What is confidence? Confidence is created. We can argue that some people/dogs are born with more innate confidence than others. But true confidence, especially in a skill, is learned. Confidence can be built up by those around us or eroded. Confidence can be improved by the experiences we have in life, or they can cause us to become insecure. When it comes to our dogs, it’s up to us. We control everything in their environment and their training experience. We can take an innately confident dog and make them insecure and anxious. We can take an innately insecure dog and make them confident. Yes, it can be done. Zeal was unbelievably insecure and nervous. It took enormous amounts of patience, time, and lots of hard work. But eventually he gained enough confidence that he went on to compete at the highest level, in the most challenging environment (the National Obedience Championship) and end up on top. How? That’s what we are going to learn in this course.
First and foremost, we must hold ourselves accountable. We must learn to put ourselves in our dog’s paws. Think about a skill that you are completely and utterly confident in. Can be something like driving, your job, a hobby, a task around the house. Why are you so confident in it? Would you be so confident if you learned it with an incredibly high error rate? Or if your teacher was always pointing out your mistakes, telling you what you are doing wrong and rarely rewarding you for being right. I doubt it. Because failing repeatedly will erode your confidence. Having a teacher/instructor/boss that gives you confusing instructions and expects everyone to understand them can erode your confidence. I’m sure that if we take a moment, we can all think of examples in our own lives. I remember that when my mom tried to teach me how to drive, she was so nervous that all she did was bark rapid fire instructions and critique my driving. I wasn’t learning much. Any confidence I had that I could learn to drive quickly evaporated. And I sure wasn’t enjoying the process. Then my uncle took over. He was calm and reassuring. He told me I was doing a good job. He made suggestions periodically. I was able to process them and apply them. I learned quickly. And it was a pleasant experience. After a few lessons with him, my confidence increased. Was I fully confident when I got my license? Not completely. I knew I could drive around my neighborhood. But I still needed practice driving on highways, with traffic, etc. And I sure had to concentrate!! But with practice, and time, I’ve become extremely confident. Why? Lots and lots of practice. So much practice, that I don’t have to consciously think about driving. It just happens. I’m confident that I can drive in the snow, rain, even sleet, that I can drive city roads, country roads and highways. Why? Because I’ve driven in all of it…many times, successfully.
When working with our dogs, WE create…or erode…confidence. We must give them very clear instructions. That THEY understand. That’s why there can’t be just one method of training. Because different dogs learn differently. We must adjust our training to meet the needs of the dog in front of us. We must help them achieve a high rate of success. Otherwise, it’s just demoralizing. We must be consistent with our information and criteria. Inconsistency is confusing and stressful. It will certainly not build confidence. We MUST learn to read our dogs. They ARE always talking to us. We just aren’t listening. Because our dogs don’t communicate with words. They don’t communicate like humans. We must learn to understand HOW they are communicating and what they are saying. Listening and responding is empowering. For the dogs AND for us! That builds confidence. Dogs must practice a skill over and over…CORRECTLY…for them to truly understand it. If we practice routinely, but a certain percentage of the time the dog is doing it wrong, we are not building confidence. We must understand that when we CHANGE THE PICTURE in any way at all, it’s DIFFERENT for the dog. Dog’s think and process in pictures. Not in words!! In pictures!! Often something changes in training, the dog struggles, and handlers get frustrated. What’s wrong with my dog? They should know how to do this! But we’ve changed the picture. And that’s extremely meaningful to them. They need our help. Yes, dogs must learn to generalize behaviors and adapt to different pictures. BUT only when they are ready. And when we do, we need to help them, so they understand what we want, and they can be successful.
Is your dog confident? We are going to look at confidence with respect to certain trained behaviors. You can choose a behavior(s) or chain of behaviors. Don’t overthink it. Just pick something your dog knows or you are working on. This is not a test. No right or wrong. Just a starting point for our learning. Decide whether your dog is confident with that behavior(s). Pick something you think your dog IS confident in. AND pick something you think your dog is NOT confident in. Then film it. Look at the film. Do you still agree with your initial assessment? Try to be objective, not emotional. Throw out any preconceived notions, ideas or labels. Be a detective. Observe and gather data. Again, this is not a test. If you have a Gold spot, let me see the videos. This way we can analyze them together. This course is going to work a LOT on US as trainers. Why? Not only so you can help your dog…but so you can help them when I’m not around! It’s great for my ego to be needed…but not great for your dog….because I’m not training them…you are! As an instructor, nothing makes me happier than watching students problem solve without me!
Remember, we are focusing on trained obedience behaviors. Your dog may be incredibly confident in life, but not confident in training. Zayna is like that!! She is downright cocky at home, at work, or when she is just being a “pet dog”. But when it comes to training, she is incredibly sensitive, very error averse, and the second she doesn’t understand something…she freezes! I struggled with her for a very very long time because I ASSUMED (oh so wrongly!!!!) that because she was confident in life, she was confident in training. Zesty is just all around confident. However, he still doesn’t like making mistakes. And that will quickly dull his work. His signs are incredibly subtle and can be easily missed. I could erode his confidence in the blink of an eye. Without being aware I was doing it. By the time it was obvious, we’d be in a pretty big hole. The point is, don’t let how they are in life skew what you see in training.
Instructor: Petra Ford
