Category: Experiments and Theory

Ellie is a well-behaved and calm dog. She achieved that from her natural personality and a lot of training during the puppy years. But I’ve grown suspicious of two things: 1. my training may not have been as effective as I think and 2. I might have trained too much or too strictly.

Note: for this article, I am referring to the “puppy” stages as primarily from about 6 months to 2 years. That is the time period in which I was most focused on obedience training.

1. my training may not have been as effective as I think

I have this suspicion that the results of rigorous and strict training may not fully manifest themselves until adulthood. Another way to think of it is that, puppies may act in a way that doesn’t necessarily indicate their future obedience even though your training is actually working. The reason is because puppies, like children, are more spontaneous, unpredictable, energetic, and driven by their emotions. Your training may be constructing a well-behaved adult dog, but it won’t be fully realized until they’ve grown into their adult mind. The problem is that, if you don’t know this, you may overcompensate and train even harder because you’ve developed increasingly high expectations for how your growing puppy should behave. But expecting that level of consistency in a young puppy will only result in frequent disappointment as they express their high levels of energy in ways that you consider bad behavior.

2. I might have trained too much or too strictly

Due to the misaligned expectations from above, I found myself training extra hard and setting strict ground rules to try and force this expressive young dog into complying with my expectations. The result being that I may have suppressed Ellie’s natural personality. Instead of a more carefree dog, I have a dog that is always looking to me for commands, always slightly on alert, almost too calm and obedient at times. I should have been less serious and more accepting of failure. I should have let things go and moved on to train another time. I may have successfully shaped her into a reliable and obedient dog, but then I continued to drive the point across until she felt powerless to make decisions without my guidance. This is an interesting problem to consider. How do our unique personalities and flaws influence our training? How does that inadvertently affect our dogs? How much of it is misaligned with what we’re actually trying to achieve?

There are many other factors to consider as well. As a new dog owner, I was very excited to test my hand at training and as a result I focused far more on training than play. In a way, it reminds me of the relationships where one parent is known as the disciplinarian while the other is known as the “fun one”. Both are important, but it changes how your child sees with you. I’ve also observed, and been told, about aspects of my own personality that probably played a hand in shaping Ellie as well. I am calm, quiet, rational, level-headed, rarely emotional, and shy. All those traits undoubtedly passed on to Ellie who has spent 99.9% of her life with me. Mimicry is a powerful mammalian behavior and what I see in her may be a reflection of myself. To create a more playful and boisterous dog, I probably need to change how I express my own self in the world. Another facet of my personality is that I am highly observant. I’ve watched Ellie closely her whole life in an effort to shape her behavior and keep her safe, but that level of scrutiny may have reinforced a somewhat paranoid dog. Imagine being studied by a powerful, seemingly omnipotent figure your entire life. I’d imagine that could intensely change how you behave and express yourself.

Obviously, I don’t know if these things are true, but I have internalized this lesson as something to carry over to my next dog. In the meantime, Ellie leads a great life with an owner that is focused on her well-being and happiness. But I am a highly critical person and rarely satisfied with the status quo. I can see paths forward that lead toward improvement and perfection, but I could do with a lesson in accepting failure and relaxing the rules. Especially when the target of that focus is unable to share an opinion or vote on the measures. Sorry Ellie, I’m doing my best!

Visualizing dog behavior as a stream of 1’s and 0’s that you can interact with and alter over time

I have a tendency to associate “no” only with truly bad behavior whereas I use “good” more ambiguously. There is also a third adjective describing “neutral” responses which may include you exchanging looks with your dog, but that involves no reaction or commands. These statements define an invisible boundary in our world that your dog navigates. I like to think of it as binary with 0 = off = bad and 1 = on = good. In every moment, there is a continuous string of 1’s and 0’s being activated and deactivated in the space around you by the decisions your dog is making. You define the path it takes by instructing it. As your dog looks towards the garbage, a good trainer has identified an early point to ensure the dog doesn’t consider that an option. As it stares and starts to move forward the 1’s turn to 0’s and the dog reacts by changing focus or backing off. Not because it understands that going in the trash is bad, but because it “feels” or remembers the negative association. If the dog hasn’t been properly instructed though then it remains as 1’s and the dog is free to move forward into the trash beyond the barrier you failed to construct into new territory not previously defined by your rules. It’s basically a changing data stream with clear definitions of what is good and what is bad. If there is ambiguity, then the dog won’t know and maybe that’s where we get into neutral territory or just a mix of 1’s and 0’s the dog can’t properly interpret. In a more simple sense, what I’m talking about is clear, unambiguous language about what you want from your dog. Early on I was saying things like, “don’t do that,” “hey,” “cmon,” pay attention,” etc. These are too complex and don’t clearly define what it is I want my dog to do. If Ellie is standing near me and wandering around and sniffing she’s in neutral territory, but as soon as she steps too far away it’s a clear “no” command or 0. If she returns it’s a clear “good” command or 1. I try to refrain from saying things like “come back” or “hey, too far.” Human language is too ambiguous to an animal. Instead, “no” should create a clear boundary around “good” territory your dog can operate within.

The initial difficulty I faced with this was changing my perspective about what “no” meant. “No” was supposed to be an extreme, a truly bad behavior I didn’t want and most situations don’t warrant that reaction. But as I changed how I thought about it, “no” needed to become more common. In fact, it needed to become almost as common as “good” because the two define each. If most everything is “good” and only some rare occasions are “bad” then there is a lot of undefined territory the dog can navigate through without limits. To make this work I realized that subtle behaviors needed to be controlled instead of just major “good” and “bad” events. Ellie ran across the street a few times to meet another dog and was punished afterwards, but before that there were cues about the impending behavior. Those also needed to be defined with “good” and “bad” directives. Heightened interest in the other dog, shifting her body away from me, deviating from the walk, not listening to my commands, and then moving toward the other dog are all events which “no” can be used to further mitigate the risk of running across the street. All of them are bad, but the dog doesn’t know it if you don’t define them. On the flip side, I want Ellie to sniff around and be curious, I want her to chew on a stick and run around happily, I want her to be as free as possible. This is why I mentioned neutral behavior as well. This third type of behavior doesn’t necessitate a response. It is not something good you want them to do continuously or bad and want them to avoid, but it is within the territory of good behavior.

To successfully accomplish this you need to be aware and reflect on the behaviors and actions your dog takes. You need to recognize subtle cues that led to bad behavior and further sculpt the boundaries that mitigate them. Mastering this can also present a visual tool to better understand your furry friend and make wise training decisions on the fly. It may also help explain why your dog does what it does and why it doesn’t understand certain other things. It can also open the door to a more healthy relationship and a more realistic perspective of how they think.

Additional note: along with unambiguous language, this method encourages rigorous consistency. If you allow your dog to be bad sometimes, but not others, there will be a confusing mix of 1’s and 0’s you’re relying on them to interpret properly. If, however, you work to ensure paths and boundaries are clearly defined and very consistent, there will be little error your dog can make.