And Why Can’t He Refuse?

by | Feb 6, 2023

“Don’t want to. Don’t care.”

 He’s not a teenager anymore, but boy does he sure act like one at times.

“Nah.”

(Of course, I’m sure he’d say the same thing about me: “doesn’t listen,” “knows what she wants and relentlessly pursues it,” “head like a sieve”…we’re not going to talk about my counter-surfing at this point).

Whatever.”

But he’s a dog who has a very strong idea of what earns rewards, what rewards he wants, and what has helped him acquire those rewards in the past.

Don’t we all? And isn’t this how we learn?

Most often, his “prefer not to, thanks very much” arises out of that learning history: either a strong history of rewards that exerts an equally strong influence over his choices, or a gap in his learning that I’ve overlooked in making a request of him. And it’s absolutely his right to refuse. And the onus is entirely on me to ensure the foundational learning is in place before asking anything of him.

This is most certainly not stubbornness.

Still for him, and for all dogs, I bristle at the insistence that a dog will assent to any request we make if they understand what we’re asking and if the rewards we offer are of sufficient value.

There is as great a risk in perceiving our dogs as creatures who may wilfully refuse as there is in perceiving them as creatures who can be trained to do anything. Neither of them is respectful either of who they are or of the learning process itself. And these positions aren’t as far apart as they might appear on first glance.

I appreciate that the claim that dogs don’t wilfully refuse our request grows out of a resistance towards traditional training methods that treat a dog’s learning like a battle of wills. But the suggestion that dogs can be moulded into doing whatever it is that we desire if our training and our rewards are of sufficient quality is equally coercive. Both perspectives arise from a tendency to desire that our dogs’ lives and decisions be ultimately within our control, however seemingly benevolent the underlying intention.

Instead, we can, and perhaps should ask questions about what we seek to teach them and why, whether it is in line with who they are and what they have already learned. We can think about designing and engineering their learning to set them up for success.

If we view learning as an opportunity rather than an imperative, then it becomes dialogic: a way of engaging with, connecting with each other, of conversing, and exchanging knowledge. In this, we open ourselves up to the wonderful potential of filling our own learning gaps: of understanding the why behind what we might perceive as error or refusal…and perhaps of being humble enough to recognise that like all of the most successful partnerships, we can negotiate and compromise with our dogs while helping them develop the skills to move through our human-oriented world. Much as they do for us in theirs.

Training is something that is done TO the dog. Learning is something that happens FOR the dog.

More Reading

Chasm Opening Up

The gulf in approaches to living with dogs; the persistence of a focus on compliance and obedience, even if differently packaged. This blogpost argues for learning to be underpinned by connection, mutual reward, and a focus on lifeskills. It proposes some methods for developing connection and learning from our dogs.

Shaping By Rewards

Using the example of Zip’s protectiveness of valuable food resources, this essay demonstrates the ways in which careful examination of what an individual finds rewarding can shape the learning by addressing needs.

Can’t Not Learn

Since learning is always happening, how do we take responsibility for it, and how should we assess what learning is happening?

What is a Trainer?

Opening with a consideration of the multivalence of the term “trainer,” this post explores different approaches to the engineering of learning from sports to life skills. It thinks more broadly about the development of skills as a way to address seeming “behaviour issues,” and reflects on the fact that by building the process of engineering learning on rewards and connection the gulf of understanding between the two species involved can be bridged.

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Key Reading

Think carefully

We cannot presume a cue is a reinforcer unless we can shape a new behaviour using that cue as the marker. Read carefully. Think carefully. Consider multiple perspectives. Sometimes it seems easier to let someone else do the thinking for you and just copy, but we need to become thoughtful trainers.

When we train a dog it grows

Most training starts from necessity. Management is a necessity but it usually benefits all parties by a reduction of conflict. Are they expanding their skills to benefit us or for their benefit?

The Spaces Between

At the heart of learner-centred education, the teacher acts as a guide whose role is to elicit rather than to impart, and learners quickly become empowered and equipped to transfer their knowledge and skills to new scenarios.

No room for mechanics

If your ambition is to have good mechanics in communication to animals then you may find yourself blocked into a tight corner

The choice of lure

Luring teaches trainers essential skills. We learn how to use suggestion and guidance to shape behaviours. We learn how to explain dynamic movement in the cues from our hands. In combination with reinforcement, luring has without doubt, been one of the skills I value most as a trainer.

What’s Cooking? A Warning About Recipes

Recipes for “training” dogs are so prevalent in how we live with and talk about them that their existence often goes unquestioned.

Dogs are Born To Learn

We can build tremendous learners when we get beyond the idea that “dogs are trained”.

Chasm opening up?

The more I see “sit, down, come, stay heel” as the essential basics the more I am moving further away from the general view of living with dogs.

What is a Trainer?

I know what I am, as a trainer. But does my view of “A Trainer” coincide with, or even overlap with yours?

Shaping by rewards

When I see a dog showing a behaviour that is heading towards potential conflict, my first question is “what rewards are available?”

Top Training

Stop doing that ….

Can we teach an effective Cease That Behaviour? Absolutely. We can teach that positively, without harm, and we should teach them the skills of stopping that and doing this instead.

Remote lures

Lures at a distance, separated from hands, pockets . Using reward stations, patterns, containers

Going Shopping

This is a joint travelling adventure. It completely resets the learning and can easily extend the reinforcement process.

Obnoxious Puppy

The delight of your new puppy is probably going to last a few weeks, maybe four if you are lucky. When 12 weeks old hits, and you will feel a slam, the Delight is going to demonstrate ungrateful, obnoxious traits.

Surprising Puppy

Surprising Puppy. With obnoxious moments. After introducing the obnoxious puppy as a youngster I am knocked over by the Delightful Young Man he is turning into……

Cue Seeking

Being an active learner and seeking opportunities for more rewards

Release cue or stay cue

Many of us begin with teaching sit or down, and this is one of the earliest experiences of training with reinforcement. Is the sit, or down, going to be a terminal behaviour, or a temporary position?

Not all lures contain food

“the direct use of the reinforcer to elicit the behaviour”
This should always be foremost in our mind, in that many alternatives lures are available.

Evidence of learning

When we use the words “teach” or “train” child, person or dog, the operative term implies that the process is under the ownership of the teacher or trainer. What your teacher thinks you have learned may not be what you actually learned.

Duration or is it Breakfast in Bed?

Teaching duration has become a very muddied understanding or what it is and how to teach it. This is partly due to how we use words that are the same but have entirely different meanings.

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