First off animals have emotions, see previous post for info.
If you’ve been around someone with a disability you’ve probably heard the term “spoons” before. For those that don’t know the idea is to encapsulate the number of tasks a disabled person can do a day. I for example use about 2 spoons feeding everyone in the morning, one spoon a group playing with them, 3 spoons poop scooping (3 a group in deep clean days), I usually try and do all my necessary chores before walking the dogs so if I only have one spoon left I can “budget” them to walking to the field and running about or if I’m feeling really good I’ll probably try and take them on a really long walk, use up all my spoons, have to borrow some from another day to get home and end up in my bed for a week.
What you probably really haven’t heard of is “forks” which is the emotional equivalent of spoons. It is a term used in the mental health community for the same reason but in the training community its termed trigger stacking. Each discomfort is a fork jabbing at you, a big discomfort may be an unusually large fork or a group of forks. I can only give you examples from my own life so bear with me. Today is my friend’s sons Christening. I cannot go because of my forks and spoons. It’s a particularly tough time for me with the spoons, I don’t think I’ll be able to make dinner today bad, and with that comes pain, we can think of this pain as forks, say 5 forks for that pain up my back, 3 for the shakiness, 1 for the numbness in my extremities, 1 for the nerve pain that runs hot and cold every now and then, another 5 for the cramps. Let’s ignore for now that this will all get worse the more I move about. It takes spoons to keep that in check, but we’ll ignore that just now too. The location of the Christening is a very bad place for me. Without going into details, I grew up in the area, had to leave my childhood home under bad circumstances, sorted temporary accommodation that let us keep our pets was very hard and then someone next door poisoned most of my pets leading to them passing away. That is a lot of emotional stuff to try and drag about and keep under control. The reception is even going to be at a place we used to go every day, where a lot of personal stuff happened. This is really overwhelming me so give it a good 15 forks for that.
To get there I need to use spoons to get ready, walk up the hill, get 2 buses, walk down a massive hill into the woods where I spent my childhood. Ok let’s say, 2 spoons and a fork for getting ready, 5 spoons for the journey, 2 forks for bus drivers and another 2 for the long walk that will have memories spinning like a washing machine. That’s conservative. I’m an introvert so we’ll add 3 spoons an hour for socializing.
I want to see my friend today but if I’m honest by the time I reach that church I’ll be an emotional wreck. I’ll have no spoons left to keep myself under control, never mind get home, including borrowing from other days, and I will make a complete fool of myself. I was shaking and sobbing yesterday just thinking about going to that church which is why I was left to sleep in and miss my first bus. No spoons for ferrets, chores, other pets. Gone.
So, in a nut shell forks bad, spoons good.
How does that relate to training and behaviour? Well it’s quite simple once you realize I’m just conceptualizing stressors. Spoons are things we do that take up our energy reserves, they’re not really a problem for healthy adult animals or people because they have unlimited ones, forks though are a different matter. In one example I know of said he went to the toilet when told something worrying because he needed the toilet and that was a small fork he could get rid of since he couldn’t deal with the big one he’d just been presented with. Thinking of it in that way I’m sure we can all think back to a time when someone, maybe even ourselves had a melt down and it wasn’t that we’d ad a particularly bad time that day but that all that stress we’d been holding in and our busy life’s had just been bottled up until we shut our finger in the door, or someone asked us one last stupid question, or next doors dog just wont stop barking! And smash it had all come raging out as one giant emotional storm. The emotional equivalent to me being stuck in bed for a week.
We all know that that isn’t healthy but with animals they have a lower tolerance for forks than we do. If an animal has too much excitement and emotional upheavals it can result in bad behaviour and lack of focus and learning in training. A big one I know of is when a pet goes to a new home. We’ll use the example of a ferret. Listing forks; new home, no mum/siblings, strange noises, strange food, different bedding, different people, loud dog at the bars, lots of new people, loud children, handling, handling, handling. So, the ferret can react in 2 main ways: either they get over aroused and can start nipping or they can become completely stressed out and start biting and hiding. The older the ferret the more I’d expect the latter, but a nipping kit can quickly become a biter too.
So, when we are looking at training we first want to address the emotional baggage of the animal. It can be hard to get into an animal’s head but there are people trained to do this and there are people who have an instinct for it, they’re all only as good as their thought process though, you may be much better with your pet than anyone else in the world. We want the animal to acclimatise to the space that they are expected to preform in. In a home setting it usually starts by leaving the pet to settle in for a day or two before training, having visitors etc. Let them go at their own pace, only move forward when they are ready. Desensitization to noises and good socialising starts once an animal is confident in their own surroundings. We usually do it during playtime, mealtime, as they’re falling asleep, times they’re totally distracted but content. It’s only once they’re doing well in their own environment that we’d start to try for a new one, and then those extra forks can make it a good few steps back. For example If your training a dog for rally (obedience of sorts) you would practice the commands in the house, you’d also try and simulate the environment of a competition by playing sounds of people, dogs barking, announcers etc but it is still a very alien environment to do it at a competition and all these new things can result in you’re dog refusing to look at you, being fearful for the first time in his life, bouncing off the walls, getting commands mixed up, the list goes on. So, you go to training and practice your commands in a more similar environment to that of a competition. The better your training at home the faster it’s picked up in alien environments.
If your pet has done no training at home though and the environment is totally alien, you are swimming against the tide to do any training. Back to our analogy your pet is too scared by the barking to pick up on the command. It’s too busy to sit still he wants to investigate. You will probably spend your first 5 training sessions just getting them used to the environment.
We also have to address our own emotional baggage. As we’ve seen elsewhere your animal is bonded to you on an emotional level, so your emotions can transfer. If you are stressed your pet can become stressed becoming scared, aggressive or lacking focus. If you’re excited your pet can be so excited that you’re excited they can become just as unpredictable as a stressed dog. Before you begin a training session, ask yourself am I in the right frame of mind for this? And always celebrate the wins, it helps keep you in a good mood and reinforce the behaviour with the animal. My best advice as I’ve said before is when everything is going wrong have a good laugh and try again later. If you don’t you’ll start to see it as a chore and that is not the mindset you want when doing anything with your pet. If cleaning out was a chore to me there would be days, I’d just not want to do it and I would probably stop keeping spoons for it meaning the spoons for play would be used for that and they’d get no attention.
Keep training short and frequent
Make sure your pet is comfortable and confident
Celebrate the wins
Laugh off frustration
Tenants of fast learning
Bye for now!