Have you ever noticed just how serious people become in an environment where education is involved? I guess it’s the conditioning that pervades life, from infancy to adulthood. People are very conditioned into habit patterns. It’s strange that it then seems quite difficult for people to apply that same level of conditioning to their dogs. It’s a similar process….conditioning to produce patterns that work to produce an effect. Perhaps people are not aware of the level of conditioning that structures their lives…..or maybe they don’t want to be aware! Maybe it’s all too subliminal and thus not replicable. Perhaps they don’t recognise ‘conditioning’.
Let’s have a look at some of the aspects involved in conditioning.
For people, conditioning is a fact of life. However, much of it is very subtle. I think the most significant factor is that people always have another person as an influencer. Peer influence forms a significant part of the human perspective…positive or negative! Such is the level of subtlety that it can be hard for people to know whether their choices are their own or generated by another.
Family influence, parental influence, the influence of freinds; these all shape perspective, running almost as a backdrop to life.
Social media influence is a significant driver of choice. Influencers want people to develop habits that align us with them. The most effective influence is almost unnoticeable; it's unobstrusive. When you believe your ideas are self generated, you’re more likely to ‘own’ and sustain those ideas, developing them into lifelong/lifestyle patterns and habits. Hence the world of influence is primarily based on psychological ‘pressure’. It comes at you in a vast multitude of forms, all designed to build ‘loyalty’, allegiance and, of course, habits.
However habits/patterns that work effectively in one instance might have negative effects in another. Working out the various applications and effects is now ‘the job’ of algorithms created by programmers and, if the effect is negative, there’s now a redirect into something where what was ‘negative’ becomes ‘positive’. Perhaps there's even no such thing as 'negative' nowadays as everything gets directed, redirected and pointed towards some facet of engagement. Google any 'media bias chart' and it seems that everything we connect to connects into something else, which in turn connects onwards ad infinitum!
Sometimes the negative has already been factored in and it's been decided that the overarching end justifies the means. Think of workplace stress and how the corporate culture is designed. It seems that stress is something we expect to experience…..it’s just part of living life.
Have you ever done something, a hobby perhaps, that you really didn’t enjoy but you did it because…..well, any number of reasons. The bottom line being that you were under stress whilst doing this ‘enjoyable’ thing and it wasn’t really a pleasure at all!
The other day, whilst driving, I was thinking about this article and, at that moment I saw a woman ‘learning to jog’. She was out with a more experienced runner and the stress she was under was acutely evident! Her movements were very uncoordinated; shoulders hunched and arms moving very stiffly whilst her legs seemed unable to function with any rhythm. Everything about her was constrained and tight, including her expression. There was not an ounce of enjoyment to be seen. Everything screamed ‘stress’. Her companion, on the other hand, was relaxed and did appear to be experiencing enjoyment.
Obviously I have no idea about her back story however I would have liked to have been able to talk with her; to find out how/why this extreme state of stress came into being and the outcome she envisaged. I wanted to offer that there could be a way to make her experience more enjoyable.
We know that sustainable results require a degree of ‘comfort’, psychological and physical. If you aim to repeat something, it really helps if you feel good about it! Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet thousands of people are out there doing ‘stuff’, not because they enjoy it or feel good about it, but because they’re convinced it’s ‘expected’. People tell us they’ve ‘tried so hard’, ‘tried everything’ and ‘put so much time and effort’ into ‘whatever learning process’ they’ve explored.
It’s as if the process of engagement in itself should have produced results regardless of whether the ‘appropriate tools’ were used.
Stephen R Covey frames it this way;
‘We’re so busy cutting through the undergrowth we don’t even realise we’re in the wrong jungle.’It’s customary to think that long periods of time and effort are required for the learning experience. People are conditioned over a lifetime. The education system runs ‘long term’ and although exams are the short form expression of years of study, in the main, people learn by consistent application and consistent pressure to achieve the ‘desired result’. The ‘desired result’, particularly in the exam format, is clearly defined and all the preceding learning is pointed towards that format/result. Mock exams can even be used to assist in the process.
Workplaces run upon job descriptions and achievement. The expectation is always defined and progress monitored. Achieving this, that and the next thing is the goal. I’m sure you can think of lots of similar scenarios.
If we spend days and weeks ‘cutting through the undergrowth’ only to find it’s the wrong jungle, it’s no wonder stress is rife. No-one enjoys being in such an unrewarding situation.
Is any of this fun? Only each individual can be the judge of that!
Dogs, on the other hand, all dogs, just wanna have fun! They’re party animals! Even working dogs enjoy their working environment, otherwise they don’t work!
As Kevin Behan writes in his book ‘Your Dog Is Your Mirror’;
‘When I was a kid, my father used to gather all the trainers who worked for him as well as my mother, my sisters and I into the training hall to clap, holler and yell when a dog successfully pulled the scented block from a pile of sterile or falsely scented blocks. Hearing our cheers, the dog’s tail inflated to full volume, his eyes danced with light and he pranced around the hall with a gait that looked like he was strutting on air. I noticed then that only a dog could be positively affected by so much group excitement.’Dogs love excitement! Just look at the vast number of dog toys that are sold.
Some fun facts!
The global pet toys market size was valued at USD 7.57 billion in 2021. The market is projected to grow from USD 8.01 billion in 2022 to USD 12.63 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 6.73% during the forecast period.Pet Toys Market Size, Growth Statistics & Industry Trends, 2029Fortunebusinessinsights.com
The Interactive Dog Toys market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.4% during the forecast period to 2031.27 Jul 2017
As in the overall market, dogs account for the lion's share of sales, at 75% in 2016, with cats accounting for the remaining quarter. Interesting that interactive toy market growth is forecast to significantly rise. Does this mean that dogs will be playing by themselves….? That’s sad.
It's obvious that dogs are all about fun/emotion. However, when people tell us about training their dogs, there’s no mention of fun/emotion.
One of our reviews specifically mentions the fun our client had with us opposed to the lack of fun with a previous trainer.
Dogs learn best in a way that suits dogs. Trying to fit a human learning format onto a dog is not the most effective process. Sort of round hole and square peg!!
- Make your training session short, focused and fun.
- Stop whilst it’s still fun and be sure to always end with something that can be well executed by both parties.
- You want it to be sustainable and that means creating psychological and physical comfort.
- Take time to think all of this through BEFORE you start.
There are many scientific reasons to favour play and fun engagements rather than serious and strict ones; here are a couple.
The amygdala, which helps coordinate emotional responses, can be triggered by fearful faces and fearful cues. People can look and act in fearful ways when they're locked into a serious mode. Your dog will see and feel your tension and his/her chemical response will kick into action.
The hippocampus is a complex brain structure which has a major role in learning and memory. It is a plastic and vulnerable structure that gets damaged by a variety of stimuli. It also plays a role in emotional processing, including anxiety and avoidance behaviors.
These two brain structures 'share' information during the process of memory consolidation.
I saw a dog being welcomed by his temporarily absent 'dad'. Unfortunately the dad's gesture towards the dog was such that the dog retreated and barked. A well intentioned action gone wrong and one that could have been easily avoided if 'dad' had welcomed his dog in a dog centric way.
Working with your dog needs a lot of thought and understanding. Providing stimulus via fun is not the whole story but it does make a big difference to most training scenarios.
Bring the best of yourself to your best friend.
