Growing greatness is the recurring theme in Daniel Coyle's book The Talent Code. In the opening chapter, aptly called "The Sweet Spot" he discusses the work of Robert Bjork, the psychology chair at UCLA. He quotes Bjork as saying, "We tend to think of the memory as a tape recorder, but that's wrong. It's a living structure, a scaffold of nearly infinite size. The more we generate impulses, encountering and overcoming difficulties, the more scaffolding we build. The more scaffolding we build, the faster we learn."
It's truly a fascinating idea and thought provoking in the context of training your dog. Scaffolding continuously builds on the parts that were laid down before, which is what we strive to achieve daily with lifestyle dog training. Encountering and overcoming difficulties, properly done, builds a dog's confidence and paves the way for them to have solid socialization skills. Many reactive dogs act from a place of fear and uncertainty so self-confidence is an important part of a dog's development. Their confidence in their owner / handler is paramount, but that's a whole separate post. ;)
Start small, lay the foundation, and then continue to add pieces onto the solid structure you've built. The more scaffolding we build, the better and faster our dog will learn. When we focus on creating a healthy relationship with our dog we build engagement. The more engaged they are with us and the learning process; the easier it will become to lead them.
As we layer our scaffolding we will eventually reach the sweet spot in dog training. Incorporating the needs of our dog into our daily lifestyle.
- Good vibes everyone!
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