같은 집 다른 규칙: 강화 기반 개 훈련이 효과가 있을까요? #118

you're creating a transfer of value. So, the reinforcement value of the food, the toy, chasing somebody or something, that reinforcement value gets transferred into you. And that's why we're doing all these things. So, let's unpack now the scenario of, well, what if your husband's doing one thing and you're doing something else? I'm going to give you two examples. First of all, a friend of mine who, she trains her dog very much the way we subscribe. And she has her dog sit at the door and her dog isn't, you know, allowed to beg at the table, et cetera, et cetera. Her husband has completely different rules. The sit at the door is a sometimes thing. If he feels like it, or if the dog bolts out the door, he might say, Hey, hey, come on back here. Most of the time it's just, let's go outside. And they, they all go out together. They retrieve in the backyard. But if the dog doesn't bring it back, that's okay. He was out doing yard work anyway. And while he eats his meal, the dog always gets some from the plate. So, guess what? The dog always begs from him. And so, there are two different sets of rules. Does that mean that because he isn't creating any rules or following up on the rules you'd like to see enforced, that means that my friends, let's call her Kim. My friend Kim. My friend Kim has no hope of training her dog. Oh, nay, nay. It's like, think about this. If you have a dog in a fenced-in backyard and on the outside of the fence is like this massive, like Shangri-La for dogs, right? There's people handing out treats all over. There's dogs playing fetch. There's dogs chasing dogs. There's agility. There's everything you want outside that fence. Now the dogs inside this wooden fence and they just were kind of like, you know, trying to look through the cracks of the fence and notice, Hey, this board's open. Hey, I just pushed through and I'm free. Well, guess what? The next day they're going to go out in the backyard. And how long will it take for them to go over and start pushing the boards beside the one that got them out until they figure out which one got them out. And then voila, I'm free back to Shangri-La. Now, after days and days and days of this, do you think your dog will ever go over to the boards over here that never, ever let them out and start pushing on them? They won't, will they? Because dogs understand how to earn reinforcement. And so, if your husband is a gaping hole in the fence, your dog knows to expect that. But that doesn't mean your dog's going to expect the same with you because you

have never been the gaping hole in the fence. You have always held firm to, in order to get this, you have to do that. And so, it is never a waste of your time. Now let's talk about the consistency within what you do. What if, oh, Susan, some days I'm in a hurry. Like I'm dressed for work and my dog doesn't sit. I got to let him out. Like just once in a while, that's all right, right? My mentor, the iconic Bob Bailey, he has this rule of thumb that if 10% of the time you make an error in your training, it's not going to affect the overhaul behavior if 90% of the time it's really good. But here's where people make a mistake. They say, well, 90% of the time my dog is doing the sit and I'm opening the door and they're going out. But you know what? I was really, I was in a hurry and I let them out because I was ready to, I had to go to work. And then I was late for work and I just had to get them out. And then I was on my way. I came home from work, but I had to go out to a meeting. So, I just had to let them out. And so, what's going to happen is your dog, they're going to recognize the gaping hole in the fence. They're going to recognize, well, when she's all dressed like this and a little bit agitated with different energy, it's pretty close to 100% of that time. We don't have to sit. We can just, that fence is broken, babe. We're going. So, do you see that 10% is 10% of that situation? So, people in dog agility, they say, oh, my dog never breaks a start line at home, but at the, you know, in the ring, yeah, he doesn't hold it. But that's like, that's less than 10% of the total. We do a lot of stays at home. Again, it's 100% of the time in the ring. So, even if it was like 50% of the time in the ring, your dog's still going to be pushing that fence board to see if, hey, we're trial time. Probably don't have to stay at this one. Let's give it a go. Okay. And so, that's how criteria works. And I want to share with you how you can possibly get your husband on board because we have to consider what is your husband's perception is his reality. He's seeing a control freak. You are making the dog do something because you want to show that you have more power over that dog. But what if we could show him a different picture in that it isn't about the sit, it's actually about the release. We need the dog to understand you do this, then you get that. I want to share how important transfer value is because my late husband who loved the dogs dearly, he was much like my friend that I called Kim. And her husband's that my late husband really didn't have many rules that he upheld. And here's

