioning.  

  

If you get this type of training principle, then you do not need countless hours to train your dog, you only need a few minute to exercise those dissected duties of a task, one-step at a time. 

Closer to Home (Part 1)

Why Train my Dog to Hunt

A member of our group came up with an issue of her five Beagle dogs who hunted and killed all of her neighbors’ chickens. Her remark inferred was what I posted in our news feed on Facebook entitled the ‘playbook’ of using toys to hone the dog’s skill to hunt. This prompted me to respond that the goal in honing dogs to hunt is never to kill their prey but to retrieve or take it to their handler in good condition. After I posted that reply, it then crossed my mind that I just also newly publicized that ‘project preview’ in raising quails for Aubree’s’ hunting activity. Now, there stands an issue that needs to be clarified before decoding further renowned dog trainers’ proficiency in training. You see, the upturn of a hunting activity in our developed world has drastically changed where terms used has to be aptly grasped by new learners. We now have a synonymous word for hunting to mean a true-to-life hunting expedition where the hunter will have to shoot the bird then let the dog retrieve the dead stalked. We also have a ‘Field trial’ which is nothing but allowing each dog to work in the field in an allotted time and be judged in a competitive setting. Criteria varies including which dog has the keenest desire to hunt, their intelligence, ability to find the decoy, style and courage. ‘Hunt test’ on the other hand resulted because most astute trainers saw a disconnect between field trials and real hunting which is non-competitive. Each ‘hunt test club’ developed its own testing systems to provide handlers and their dogs an outstanding preparation for real hunting in general which includes tracking, pointing and flashing in order to startle the bird under a bush to fly and be shot at, in other words, it’s not only retrieving. Now, having seen the broader scope of what is going on in the dog hunting interest will help give you a clearer picture that makes sense of the needful exercises that are set to be practiced or to measure a skill, and the value of drills to teach something by means of repeated exercises known by distinguished handlers as conditioning.     

But surely, the dilemma that most in our group have to wrestle if they intend to train their dog to hunt is to ask the question, up to what extent should I go? Is my inclination up simply to go over those exercises to hone the dog’s instinctive skill to hunt for a narrower end, or is it to prepare the dog to go for a real hunt expedition? If the motive is merely to go over those retrieving exercises, drills, and how it is communicated by the handler, then the use of artificial decoys and toys is more than enough to do the work, and retrieving is its only doable objective. There are however now a lot of other extended matches or competitions associated with any of those narrower exercises in field trials which one can train a dog, like obstacle match wherein training the dog to jump over fences to fetch and retrieve is its objective conditioner, catching Frisbees in the air and giving it back for another toss, and retrieving objects in a body of water, etc. hence one can alternatively go into this instead of going into a field trial competition. In the same manner, one does not have to necessarily stick to those narrower exercises but include tracking skills, pointing skills and flashing skills for the purpose of joining those other associated popularized matches these days. The point I want to make is that each corresponding exercise has a match of the types of sports event being promoted these days where one can either go for it for fun, to join those specific competitions, or make your dog or you as its handler win a certified credential.  

  

My life-long goal and long-term disposition however is to really go for a real hunt expedition here in the Philippines, but this involves a lot of hard work because other than defamers who are intense in propagating half-baked information of our hunting heritage, we also have a weak legislation in enforcing our protected areas, and no effort to engage hunters to manage wildlife populations through sustainable hunting practices. I know that this task is high but I am bent to start somewhere or something that I can pass to the next generation.    

Conditioning Handicap

The term “Functional Conditioning” is actually a utilitarian brush-up of the dog’s natural tendency to be encouraged as well as the avoidance of that adverse consequence when not taking what it has been trained to do. This does not only include the positive and negative reinforcement undertaken during its learning process, the positive and negative punishment imposed to make the dog realize its painful consequence, but also taking into account the dog’s internal capacity to act favorably or indifferently; its lack of inertia; thoughtlessness, etc. In other words, Functional Conditioning does not only involve the behavioral bearing of the dog in taking its chances of the physical reinforcement and the concrete punishments as an outcome of its behavior, but it includes its mental inertia as well. The idea is that task will be performed as taught because the dog also chooses to perform it well and not simply been made as the result of some ‘reflex reaction’ carried through by a stimulus-response. It must take the dog as a whole. This, as compared to the limitation of a maimed schoolwork that we often take to simply mimic the behavior of that sharp tack dog but without the spirit that is behind them. Simply put, you cannot let the dog do a task as quickly as they should by coaching them to do just that, but you can condition it to also want to do it as quickly as it can.

