Lumping vs Splitting in Dog Training
These are two concepts that I wanted to talk about, as they can greatly impact your training success.
In dog training (and training other animals), lumping occurs when try to teach too much criteria at once. You are teaching multiple aspects of the behavior in large increments. Splitting occurs when you break the behavior down into the smallest steps, and teach those criteria or behaviors separately first.
The more you can break down your lesson goal for your learner, generally the greater opportunity you have for training success. I was just telling someone the other day that I don’t like to take Zumba classes because I have never been in a class where the teacher didn’t rush through all the movements (with loud, fun music playing at the same time!) and I just could not catch on. I’d feel silly and frustrated, and would leave within five minutes.
Then I think about why I have more success in taking and want to keep going to my group dance lessons. My teacher has us all lined up – men on one side and women on the other. He slowly demonstrates four steps, first the men’s steps and then the women’s steps. We practice this over and over, and do not move forward until we’ve got it. Then we learn four more steps. If something breaks down, our teacher or assistant will work individually with me (or someone else) or as a group with us on the specific place where there is difficulty until I feel comfortable. And, only after practicing this for some time, will the music play.
It is easy to forget this when teaching our non-human animals what we want them to do. It is easy to not realize something that seems simple to us, like walking on a loose leash or sitting in one place for any duration, is actually not simple at all to our pet. There are often many different criteria or ways to break down a behavior, and the more we can simplify the lesson to our learner (most of the time) the quicker our student can pick up on what we want to teach.
With a young dog like my Dawson who can bark and charge to the end of his leash when he sees a dog in the distance or sometimes a speedy moving person either running or on a bike, who rarely knows a stranger, who likes to sniff and explore and run after birds, who wants to be in the action when he sees kids playing – teaching him to walk on a loose leash is not a simple task.
These are the different criteria I work on relating to walking on a loose leash (and depending on what I see on any given day, I may add to this list):
value in being at my side
hand touch (I can use my hand target to bring him back into the side position when he gets ahead of me. I also use it as a reinforcer sometimes.)
sitting
left directional (when I turn to the left)
right directional (when I turn to the right)
Let’s Go – meaning we are moving
moving back with leash pressure
sniff – as a reinforcer for walk
say hi – to greet someone
wait – to stop and wait for me or a cue to do something
seeing dogs, people and other stimulus and looking back at me
look at that – practicing in a stationary position to see stimulus and stay in position (with loose muscles)
criteria of different environments – minimal distractions to mega distractions
duration of time outside walking
walking past a distraction with a loose leash
As you can see there is a lot that I work on that all helps us in walking on a leash. And, while Dawson is making a lot of progress, there are set backs along the way and when those happen, I go back and pull out that piece or those pieces to work on.
Teaching a dog to stay is another one of those behaviors that can be broken down into lots of little pieces. There are duration, distance and distraction and many steps to teaching each one of those.
My challenge to you is to think about that behavior you are wanting to teach your dog and see how many different ways you can break it down. As always, have fun along the way!