the interesting thought. He fed the dogs almost exclusively. I almost never fed the dogs. So, they got manna for heaven twice a day, no rules. I mean, all they do is they knew to be in their crates because I had established that rule. But you know, he didn't have to enforce it. They just did that. He delivered, you know, your breakfast. You don't have to do anything. He didn't care if your feet were in, were out. You were nearby. You were in somebody else's crate. You were standing kind of close. You got twice a day, you got these amazing meals. So, all this reinforcement, cookies for nothing. The other thing that I would share with you about John is he also gave them bedtime cookies. And when they wanted to go outside, they never had to sit. Rarely, rarely did they have to sit. And if they sat kind of crouched, if they kind of near the ground, that's fine. Just every, okay, go on break. You can go, you can get out there. And so, from the outside you go, okay, Susan, control freak. You make sure that you don't feed the dogs unless they're in their crate. You have these rules to live by. And if you remember from episode 117, which was my last episode, I spoke about how all of these lifetime guidelines of transferring value with my release word helped create value for me. And so, my dogs on an annual basis had about 6,400 times they heard the word break from me that helped build value. Because what happens after the word break? You get to do something you love. Go outside, leave the crate and play tug with me. Every time you hear the word break, you're getting reinforced by what happens after. Okay. So, these are two different scenarios. With my late husband, John, no rules. Really the only rules, don't go on his couch. That annoyed him. But basically no rules. And the vast majority of the food rewards ever given to those dogs were given by John for no reason. Now, if John was out in the yard and a car should happen to come up and my dogs would go, oh company. And they'd go running over and he'd call them. They rarely would come back. If he was in the kitchen and asked them to sit, they would likely to sit because there's a possibility they might feed him. My dogs really didn't listen to John that well because there was never the transfer of value. Because all of the reinforcement had zero contingencies to it. I get what I want when I want. Imagine if you had somebody who worked for you that you paid them from working from nine to five and they showed up at 11 sometimes and they left at two and they sometimes just had a little nap

in their office instead of actually working, but they still got the same paycheck every time. Eventually you would find they do less and less and less because they still got the same paycheck every time. All right. And so, that's what happens when your rules are sloppy or non-existent. So, what we can share with your husband is not about you being a control freak. It's about you really wanting to be that person that trains a dog in a way that they're moving towards. Because if we don't get that transfer of value, if we don't get our dogs seeing value in us, then the only thing that my late husband John could have done if he needed to stop my dogs from doing something would be to yell at them, to apply punishment, which he wouldn't do. He just didn't care. And so, you've got those two choices. Do you want a dog who moves away because you've punished him? Don't do that. You get off. No, stop it. So, then you have a dog who is a little more cautious of you, who learns, she doesn't like me on the couch when she knows I'm on the couch. So, I just have to learn with the times when she might know I'm on the couch, all those other times I'm on the couch. Versus teaching a dog to not want to get on the couch. Right? One is the dog does something. We're living in do land. The other, they're moving away. And so, have that conversation with your husband. And then you can say, Hey, I'm okay if you don't want that transfer of value. If you just want to hang out with the dogs without rules, but I'd like to give it a go. I'd like to try what this Susan Garrett person is talking about and try to see if I can start building a contingency of when you sit at the door, you get to go outside for a car ride. If you sit before I take your leash off, you then get permission to go for a swim in the pond. I'd like to start to get some of those 6,400 repetitions in a year that Susan gets that is a transfer of value. See if that doesn't make a difference in my overall dog training. Would you be supportive of me doing that? You don't have to do it yourself because Susan's shared with me, you can be the gaping hole in the fence. But I'd like to be that strong board that my dog can rely on that's going to be there consistently applying the same contingencies. See what your husband says and let us know how it goes for you. I'll see you next time right here on Shaped by Dog.