Weblog 3
I have had several animals through out my life. It is always amazing to see the distinct different animal personalities in animals. I have never been able to train my cats. They have a set routine, but no tricks. When I call my cats names one always responds to her name and the other, well, would respond to any name. I did have a Sheltie mix, Zack, and he was the smartest dog I have ever seen or known. I unfortunately don’t have him any more but when I did he was a quick learner. He was too hyper for my dad so we sent him off to be a rescue dog. I remember the first time I saw how smart he was. I was taking him on a walk and like most people walking there dogs, I was the one being walked. As he was dragging me along I decided to teach him the trick of healing. With in two tries of stopping every time he yanked the leash and shouting “heal” he learned the trick. I find that when you want to teach an animal something persistence and consistency is key. Positive reinforcement is the best way I’ve found in teaching dogs. I haven’t wasted much time trying to teach cats or anything else for that matter. Some dogs aren’t as smart as my dear Zack was so with them the positive reinforcement usually does the trick. With the more stubborn ones you just have to be consistent. I have found that scolding them at any time, especially a while after the bad thing was done, is not only harmful but extremely ineffective. Animals don’t and won’t remember what they did in the past that was so wrong to their owners nor can they comprehend why they are being punished. I recently tried to teach my mother in laws Irish setter the same trick but her dog needs a lot of positive reinforcement. She is smart but unfortunately since her owners don’t train her to do any thing it can be difficult to teach her commands. Every time I would stop in the middle of the road with the Irish setter as say heal she wouldn’t understand. There was maybe once that her behavior seemed to be catching on but because I don’t constantly train her she doesn’t hold on to much information. Every breed is even more different than each animals personalities. My mother in law also has Chihuahua’s and that can’t learn any tricks. They know what ‘biscuit’ and ‘outside’ mean but that’s it. And just like my cat they come to any name that is called. They are attention whores for sure. I’ve seen some people train cats but I have no idea how they do it. I’m sure it takes an extreme amount of dedication and a lot of treats. I think that positive reinforcement is good for both animals and humans. The same results are gained when you reward someone for a certain behavior. I found Susanne Langer “Signs and Symbols” to be very true and enlightening.
