I Feel Like a Dog
Pamela S. Dennison (c) 2015
As some of you may know, 2015 has been the year of learning complicated technology – me, who hates technology. I’ve been getting pretty good at filming and editing of videos and learned through the fantastic and ever patient Tammy Coron (www.tammycoron.com) to design and upkeep my own website (www.pamdennison.com).
I’ve learned first hand about latent learning (see https://www.pamdennison.com/article/web-designer-dog-training/), in my quest to learn all of the techno geek stuff without my brain exploding. Which sometimes it does despite my best efforts. Then I have to spend some time outside; breathing, listening to crickets sing and feeling the breeze against my skin.
But I’ve discovered some wonderful side effects of learning that I didn’t count on; increased creativity, problem solving and the biggie – not being afraid to try new ways of doing new things. So, learning technology that I thought was beyond me, gave me a confidence in new areas that I never had before.
Which got me to think about how our dogs feel when free shaping. At first they may be frustrated, confused, or completely lost (just as I was when confronted with something particularly confusing). But, little by little, they start to understand the “game,” and learn faster and with more accuracy. They learn to be creative, oftentimes offering a behavior that you didn’t even think of, which you end up training because it was a “great idea!”
With that new aplomb, the dog can learn to approach all new situations with ease. So now I know what the dogs feel like. And it feels good!