This holistic approach implies redefining a kind of response that is already built in a dog and not largely something that originates from us. It means admitting the reality that they have a very strong instinct to hunt or a craving for prey. You start to condition a dog to get just that and you have in your hands the most powerful patron dog on earth. But to be unaware or neglect this would only mean a costly trade-off, which only stifles the dog’s ability to perform a task with an unflinching energy. It will only make success more difficult to attain and at best, having an inconsistent dog that is oblivious because it is charged to behave in such a way that has become a nagging coercion. Viz., you will then have a handicapped dog despite all its training simply caused by an inert behavior of indifference. 

However, when your method of conditioning is rewarding your dog to be able to hunt or get hold of prey, if you succeed to persuade the dog to deliver what you want because in return it will earn what it really wants as its reward, and this instead of simply phrasing or patting it for a good work. Your conditioning process will excite the dog to play the game with you. Your phrases and patting that accompany that particular task will reinforce their confidence that they are on the right track of getting that reward and so swiftly takes the fastest possible way to get what it really wants.

However, the reality that dogs misjudge or misunderstand your command and even at times get lured by a different enticement or maybe because of exhaustion; not because of an instinctive drift to hunt, but merely a blunder or a misdirection, then you need to make a correction. This is where waves and waves of topics got big nowadays, the victor however, are those that attribute their method of approach is the combination of a positive reinforcement operant conditioning or P.R.O.C. along with the negative punishment approach. It has become so huge and critical that trainers tend to explain it rather than train the dog back to square one. Rather than that, you can instead calmly lead the dog back to where he was before it committed the lapse, to reorient and recondition the dog, then reinforce the verbal command again as you taught it, or using the indirect pressure by utilizing a leash; to have complete control, then see if it has outdone its mistake(s) this time around. To the dog, the recap of the same procedure all over again, is in and of itself, already a form of ‘punishment’, ‘reinforcement’ and ‘pressure,’ that has been polished off, in one short and unsophisticated setting. What’s more, to the dog, the sooner it can self-correct to do what you like it to do, the quicker will you give out its desired reward.  

Functional Conditioning

Scent drives hunting behavior that dogs utilize to both identify and locate prey, though sight and sound also play a very important role. However, what is fundamentally difficult is not so much refining any one of these inherent functions since they are innately capable of utilizing them already. It is how to prompt them to jump-start a tracking task. The key to teaching your dog to learn any command is by respecting the learning process of your dog. Primarily dogs learn from other dogs, but if that is not workable, they can also learn from us through a process called conditioning. Assuming that you have already succeeded in teaching your dog the basic commands: sit, down, and stay. You have already been engaging in what is commonly known as Operant Conditioning. This conditioning leads to a learning process that has something to do with behavior and response, or cause and effect schooling. There is this other conditioning called Classical Conditioning that pairs two stimuli, not two behaviors under the operant conditioning. Since this is carried out by stimuli, it somehow also accomplishes another stimuli; meaning involuntary behavior. To illustrate, when a dog smells, sees or hears prey, its immediate reaction is to hunt it. This has been indicated in my previous article on switching prey with artificial toys by waggling it to catalyze their hunt stimuli instead of just giving it to them like a hand out. 

