Contrast, Engagement, Release Period, and Capping

What do these four words have in common?  These are all areas that my training with Shana have been focusing on in some new ways for me.  

So Shana is a bossy, highly driven dog from nice working lines.   She is the first for me as having been picked out for health, longevity, smarts, and the ability to perform athletic tasks repeatedly.   The high drive area has caused me to make some mistakes along the way, and therefore cause some challenges to our training in the past.   Getting back on track has taken some thought and focus on my part for the training plan that will bring us out and forward onto our training goals.  The parts of my training plan that I have been focusing on (besides the foundation that is always in my thoughts in a training plan), can be summed up by the words contrast, engagement, release period, and capping.

So what do the words in my title mean for dog training and my training plan for Shana?

1. Contrast-  Usually this is reward vs correction.   Of course both those terms in dog training are really pretty general.  A reward is anything that motivates or pleases the dog enough to want to repeat a behavior again to get it.  This can be anything from a dog treat to adventures outside of some sort.   So this can be instantaneous gratification or something they know will come or continue.   A correction is simply a means of correcting either non performance of a command or correcting the performance of a command to be more specific or on target.   A correction can be guiding, molding (although this can also be demonstration), body bumping, collar correction, or a marker like "no".   So in terms of working with Shana contrast to me has been more "I am so pleased with your performance" (shown many ways and ultimately the reward because that motivates her) or "Nope not what I am looking for at all." (a correction of sorts which could just be not handing off the reward or even put in a command for not behaving appropriately).  Shana is getting the contrast, and moving at all times towards earning the "I am so pleased with your performance" side of things.  Actually a recent online seminar that I took given by Tony Ancheta, made me think a lot about contrast in regards to Shana.   
2. Engagement-  This is a term that I first heard when starting to follow Mike Ellis.   This is about having interactions with the owner/handler/trainer become the motivating factor.   It is much more than giving a dog a toy or food for proper performance.   It is being that interaction becoming pleasing because it involves the owner/handler/trainer.  Engagement (done correctly because I made some errors here in the beginning) also allow things that were stressful to begin to become insignificant to the dog.
3. Release Period or Release Valve-  So when I first started training, I learned to do this in blocks of an hour or more.   These were very focused training sessions that involved repetition.   As I have been evolving as a trainer, I have been finding shorter sessions more useful especially as the dog gains more skill and more complex behaviors.   Not to say that every now and again, we might work for an hour, we do.   When I was at Tyler Muto's seminar earlier this year, one thing he talked about was after doing something difficult or stressful with a dog to let their be a short period of release, which can actually be within the training session.  I think this also goes along with methods of gaining engagement for your dog as well.  The example that I saw in the seminar was a dog learning the send to place.   If they then clearly wanted to stay on the place or hang out after released, they were allowed that space and time to take some breathes before starting up again.  This made me think about Shana, because often when she gets anxious she loads up, and through training her now I have found a period of release allows her to internally calm back down.  Also being around dogs that are here rarely or are entirely new, is stressful to Shana.   So with this in mind, I have been mindful of making sure that her time in that environment is limited.   
4. Capping-  The first time I heard this was again when I first started to follow Mike Ellis and his methods.   This concept has been the newer concept to me, because working a dog in drive in the first place is also a new concept to me.  This is something I have been experimenting with since 2011 with drive in mind.   This concept is basically about teaching a dog to control their behavior when in drive.   Shana definitely needs this, because when she tends to load up in drive she has a hard time not using her teeth to communicate that (redirecting her excitement to my leg or butt for instance).

Based on the changes in Shana's understanding of what to not do and what to do these last months, this effort on my part in really dissecting what we are doing is paying off:)   That is really exciting and very enjoyable for the both of us.  Obviously, it has also made public walks a lot less drama filled and stressful for the both of us.  

There is a lot more to the training plan and story.   These were easy to sum up though as areas of concentration for Shana.  I will be posting more on this in the future.