I learned early in Lilly’s training that even a slight verbal correction did more harm than good. So, her training is a pretty positive process. Still, after months and months of little to no improvement on the snarking at other dogs (and now bikes, skateboards and scooters), it became awfully tempting to give some kind of negative consequence. But, it turns out that after nearly 3 years of positive reinforcement, my timing for the negative is all wrong.
Our trainer suggested a quick dousing of water as a negative consequence, just as experiment. So, in addition to a bait bag full of treats and a clicker, I started wearing a daypack that held water bottles. But the thing is that I don’t have enough hands to be prepared to click/feed or douse as the situation warranted. Plus, my timing is terrible. I can mark a teachable good moment with a click pretty well, but my timing with the water squirt from the bottle is bad, which means it’s not delivered at the right time and does me no good. Her reactions come and go quickly.
I initially thought of it as merely a physical coordination problem, but I’m beginning to think it’s something more.
Maybe the reason I can’t make it work is because I can’t have it both ways. I cannot focus on rewarding Lilly for doing right AND be ready to squirt her when she’s not at the same time. It’s just too hard, and I’m beginning to think it’s a bad training strategy anyway.
How can she gain confidence if she’s worried I’m going to squirt her? I’m supposed to be her champion, her protector, her safe zone when we’re in public and things scare her to the point of reaction. It’s my job to work those situations better, to prevent reactions as much as possible and … then to ignore the times when one or both of us makes a mistake.
I’m not staying it’s easy.
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