Concept Dog Training
Welcome to the world of concept training. What is concept training you may ask? In this article we are going to outline the basic components of concept training and why we love to use it as a comprehensive part of our courses and teaching.
To understand what concept training can do for us we need to look inside the brain and how dogs take in information from their environment. Located in each of our dogs’ brains are the building blocks that represent their personalities. These building blocks may include things like how well they can focus, optimism, or even pessimism. One may think that these blocks or traits are set in stone, but in reality, they are flexible and can be enhanced or even diminished when needed.
The blocks or concepts inside our dogs’ brains influence the way they react to their environment. An area of decision and thought in the brain leads to an action or a behavior that interacts with the environment in some way. These building blocks, along with the thoughts and decisions, find their roots in genetics and past learning history.
Choices are purposeful and each choice that our dogs make is based on the fact that in the past when they made that choice they were reinforced or punished in some way. Choices/behaviors that are reinforced from the dog’s perspective with regard to a situation will continue or increase. On the flip side when a choice or behavior is punished, again from the dog’s perspective NOT our own, the behavior decreases. This is very powerful because if we want our dogs to make different or better choices, we can harness the power if reinforcement to help them in those areas.
The choices in the dog’s brain can be looked at like a funnel. Take a look at the graphic describing our funnel concept. In the beginning without a great history of reinforcement for a particular behavior a dog has a lot of choices to consider. But as reinforcement history increases, their focus on the alternatives begin to lessen, until they see only one or two choices in that situation because it has paid out so well. We can also look at is as the choices at the top of our funnel become darker, and the choices that are more refined are lighter and brighter.
So, what do we do with all this information? We look at the concepts or building blocks in the brain with all its strengths and weaknesses, and we aim to shape the brain to mold particular concepts to influence the outcomes we want. For example, if we have a dog who worries about novel situations, or is afraid of particular noises, they may have a pessimistic outlook that we can mold into a more optimistic one through training games. One key thing that we do when we try to build concepts in the brain is to build these concepts OUTSIDE the situation, not in the situation. Many times, when a dog is struggling in a situation the brain is not equipped to make a better decision or a different choice and often times may be in conflict. For example, they may really want that hot dog, but are so worried about the person or other dog that they are torn. They may grab the food but continue to snap or bark. If we can train concepts related to their struggle outside of a situation that causes a particular behavior, we can mold the brain to choose the alternative behavior more often. At the same time, we are preventing rehearsal in the environment they struggle in. This sets us up to be able to return to the situation where the dog struggles with more tools in place and a tunnel that has been refined to make better choices.
I hope this has shed some light on the world of concept training and how we can use the power of training games to shape the brain to make better choices and feel better about the environment as a whole.
