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.