These are some excerpts from an article by Clinton Anderson. What he writes about in this article made a lot of sense to me in regards to stockdog training.
"Don't Get Emotional!"
When training your horse, don't let your feelings confuse the issue at hand.
"People get so worried about their relationships with their horses and so wrapped up in the whole natural horsemanship thing they forget the bottom line" You've got to get the job done."
He learned this when he was about 15 or 16 while training horses in Australia with Gordon McKinlay. He was just getting started with natural horsemanship, and was working with a big black mare with a bad attitude. In keeping with his early training, as soon as that mare would do something right, he'd instantly reward her with a pat, a treat, and a little break.
He was basically trying to bribe her into loving him and loving what she was doing. Problem is, she was actually getting worse by the day.
Gordon took one look at this belligerent mare after Clinton had been working with her for awhile and said, "Clinton, you've done a pretty bad job on this horse."
Clinton said, "Gordon, I've been working with her seven days a week, and doing everything you taught me, trying my best to get her wehre she needs to be, but she's just got a bad attitude."
"Well, he replied, "you'd better step up to the plate and get the job done because this mare has to go home next week, and the owners aren't going to be happy when they how bad she is after being here for six weeks."
Ask, then tell.
So here's what he did: For the entire last week of her training, he treated that mare the way he would any other horse. He got in there every day and made the wrong thing difficult for her and the right thing easy. (How many times have we heard that one.) He made her feet move--now. I asked her, and when didn't respond, I told her. He didn't worry about her feelings or her emotions or her attitude.
When she did something right, he rewarded her by simply letting her rest and leaving her alone. When she did something wrong, I made her feel very uncomfortable.
Within three days, that mare's attitude--and her whole perception or work, and of him--completely changed. In fact, in that last week of working with her, he caught her up to where she should've been by that time, despite their initial setbacks. On the day she went home, she was as good as all the other horses that had been ridden for six weeks.
In other works, she made more progress in those last five or six days than she had in the entire five weeks before.
Why didn't she progress in those first five weeks? Because he'd been babysitting her. He had been trying to coax her into liking him and the situation.
What she'd needed instead, and what he finally gave her in that last week, was a taste of, "If you don't like this, try this. If you thought what I was asking you do was difficult and sweaty, how about this?"
Very quickly, she came to realize that what he had been originally asking her to do wasn't so bad after all.
Don't Beg
That mare taught him an important aspect of natural horsemanship that a lot of people don't understand. The reality is this: When you're training a horse, you have a job to do, and you've got to get that job done. Being businesslike about it will give you your best chance of succeeding at that job. Especially with tough customers!
What he has discovered, though, is that for the horses with the worst attitudes, the more you baby them, the worse they get. The less you ask them to do and the less pressure you put on them, the worse their attitudes become.
Conversely, the harder you work them and the more you ask them to do, the better their attitudes get. By always focusing first on the getting the job done, you're always going to get the best possible results with that particular horse.
Before you can have that emotional connection and relationship with your horse, you first have to earn his respect by getting the job done of moving his feet--forward, backward, left and right. It's as simple as that...and nothing to get emotional about."
I know that this is horse trainer's thoughts and such, but they do apply to dog training also. I believe it is Jack Knox who always says, "make the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy."
I also believe that a lot of people are worried about getting their dogs to "like" them and then become pushovers. I find when I get tough with my guys that they seem to "worship" me more. They don't get mad and want to have nothing to do with me--the opposite happens, they try harder.
