Assessment:
Love it or hate it, it makes you grow.
Kay Laurence Oct 2009
Most of us, especially in the dog training world, evolve through an onslaught of judgement: from whether we should have the dog we have or not, to whether we are making the best job of training it. Passing judgement on other people’s dogs seems to be a favourite and highly reinforcing pastime. This judgement is external, it is not relevant to your relationship with your dog. That “prune” faced passer-by who thinks you have too many dogs to scornful looks in training classes when your dog is “behaving badly”. Frequently we work with people who have bent under this inexcusable judgement and completely lost their relationship with their dog. They try to make their dog something is it not to please complete strangers. What is more important is assessing yourself and your dog’s abilities, goals and aspirations and making changes where you identify those changes need to be made to the benefit of you and your dog, not the passing world.
Assessment can be defined as “the sampling of some aspect of a person’s or dog’s behaviour at a particular moment.
At Learning About Dogs we operate a Competency Assessment Scheme. It is designed to provide a structured curriculum to develop an individual’s skills, and through assessment against set criteria, progress can be measured. Assessment can range from very informal minute to minute assessment of the environment, the behaviour, the training plan, the progress etc; to quite formal programs for certification.
At the beginning is self assessment: what learning and skills do I already have? What areas need development and what areas are strong?
Everyone brings existing skills to dog training. These can vary from good planning and organisation – making sure you have the clicker to hand, the treats ready to go, the object ready for presentation to creativity in think of new cues for the cool behaviours. Our minds have developed in many ways to suit the careers we choose. Often I see a total abandonment of these skills when faced with those adoring brown eyes that cue food on demand. Even a quick glance at the CAP criteria http://www.learningaboutdogs.com/html/cap.html you will find a few criteria to measure your skills against.
Can you use the clicker in both hands with equal skill? This is not just to measure the motor skill of clicking, but it often measures the motor skill of delivery of the reinforcer. When we begin we will tend to favour our dominant hand for the clicker, leaving the treat delivery to the weaker hand – when in fact the other way around becomes the preferred choice with experience. The hand that is not holding the clicker will often be the hand that gives the cue or signal. If we stay in a one sided bias the dog will begin to favour focussing on the active hand. Having the discipline to work with both hands, and practice the least favoured arrangement until both hands are equally competent is more than essential if you want to move your clicker training skills forward. Even highly skilled trainers need to make this check on a regular basis. If you need to practice the left hand holding the clicker on a target stick and presenting and moving that target clearly, consistently and still being able to click, then leave the dog with his bone, and go practice it.
Self assessment without the necessary discipline to improve the weaker areas is interesting but not really useful. We often look at the dog needing to improve, not us.
Once you have to mindset to self assess and the discipline to improve you can begin to assess the environment and how it is affecting you and the dog, whether it is suitable for the behaviour you are trying to teach, or whether the cue you just gave is likely to happen in this situation. You become more realistic in your own abilities and strengths, and those of your dog. You begin to reflect whether the behaviour the dog exhibits is a reflection of your own strengths and weaknesses and not the dog’s. This is a big part of self development, the dog’s training is a product of your teaching, and responsibility for that is entirely yours.
Assessment is not judgement. The difference between assessment and judgement is a different mindset, different approach and a different outcome. Learning to assess, yourself, your dog, or your class is a key skill without which your development can be seriously restricted.
|
