“click, click,” good human!

I was working with our apprentice trainer today and in a conversation about reinforcement I noted that one of the biggest obstacles we as trainers face is client compliance. I hear over and over again from fellow trainers, “if they only did what I told them to do,” and “they don’t practice, that’s why the dog’s not trained,” and “they just want me to fix him and I can’t if they won’t help,”…..

In various forms and in many ways I hear the same complaint- owners not participating in the training. Then it dawned on me like a bolt out of the blue the solution to the problem.

Dog trainers are “masters of behavior.” we mold, shape, reinforce and change behavior all day long- dog behavior. My questions is what are we doing to reinforce OWNER behavior? We tell them to practice. We instruct them to work on this or that. We lecture about patience and consistency, but what REINFORCEMENT is your human client getting for their hard work?

Thankfully we have less problems with client compliance than others in the field because we obtain measurable results the first lesson. When reinforced by noticeable change in the dog, owners are motivated to do their homework. If they don’t make head way they give up (go into avoidance, shutdown, stop responding) and quickly. What would we do with a dog that stopped responding? Give him a lecture? Explain why the pooch needed to practice ? No! We’d do something fun, provide a jackpot, go back to an easy command, get the reinforcement flowing…. Why aren’t we do this with the human too?

So here’s a challenge to all my colleagues out there. If your having problems with owner compliance, maybe you are trying to reinforce the wrong animal in the equation!