Sunday, May 22, 2016

Find your "Tell"

My dogs know me better than I know myself. Each one of my dogs is student of me, they study me and everything I do. Recently read another blog - by Roger Abrantes - PhD in Evolutionary Biology and a great speaker, trainer of people and animals. Here is the quote from Roger, "If you ask me today, I'll answer you without hesitation that the most powerful tool you have when working with animals is yourself. If you control yourself, your body language, your facial expressions and the little you say, you'll achieve what you pretend and more." http://ethology.eu/the-most-powerful-training-tool/

I can imagine playing poker with my dogs, I would loose every time. Why? Because they have the advantage (they are cheating), they read our expressions, movements, body language. It sometimes looks like they read our thoughts being so good at reading the slight deviations we make in our movements. How do they do that when the are not looking at us? Don't forget they have what nears 250 degrees of vision among such a keen senses to read our body language that we might as well have shown them our cards before we even started playing a hand.

So where do this leave us with nose work. Ha, we are doomed, just kidding, but do you know your tell? - Because, I bet your dog has. So here is the test, attached is a video from a trial I did last fall in Oregon, our first Elite trial. I've split it up into 3 parts so you can see my body language for 3 separate hides. Can you read my tell? https://youtu.be/5R5cGSEUNkc


It doesn't matter the level you are at, your dog is learning how you work they are studying your every movement and learning all they can. Are you doing the same about their movements? They also have a head start because they are using the language they are fluent in. So you better step up you game. So I'm suggesting you change try to eliminate your tell, maybe. Humans fall into routines, we get comfortable in our patterns, just ask yourself if you could change anything in your life that is routine.

My current hypothesis, our dogs are so good at reading us that our body language, that it's better than any conditioned reinforcer we might use while working with our dogs in nose work, the facial expression of "excitement" when we see our dog complete a scent puzzle is virtually instantaneous. Or the leash adjustments we make in preparation of calling "alert", if you found my "tell" you might imagine the my dog already knew he had solved the problem. In all 3 segments of the video I drop my arm off the leash in anticipation of switching the leash or in order to get the treats out of my back pocket. I now understand why I am a terrible poker player. Find your "tell" and see where it leads you.

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