NW175: Fun with FUNdamentals: Progress Games for Success

What Makes a Search Confidence Building?

The source of confidence actually comes from empowerment and motivation. Even though motivation comes from confidence, the reverse is also true. Remember, the two work like gears. In this lecture we will explore what makes a search confidence building.

Although we are focusing on confidence in the first week, you will find that as we build the fundamentals your dog’s confidence will soar.

Sometimes we might think that making a search easy makes it confidence building. That's not true. Easy searches are only confidence building if they offer situations that are mildly to somewhat challenging. Easy searches in easy environments can create excellent reinforcement history because the rate of reinforcement is high. Initially, that is an excellent tactic. However, as a dog develops skills, we need to shift our approach for confidence building to something a little bit more challenging.

What is challenging?

Challenging is giving the dog something doable that stretches the dog just a little bit. Doable is critical. If we make it so hard, the dog may quit. So we just want to stretch the dog just a little bit. We find that challenging searches can be empowering, however only if the dog has a choice to search and the option to opt out of the search.

Empowerment is an incredible tool to building confidence. However, the dog does need choices. We cannot compel a dog to search nor should we. If the dog has a choice, and the dog chooses to search, the outcome is much more powerful then if we told the dog where to sniff. This is where empowerment meets independence. Independence creates confidence when coupled with desire. We will explore all of these concepts in this course.

So empowerment comes from choice and an opt out. This means that the dog can choose to search. You may be thinking how that works, but it really means that we give the dog opportunity and motivation, and the dog will make the choice we want. However, it also means that if the circumstances are too stressful for the dog that we will honor the dog’s need to stop the search. You always want to be an advocate for your dog and you need to make sure that you always have the dog’s best interest at heart. I have been in a situation where I felt my dog was too stressed in competition to compete and I withdrew in the middle of a search. That's really OK to do and I think in the long run was the best thing for him.

Let's talk a little bit about motivation.

Motivation can stem from interest and challenge. I'm going to tell you a story. When I was flying to Copenhagen to teach, I accidentally knocked my tablet behind the seat next to me (it was empty and I was in business class… wow!!). It took me and the flight attendant to get it back but because the tablet was within reach, only just, my motivation to get it back was stronger than if it was easy to get. Having a little bit of a challenge made a big difference. The same thing is true for our dogs. When something is a little bit of a challenge, it sparks interest and motivates them to complete the task. The trick is to make it just the right degree of interesting and challenging.

For the exercises that we do this week, keep in mind your dog. Make it challenging, however make sure that your dog can tell you that this it's too much. If it's too much you need to honor that and try something just a little easier.