Dogs are Born To Learn
Tremendous Learners
Dogs Are Born To Learn
What do we want our dogs to learn? What skills are going to be of greatest value to them? Learning to learn is a skill. It is full of critical elements that will transfer to everything they do for the rest of their lives.
A pup can learn to recognise signals and movements from people: when food is coming, what affection is available, what to watch quietly and study their world. A blend of observation skills, memorising patterns and distinguishing sounds. Where to pee and when rewards are bonuses. Selecting what is relevant and what is not in connection with what directly affects them.
Learning to move with balance, coordination, power: negotiate staircases, climb in an out of cars, walk with a different people, balance to be able to pee, run without crashing into trees. Learning motor skills that can underpin lifelong movements begins with simple disciplines, such as siting, with good form. Poor form can lead to discomfort, injury and inflexibility. Learning to run to a stop, run to grab a toy, racing with friends, dancing for butterflies can be enjoyed when the foundations are sound.
The learning skills do not happen by accident. Any dog can develop these at any time when given the right opportunity to learn. This begins with their natural enthusiasm for learning combined with a plentiful choice of rewards.
When a dog feels safe and comfortable learning will happen when given the right guidance along their individual learning pathway. A pathway planned for their individual future. Not too much too soon, not too difficult to progress from one stage to the next, not struggling to learn for tricks or to “impress” but to become a Tremendous Learner. A pathway that is filled with ease and pleasure.
This pathway is laid by our skills to be able to see what they are learning, adjust that learning and design situations to build flexibility and strengths. A pathway to bloom and flourish.
Learning to See Learning Happen
Instead of “training the dog to …”
Training the dog to sit?
Dogs already know how to sit before we come along. The process gets dirty when we try to train them in how they sit or when they sit. Training implies it will be done in the way we expect, repeated on demand and expected without question.
A lack of clarity to see poorly executed movement that gets reinforced because: “well, the butt hit the floor”, can develop a body with injury, discomfort and inflexibility and dog that avoids movement or only performs when they have little choice.
Wonky sits, two-steps-back-before-a-plonk sits, sit-hopping are all demonstrating a lack of the skill in the movements. These 6 week old pups are lacking muscle structure. If we carefully watch the process of sitting of a skilled dog we can see the order of the muscle engagement.
Do you know the good form required for any movement your dog will learn?
Looking at these we can see that the movement is carried out in different ways, even though the outcome: A Sit, is the same.
These 6 week old pups have yet to develop muscle and structure and learn good form.
This is very much “butt hits floor”. We need to consider what we are rewarding.
What learning is happening?
Learning follows a pathway of stages and then by gradually integrating different processes.
Learning begins with knowing WHAT to do: which muscles must be engaged and HOW they will do it. The movement of muscles is coordinated and executed in a specific order:
~ Information as to WHICH muscles will contract
~ the FORCE with which they will contract
~ ORDER and temporal phasing (timing) of the contractions
As the specific actions take place there is feedback and adjustment happening when the output of the muscle action is monitored.
If the order is incorrect we see the dog step backwards, often without sitting. This is a balance change happening before the rear leg muscles have contracted. If a dog is choosing to sit forwards (front feet remain stationary) then the back feet need to step forwards before contraction. If the dog is to sit backwards the front feet need to be moving backwards as the rear legs contract. Getting the order right will affect the outcome. We can develop a skill of monitoring the movements before the resulting sit position to identify what learning is happening.
Learning the forward sit: the rear legs coming towards the front legs.
Learning technology
By learning the underlying technology in detail we become skilled at being able to build a plan and guide the dog to gain more rewards. It matters little how your dog chooses to park their own butt, but it matters a great deal that you understand the learning needed to be able to do this successfully and assist a dog that struggles to complete this or any other movement.
Is your dog comfortably walking at your side or ambling, strolling, pacing or trotting? Do you know the difference and know good form? Is the dog able to move with ease and comfort or compromised by the equipment or reinforcement process?
If you are familiar with horse riding then you will be aware that knowing these gaits is critical to success but the dog world is poorly backward in teaching this basic understanding.
Dogs who need our guidance can benefit significantly when we become diligent students of learning.
We can build tremendous learners when we get beyond the idea that “dogs are trained”. We can build learning skills so that they can:
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- process faster and develop the learning skills with ease
- make changes and adapt their learning with flexibility
- develop their abilities to assess and process situations
- read the environment and begin physical preparation in anticipation
- increase perceptive skills
- recognise and remember more stimuli, environments and situations
Are you moving towards designing learning for the way that learner chooses to learn or just carrying on training the way you like to train?
More learning opportunities
If you are interested – the Born To Learn course starts in March 2023:
If you would like to explore the detail of teaching something simple with good form:
