Mastering A Skill

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Welcome back to truly Force free animal training

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Probably one of the most frustrating things that people experience when they're training their dog or their animal is that they don't feel like they learn it fast enough and I commonly will have people, you know,

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train sit for 2 days and then be frustrated if their dogs in the has not perfected or mastered that skill, recall takes a really long time you know and people will get frustrated

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How can I make a reliable recall? How do I master these dog training skills? And I like to look at human psychology

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When I'm dealing with dogs, a lot to kind of see what are the human psychologists say about mastering skills? And there used to be a theory that you had to do a skill for about ten

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thousand hours to be an expert or have that skill mastered

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So people believe that if you were going to be a master pianist or if you were a master artist or doing some other skill that if you had 10,000 hours under your belt that you would

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be an expert or you'd have that mastered

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But we now know that that's not true

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That some people can Master things in a shorter period of time and other people may take longer and what we now know, from the human side is personality is part of it

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Intelligence is part of it and there may be other factors that we don't even know

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There might be some genetic components that make a person a Master pianist where another person, no matter how many hours they put in would never master that skill

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Dog Training is very, very similar

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You can have some dogs who master sit and they love it and they are really fluent in it

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And my dog Captain is really fluent in sit, but he was born at my house because his mom was a rescue and all of the puppies were here and I taught him sit when he was 5 weeks old

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It was the first thing he learned and we used treats and it was a lot of fun and all the puppies really mastered sit so that became a default behavior for him and so that's one of his skills

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Now other dogs, maybe are really good at recall

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Particularly, if your dog doesn't like to be away from you, you can say come and they might get their recall really quickly and never run off ever in their entire life

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Then you have other dogs that you practice recalled the park, you practice recall at your house in the backyard and no matter what you do, they still struggle and you will have to worry about them

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running off and that can be a part of their personality if they're really into exploring

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And they're really curious if they really like other dogs or people that distraction and that part of their personality can be so strong that you're going to struggle at mastering a skill

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Every dog, every animal is unique and individual just like every human is unique and individual

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So your dog may never be the master doc diver

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if that's what you wanted, or your dog may not be able to be a service dog, even if you put in all the hours because they just weren't cut out for that skill,

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Often times I'm telling my my clients that, you know, you can't always determine what your dog's skills are going to be when they're babies

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Just like when a baby is born, you can't dedicate and say, you will be a doctor, you will be a lawyer because their personality, their intelligence, and their interests are all going to be a component

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of what they end up being as adults, dogs and animals are the same way

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There are some dogs that will never do agility, they just aren't interested in it

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No matter how much time and effort you put into it

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There are some horses that never become jumpers, no matter how much time and energy and positive

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reinforcement you put into it, so make sure you always look at your animal as a individual keep practicing, but don't put on unrealistic expectations on your animal because you may end up getting really

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frustrated and if you get frustrated, they're going to be frustrated

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So, mastering a skill is way more than repetition

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It also has to do with individuals interest skill level and personality

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So if you've been frustrated with maybe a skill, your animals not learning very quickly think about these components because this might be part of the reason and maybe you're just going to have to accept that

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that behavior is good enough and they can Master another skill

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That is more in their wheelhouse

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I hope that helps you with your training and hopes that makes it a little bit more enjoyable

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If you're getting a little frustrated with something and as always have fun and I will see you in the next video

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I hope that helps you with your training and hopes that makes it a little bit more enjoyable

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If you're getting a little frustrated with something and as always have fun and I will see you in the next video

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