With these two types of conditioning in mind, you can now break down your scent, sight and sound conditioning suitably. Scent conditioning would mean letting your dog get familiar with the scent of an object, preferably its favorite food or special treat to ooze it to hunt. This exercise must be regularly repeated on a daily basis or until it can adequately associate it as prey. What must take place also is to apply the operant   conditioning every time it succeeds in locating the desired object; through praise or a pat, to express your approval of that behavior. Retrieving nonetheless is conducted in a similar manner except that the goal is how to associate you as their lair, or a place of retreat, or a peace and quiet hideout. Unlike larger hunting animals, lions and bears eat their prey where it falls, smaller animals however, like canines carry their prey back to their lair, where they can eat it safely. Therefore, the best place to start is to determine first where your dog’s lair is. Station yourself where your dog’s lair is then toss an object to let it bring its prey back to its lair. Toss a verbal command shortly thereafter so it can associate it with the task at hand while you slowly move away from the lair, and repeat the exercise until you become its lair. To succeed in conditioning its retrieving instinct, you have already succeeded in ‘sight marking’ after tossing an object to be retrieved, ‘Blind Retrieve’ becomes the next necessary conditioning to enable your dog to take distant cues from you, after it has been sent off. In other words, this is you, who knows where the retrieving object rests and the need to guide your dog; from a distance, to help it locate the object and bring it back to you. This involves sight and sound from a distance where you will need hand signals and a whistle for attention and correction. You can start by making this drill either easier or more difficult by simply shortening the time gap before sending your dog to track and retrieve, and lengthening the distance between you, the dog and the retrieve.     

These conditionings will mean a whole lot if you wish to have complete control in accomplishing any task with your dog outdoors, while off leash, or any sporting activity you wish to engage in.

Nothing but a drill

A dog’s temperament is largely based on its instinctive trait, but for all that, its environment also influences its behavior. Training can help a dog cope with new experiences, but it cannot change its instinctive trait. This in a nutshell is the foundational bedrock of the good, and of course, the partial training methods that is at loggerhead in our modern world of dog training. In other words, incomplete training is customarily the building up of its emotional behavior only, which either leans towards positive or a punitive inducements. However, good training is for the most part, a kind of training to sway a dog to momentarily bridle its prey instinct for better coordination to catch a prey.

A dog’s behavioral aspect primarily rests on stimuli, and since it does not have logic like us; to start with, it is consigned to instinct. Now, the role of stimulus in a dog involves its social interaction, which guides it to action, but the force of its instinct is largely responsible to enable it to make a perfect persuasion or a balanced one. This is what it means to have a forbearing or a coping temperament. It is essentially a dog’s general attitude toward its trainer and as a result of all the other factors that it absorbs while in action. Therefore, what this involves is repeated exercises to gradually shape up its forbearing temperament; it is to condition the dog to mark those appropriate behaviors associated with the cues that the trainer gives while hunting. This training exercise somehow, is similar to the reason why people exercise. Exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, it is not a lifestyle in and of itself, but it conditions you to have an aptitude to succeed in whatever daily affairs you have in life. Hence, a dog with a forbearing temperament that has been alerted by those exercises will mean a better behaved dog in the house, a better dog when you walk it in a park, and a better dog in any sporty activity that you want it to engage in.

A good piece of advice when exercising a dog is to first take an account of the kinds of activity that is involved in your hunting expedition with your dog. Next is to break them down into several exercises and associate them with what kind of cues to give to alert your dog to respond appropriately. The whole activity must be broken down into increments and reduced further into smaller increments to make it easier for the dog to get an overly simplified performance. You must use the same verbal expression or cues so that the dog can easily associate this with the previous exercise it was taught to do. However, when you move on to a new exercise, you must spend a few moments working on exercises your dog already understood before beginning to practice a new one. The main reason for this is to ensure that your dog is in an ideal condition to learn the new exercise. It is also very important that you finish your training sessions with one or two of the exercises he enjoys the most, then follow it up with a brief play session. The idea is that dogs tend to associate the pleasure at the end of an exercise as its sweeping deposition. Furthermore, it is very critical to know that it only takes about 1.5 seconds for the dog to accurately associate the cause and effect of an experience. This means that to teach your dog to do anything beyond this period is not only futile, it will also just confuse your dog or make it learn something that is entirely different from the thing that you want it to learn. Consistency and reinforcement given either during or immediately after a good response, must also be given due consideration if you want to send the same message firmly.  Happy training to all.