Don't Quit Now!

No, this isn't a post about me quitting twitter! But, I did quit, so I'm relying on you, my readers to spread the word about my blog and my unique viewpoint. E-mail a link to this blog to your dog friends!

Quitting is a common problem on both ends of the leash. Faced with the impression of less success than desired, the subject says, "Hey, this isn't working. I should stop now, because this is a waste of time." (Ok, dogs don't waste time thinking words, but you get the idea.)

When the subject is quitting destructive behaviors, like yank-based training or digging holes, quitting is a good, smart thing! We could call that "extinction". It makes good sense to quit doing things that fail to work. We've all heard the quote, attributed to Albert Einstein, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

But when the learner quits due to a false sense of failure, quitting is a huge mistake.

In order for a dog to learn, things have to go successfully, or as desired, only slightly more than half the time for the dog to learn. Animals, in general, have a much better understanding of probability than humans. If you are getting what you want 3 out of every 4 times? 75% success? You are well on your way to more success!

Unfortunately, what often happens is that humans don't see 75% success as good enough. They look at that same 75% success as 25% failure, focus on that failure and blow it way out of proportion. The situation feels out of control, the dog is "untrainable", the technique doesn't work, and we throw out baby and bathwater and just give up.

"We'll just have to put her in the back room when company comes over."

Or, instead of just giving one repetition where the dog is asked to sit, the door yanked open, and the dog jumps -- maybe you could just persist in opening the door only when the dog is calm, refusing to allow the entrance of your guests (and the prize: greeting sniff) until all 4 dog feet are firmly on the floor.

Sure, it will take two dozen reps the first time, but that's how the learning works. The next time, it takes 10. Then it takes 4. Successful application of this approach tapers down.

UNLESS you quit before you get what you need. Wherever you quit, whatever you call "good enough", the dog will call this "success". You will not ever get better behavior than that. You will simply get the level of behavior where you quit more rapidly over time.

If you quit when he sat before he jumped, then you aren't ever going to see him not jump at all. His understanding of what you want is sit-then-jump. Because that's where you quit -- even though if you had persisted on every opportunity with the exact same pattern, you would have been able to achieve no jumping!

Quitting when things ARE going well? Yup, it happens. Way more often than you might suspect.

People lack confidence when it comes to the effectiveness of any kind of dog-related interaction. They lack so much confidence in the approaches they select, that they tend to fixate on figuring out IF it "works" than on the more relevant task of HOW it works -- learning every detail of applying it properly. They tend to forget that they, too, have learning to do!

While mastery of the no-jump guest-greet is a fine place to "quit" the dog's learning, learning about dogs is no place for quitters. Dog behavior "experts" who insist that there is only One True Way of dog training? These are people who have quit learning.

Don't quit now. There is so much more!