We had a really good speaker at our last K9 seminar, Dr. Pamela Reid from the Univ. of Illinois/animal behavior center. She gave a basic class over learning theory titled How dogs learn and how to excel-erate training. She brought up some interesting points that are easy to forget sometimes.
smaller training sessions with adequate "processing time" to enable dog to consolidate behavior. in other words down time is not always bad.
keep in mind what you want to reinforce.
and the always confusing operant contingency table in one of the clearest forms.
give it Remove it
Good thing Positive Reinforcement Negative punishment
(behavior increases) (behavior decreases)
Bad thing Positive Punishment Negative Reinforcement
(behavior decreases) (behavior increases)
She also had an interesting take on drive levels and learning- lower drive level is more conducive to complex tasks. Her take on this was that for complex jobs the medium drive dog may actually make the better working dog as opposed to one that is over the top all the time. I think it is good to keep in mind when teaching elements of bitework control that perhaps we need to keep in mind the level of stimulation we are giving the dog as we are trying to teach a concept.
and finally trial nerves- to calm and to nervous are equally bad for performance, you need to find that middle ground that keeps you from being complacent yet not to "spun up".
some interesting thoughts.
Colleen