It took me a long, long time of deciding first to actually buy a handgun and then to choose a model. The entire year and a half was filled with behavioral self-assessment and training plans — this was one area where my professional skills have been put to good use!
I had a great idea for a training advertisement, all seasonal and humorous. And I had a great photographer to hand. To shoot it, however, we’d need to take a crazy, fractious dog who had been trained to polite house manners and make her look again like a stereotypical “bad dog.”
It was a ton of fun.
In mid-October, I embarked upon a new learning experience — handling and shooting a firearm. I spent nearly a year and a half researching this prospect, deciding if it were a path I wanted to start down, and I’d decided firmly that if I were to have a gun, I would train to a high level of fluency and competency.
Imagine my delight, then, when among the usual trash advice dispensed to newbies in any sport or hobby, I encountered some truly fantastic, behaviorally-sound recommendations for learning to shoot and handle safely.
I am continuing to find more help in my professional life for my personal life, such as for increasing my physical fitness. There are all kinds of behavioral principles at work here! What’s working for me right now?
Today’s riddle: How is a 5-year-old human like a spotted hyena? (Aside from eating habits and destructive potential!)
One of the toughest things about being a behavior professional is that one doesn’t have many excuses. When I do something stupid, I can easily identify it and the triggers (if any) and a way to avoid it the next time by choosing an alternate behavior instead. That doesn’t mean I will, but it means I can, and then I can feel a bit stupid again for failing to choose the better behavior.
It also means I know better than to feel bad about a past decision instead of simply focusing on new behavior. But, y’know, the cycle repeats.
Right now, though, I’m applying my professional knowledge with good results, and I’m blogging here to keep up my motivation and, maybe, help someone else do something similar!
Like many dog owners, I’ve gotten spoiled by having a mature, well-trained dog in the house. Naturally, when we first bring home a new member of the family, we are obsessed with teaching all sorts of critical foundation skills (targeting, door and leash manners, handling exercises, and so on). But once those initial behaviors are in place, we give them little thought because we’re too busy focusing on performance behaviors, or working skills, or the next cute pet trick — whatever our particular venue may be.
What this means is that once I’ve taught my dog the way I need her to comport herself in the house, I get lazy. I do things I would never think of doing with a novice dog. And fortunately, our style of training holds up brilliantly in real-life situations — which, as a matter of fact, is why I still have the load of groceries I bought tonight.
We emphasize focusing on the positive in clicker training — not pointing out a mistake, but determining a concrete, alternate behavior instead. In dog manners training, this often appears as replacing “don’t jump” with “sit to greet.”
But really, what’s the harm in pointing out a mistake? Sometimes we have to know what’s wrong so we know to avoid it, right? And surely we humans are smart enough to think through the big picture?
Eh, not so much.
You’ve tried everything — desensitization, counter-conditioning, safe places, and more — and it’s not enough? Or you know your panicked dog needs relief now while you start other protocols. Here are some more tools to consider.
As I write this post, thunder is rolling overhead with enough resonance to shake the house. As I write this post, a Doberman is curled up at the foot of my bed. That’s our only storm coping tactic at the moment. How does this work?