What’s the Right Word?

This morning, I realized that I no longer remembered how to “boost” the signal on my e-collar; I had to Google the manual to find out.

A “boost,” for those who wonder, is a jump-up from the minimal “working” level you use when training.

For example, if the normal “working” level on a dog is 7, a “boost” signal might be 17.  Most people cannot feel an E-Collar Technologies collar set at 10 or 11.

The question of how to “boost” the signal was not raised by an actual need, but by a bit of reading where the author makes a distinction between correction and punishment.  

John Holmes writes in “The Farmer’s Dog”:

“There should be a very clear dividing line between correction and punishment. Correction is something which *has* to be done to get the dog to understand what he must do, and should, therefore, always be used to the absolute minimum. Punishment, although it may take the same form, is administered only when the dog has been deliberately disobedient, and can, therefore, be quite severe. That is if you are *quite* sure he has been disobedient. No dog can be disobedient until he knows what he *should* do, but many are punished simply because their owners have failed to make that clear. Many dogs are punished for trying their very hardest to please the master, they cannot understand. Remember, too, that what might be very severe punishment to one dog, might have no effect at all on another.”

This got me to thinking… under *this* definition, have I *ever* punished a dog?

Maybe once, 15 years ago, when I used an old Pet Safe 7-level collar to bust a dog off deer.  These old off-patent e-collars (what we now know as the low-cost Chinese crap) were a little too “hot” be very useful training tools.  But did they teach the dog to not chase deer?  They did.  

The lowest setting on that collar was all it took, but that lowest setting is higher than the highest setting I have ever used on a modern e-collar made by E-collar Technologies.

Which got me to thinking — there’s a “boost” option on the E-collar Technologies collar.  You can set it to give a “boosted” nick on the collar if you need it.  I never have. How do you set it?

So I found myself drilling on the on-line manual, where they describe the “boost” as “corrective,” and the low “tap” that I give my dogs as “conditioning”.

Ok.  Words.  

But apparently, not only do I *not* punish my dogs, I do not even *correct* them.

Upon reflection, I think “conditioning” is probably the right word.  

The “tap” I send to the dogs is so subtle I cannot feel it.  Basically, it just breaks the dogs out of their ADHD and OCD.  

If I’m dumping the dogs into a field after a long drive, a single tap on the collar just before they jump out of their crate will let them know we are working and curtail any tendency for them to engage in a 10-minute game of “grab ass” with each other.  

Similarly, if a dog seems transfixed by some smell in the grass, a single tap will pull them out of their fog and get them scurrying to catch up.

In truth, I walk the dogs and almost never tap on the collar at all. They know what little I require, and they know I keep kibble in my pocket when they do good, and my voice has been paired with collar taps to the point I rarely need to tap the collar at all.

That said, I am not sure I am going to change my 

Dog trainers prattle on about “operant  conditioning” (they mean training) and the “four quadrants”.

Whatever.  I have never saluted unnecessary complexity.  In the end, all dog training boils down to two simple signals that say “we need more of this” or “we need less of that”.

Call it what you will.  I have always called it rewards and punishment.

But then, I am lucky and do not have clients who force me to tiptoe around their childhood traumas, logic leaps, and armchair philosophies.

A lot of folks (apparently) had parents who misinterpreted the Biblical admonition to “spare the rod and spoil the child.”  Others may have grown up in alcoholic homes or ones where a parent had mental issues of some kind. 

Even in “normal” homes, busy parents often vacillate between indifference and controlling, permissive and authoritarian, if for no other reason than both parents are often on a different page when it comes to how to rear the kids.  

Any wonder why these folks are not big on the word “punishment,” which in their minds means unnecessary cruelty?

So, if you are training other people on how to train their dogs, and want to use another word or phrase, I am more than OK with it.  I get it.  You’re wrapping the medicine in a bit of bacon or cheese.

Haven’t we all done that at some point?  I know I have!