To Heck With the Problem – Concentrate on the Solution

Stop for a moment and imagine you are helping a six year old with their arithmetic homework and you ask how much is four plus three and they say six. Now would you administer a form of punishment and repeat the question only this time in a louder voice and the next time they said six, would you repeat your punishment and again repeat the same question in a yet louder voice? Of course not. You would correct them and tell them four plus three is seven and if you were a good teacher you would show by example that if you had four beans and you added three beans you would now have seven. Next the teacher again poses the question of what is four plus three and the student correctly answers seven where upon he is complimented upon his performance and offered positive praise.

Now consider the dog trainer whose dog goes to the door and barks and what does he do? If he’s not too lazy to get up out of his chair he goes to the door, gives the dog a swat, and yells at him to stop, and then goes back to the TV until the dog repeats the barking and is rewarded with the same treatment. Next the dog proceeds to beg at the table and he is chastised and chased from the immediate area where he cowers in a corner until he gets up enough nerve to re-approach the table and he gets a double dose of the above treatment. Later the dog is taken out for a walk whereupon he goes to the end of the leash and proceeds to lead the owner briskly down the sidewalk all the while struggling at the end of the leash which the owner jerks and the dog slows down then speeds up and is rewarded with another stronger jerk accompanied by a loud shout. After this process is repeated for a third or fourth time the owner typically gives up, announces to  whom ever may listen that this breed of dog is a compulsive puller and can’t be changed so he will accept being jerked and pulled along.

So what’s the analogy here.

 The good teacher showed the student where he was wrong and proceeded to offer a SOLUTION. When the student gave the correct answer he was acknowledged with complimentary praise.

The dog trainer was very vocal and offered physical corrections but NEVER offered an alternate   in the form of a SOLUTION which when performed correctly would result in a positive reaction and praise from the trainer. This seems disgustingly obvious but unfortunately it is the usual way many people try to train their dogs.

Sadly this is the best many dogs get and lots of them wind up in shelters because owners find them to be untrainable and they get relegated to the trash heap when all it really requires is a slight adjustment to the owner’s methodology which can produce miracle results.

It’s this simple folks!! Forget and ignore the problem and concentrate on the solution. Remember, with POSITIVE MOTIVATION  the student willingly wants to repeat the task but with NEGATIVE MOTIVATION the student does not want to repeat the task