Consequences

Hi Kaye,

That was good to talk yesterday. It is fascinating hurtling into Fido's
adolescence and facing the philosophical and moral dilemmas it's bringing up
for me.

As a horse trainer I have a very wide range of options in the way I relate
to the horse in the training process. I often use the term 'consequences' or
better the German usage 'to be consequent'. Consequent means to make sure
the horse knows there are some behaviours that make life more comfortable
and some that make it un comfortable. The choice is left to the horse.

The act of training means that often the horse is doing things it doesn't
want to do. It does them, to some extent, because the consequences of not
doing them is less desirable.

Of course in dog training the dog is also asked to do things that it doesn't
want to do at that moment. Our discussion about finding strategies for those
times is particularly interesting to me.

There is the error free learning approach where the environment is
controlled to the extent the dogs has few choices. I can also cut him a bit
more slack because he is an adolescent. I have been choosing good fun safe
things to do and have backed off a bit. This morning we've spent time with
the ducks, done a little rock course in the vegetable garden, and a bit of
jumping on furniture from chair to stool to table etc. and I've been
fumbling the lead on and off him....all very good fun for both of us.

I am getting to the training section of Paul Mc Greevey's book and I have
also contacted Julie at last. Her old dog passed away on the weekend at 16,
so she has been very sad. She is coming on Sunday morning at 11. You would
be very welcome if you'd like to come up.

She will also go through her video library to see if there is anything I
should watch.

Cheers,

Richard

PS Do you use Skype. I had a free video call with my savvy Website designer
from Perth last night. I downloaded the program and called her and it
worked, much to my surprise.