Thank you, Leslie McDevitt

Every time I read a dog training book I have what's often described as a "light bulb moment". Probably self evident, but it's when you have an epiphany of sorts about something in your life. I've had them from other types of books, but due to the dog training books I choose to read from authors experienced in the challenges I face who train in a way similar to me, they happen most with them.

I picked up a copy of Leslie's Control Unleashed: The Puppy Program at Clicker Expo in January. I had store credit for volunteering and referring and needed to spend money. What a good choice this ended up being! Leslie deals a lot with performance dogs with various problems, not the least of which is anxiety. While the book is bent towards performance issues, I'm finding it has a lot of application for Mochi.

Last night I was reading a chapter where Leslie describes a dog who was scared to come out of it's crate. Leslie rewarded the dog for coming out by sending it back in with a treat thrown in the crate. The dog learned it could go back in it's safe space and *bad things would not happen*.

Premack: Premack's principle, or the relativity theory of reinforcement,^[1] states that more probable behaviors will reinforce less probable behaviors.


Leslie used what the dog wanted (being in it's safe spot) to reinforce working with a stranger and continued on, rewarding the dog after longer stints outside and eventually working with her. She talked a lot about social pressure and allowing dogs to escape it as a reward, which is the ah-ha moment: I can shape Mochi to do things by rewarding him away from me.


You see, I've always had this idea that I have to reward him closer to me to bring him in.. but Leslie is saying exactly the opposite. By allowing a dog to escape the pressure it feels, you encourage it to make the decision to turn on the pressure. Facing Mochi is pressure to him. When he was a puppy I had the "why doesn't he work with me even though I have treats?" complex and, though not using force, pressured him in situations that made him uncomfortable. 


That anxiety has bled into anxiety about training.


So we played a game today! I sat down and the instant he walked towards me I clicked threw a treat behind him. Repeat. At the end of the game he was turning and very quickly walking back to me, coming in close. We've been doing dremel desensitization and counter conditioning, so once he was coming into my personal bubble without hesitation, I put the dremel out. First I just clicked for walking towards it, still rewarding behind. 






By the end of 4 reps with the dremel, he was coming back to the dremel and nose touching it (one of the exercises we've been working on). Good boy!


I plan on later today repeating and then tomorrow I will ask him to come in while the dremel is turned on. I'm very happy with my revelation and thank you Leslie! I cannot say enough good things about her book, I highly recommend it.