I’ve found myself thinking a lot lately about the concept of building on success. If you value clarity and confidence in your agility dog’s performance, you’ll want to bake clarity and confidence into their behaviors from the start. But so many well-meaning trainers are baking questions into their behaviors instead.
We see the dog was sort of successful or they didn’t technically fail, and we accept that as good enough and move on. The dog continues to be sort of successful. We’re able to catch most of their failures and prevent the collection of reinforcement. So we continue to move on. Next thing we know we’re weeks or months into a training project wondering why all that time invested hasn’t paid off in the reliable, consistent behavior we set out to create.
Maybe we’re impatient. Maybe we don’t know what clarity and confidence in that behavior would look like. Maybe we DO know, but don’t believe we’re capable of creating it. (You are! And so is your dog!)
Whatever the reason, I implore you to try going slower. Build on clarity and confidence, not JUST success. Pay attention to the little things you don’t really want to see in the finished behavior — the head checks or hesitation or hints of stalkiness. Take the time to problem-solve with your dog so you can train the behavior you WANT.
Because clarity and confidence are KEY to independent behaviors that hold up in a variety of conditions, under the pressure of competition, and over time. If that matters to you, don’t settle for less.
