We broke our dogs! Hope’s Torque is broken. So is Fran’s Booker.
Not physically. But some training games have apparently been erased from memory. Absolute rock-solid training games have been corrupted or are missing entirely.
Not to worry – when you train step-by-step, you can always recover what was lost. You just go back to the beginning, step-by-step, and see where the behavior falls apart. And take it from there.
Similar and different
It’s just coincidental that both of our dogs are broken at the same time. We play training games with the dogs individually, so there isn’t any cross-contamination. And the circumstances are different, too.
In the case of Fran’s Booker, it’s his Ring-Stacking game that’s gone with the wind. He’s always been a special dog. If he were human, he’d be tested for where he falls on the spectrum. Being an 11-year-old dog, we pretty much stand back, assess what he’s up to, shrug and say “Bless his heart.”
Booker discovered that stealing the rings, sticking his cute little butt in the air and chewing on them was more fun than carrying them to the post and stacking them. He’s okay for the first one, but then it’s like his brain glitches.
Fran’s taken it back to the start. Heavily rewarding him for picking up the ring, carrying the ring, taking it over to the post, and putting it on. Each step is deliberate. And she’s no longer tossing a dozen rings out for the game. One at a time. Heavily rewarding for each step of success.
We don’t know if Booker will ever play a full Ring Stacking game again. It doesn’t really matter. He has fun. Every dog in your life teaches you something. Booker has been expanding Fran’s capacity for patience for years.
Hope busted Torque herself
Hope’s always pushing the limits of what she asks Torque to do. One of her recent ideas backfired – big time.
At the end of Torque’s Bowling Game, Hope decided that he could help “clean up” the bowling pins. She asked him to “get it,” a behavior he already knows. He did, and even brought it over to the basket where the little plastic bowling pins are stored.
What she didn’t figure on was how much Torque would enjoy fetching and squishing the bowling pins.
When Hope says his “Go Strike!” command, he runs to the pins, knocks over a couple, then starts grabbing them and squishing them. Oopsy.
Fortunately, he drops them when told. He even puts them in the basket. But for the moment, his “Go Strike!” is striking out. So sad that we broke our dogs.
The action plan is to go back to the beginning and use incredibly high-value treats to reward Torque for just knocking the pins down. We’ll start one at a time, and discontinue the clean-up part for now. He just needs to remember what this game is about. So even though we broke our dogs, we’ll get them back.
Does it matter?
Yes and no. No, we really don’t care if our dogs are whizzes at Ring Stacking or Bowling. What does matter is that we all agree on the rules of the games we play.
Dog training is a constant give-and-take bargaining with your dog. They get what they want (your attention, treats, praise) when you get what you want (good choices).
You get to define the rules for every single game you play with your dogs. Your dog, your game, your rules. The secret to success is keeping those rules crystal clear for your dog.
