training

[seppalta]

Seth: I remember from the meeting in September you were talking
about training dogs at wheel with no neckline. Is there anything else
to do along with this process, or should just running them without a
neckline promote working? The couple of times we've tried this, the
dogs slack far off to the side. Is this normal?

Doug: There is no normal. Anything from lieing down and temporarily
getting drug backwards to speeding up and doing what you want them to
do is possible. The point is to get them to do what you want or to
give them a traumatic experience without hurting them. Dogs, like
most creatures, do not like trauma. Generally, often only one
experience, is enough to teach them a lesson, that is, when put back
into a normal hook-up with neckline attached, they seem to realize
that "he won't do that to us again if we just work hard and run
fast."

As for running out or falling back, but still moving forward, I try to
apply what psychologists call negative reinforcement. You can either
bump them with your sled or slap them with something, in my case I
always carry an extra tugline in case I break one on the trail. Give
them a sound slap with the snap end. Psychologists also talk about
"escape avoidance" in this context, the subject should be allowed a
way to escape the punishment, and if applied correctly the path of
escape should coincide with what you want him to do. The situation
here is perfect. If he runs ahead, he escapes the punishment (slap or
bump) and does exactly what you want. However, as I indicated in the
first paragraph, it doesn't always work this way, but can still
accomplishes the end that you want. When "escape avoidance" doesn't
happen, then usually a traumatic event occurs and "avoidance of
trauma" accomplishes the desired goal. The worst situation is when
the dog just "floats", that is moves along fast enough to stay out of
your reach, doesn't cause a traumatic event and doesn't pull
anything. Get rid of this kind of dog.