Aren’t we most familiar with the question, “why has my dog not responded the way he was supposed to”?
Particularly after a trial that did not go the way we expected it, we will have to evaluate why performance has not been the same as in training. Stimuli present during the performance, that had gotten meaning for our dog need to be evaluated. Anything that exists in the environment could be stimulating to our dog. A stimulus may or may not have a meaning to him. If we gave a stimulus a meaning in training (intentionally or not!!!!!), this stimulus has been turned into a SIGNAL.
The meaning of a signal has been obtained by certain experiences and circumstances that a stimulus has been connected with in the past. This experience is what made a stimulus into a signal. We call this process “training”!! Signals are an important subject in our rule book. All exercises have to be performed on a certain signal, verbal or visible, or both combined. Once an exercise is performed in response to a signal (specific stimulus), it is under signal control.
How can we gain the most signal control in order to have a reliable performance under any circumstances?
We have to be aware of the fact that anything that happens during our training is recognized by the dog. We can not say “that stimulus was not for you”, it will more or less be noticed by him. It is a matter of classical conditioning*. Classical conditioning is always happening, even when we do not intend it. It will happen during training particular exercises (instrumental conditioning) all the time.
When a trainer is teaching an exercise forcefully, he can not avoid the fact that his dog will connect all words said and the area it happens in, as bad words and bad area to be in! The trainer’s intention might only have been to teach the exercise.
In every training session our dogs are exposed to a package of stimuli at the same moment. Stimuli could be:
- the area of training
- the food
- the toy
- the cloths we wear
- the body posture we have
- the training equipment used
- other people that might be around at the time
- other dogs, etc.
We will find that some stimuli within this package are more important to our dog than others. Our dog for example is an animal that communicates through body language by nature. This fact concludes that anything that we do with our body will have precedence over anything that he receives through acoustic communication.
It should be determined what type of signals are allowed to be utilize in actual performance during a trial. Only those should be the stimuli that we select, and turn into SIGNALS.
What does all of this mean to us in training?
Let’s see some practical examples.
We train on the same training field every session, the particular field is getting a signalizing meaning for the dog to perform. This could be positive, because you want to trial on this field. It would help if it has a signalizing meaning. On the other hand it could be less desirable as you want to trial on different fields all the time. Therefore we should take the signalizing meaning for “location” out of the picture.
If we don’t want certain circumstances or locations to gain signalizing effects for our dog, we should change them all the time. If we work with the same decoy (Schutzhundsport) all the time, this particular person could get a signalizing meaning to the dog. We have to decide if we desire this connection in the dog’s mind?
Most magnificently can the tone of voice, the wearing of certain collars influence performance by signalizing the dog that certain things are forthcoming. If we realize that, we should take advantage of it by giving those signals a different meaning than they naturally have.
- Why not put a remote control collar on, and play with the dog? The collar would be a positive signal!
- Why not showing the dog a bite sleeve and ask for obedience routine? The final example should be the decoys style of performance.
In no way should it be a signal for the dog, especially not in the exercise “AUS”. For this particular exercise the one and only signal should be the voice of the handler. It is a very common mistake to train the dog to release on a package of stimuli. As there are certain styles of helper work that indicate to the dog what is coming next, what if these signals from the decoy are not present in a trial? The dog might not release! Because an important signal that secured performance during training is missing.
We can see clearly now that classical conditioning and signal control work close together. Filtering out the circumstances and events and assort them into “useful” or “not desired” is necessary in order to have most success in trials.