Finding Motivation

At the very least, I found the motivation to update the blog!

You may notice I've changed the slogan on the blog header. Well, it seemed appropriate since the Nationals is no longer my aim, but what to change it to? I spent quite a bit of time pondering this. I could have changed it to something simple like 'A Dog Training Blog' but it just didn't seem to fit. So I thought a bit more. What lies at the heart of what I am trying to do with my dogs? One word seemed to sum it up - motivation.

The whole reason I started this blog was to motivate myself to train the dogs, and using the Nationals as a goal was the motivation to make sure I did go out and do it. Motivation is everything - no-one does ANYTHING without some form of motivation. In terms of dog training, we may train our dogs because we are motivated to trial them, we trial them because we are motivated to test ourselves against the course and the clock, and to gain titles, we are motivated to train our dogs WELL so they can not only Q but WIN. We are also motivated to do these things because they are highly enjoyable and addictive, for both dog and handler :) :)

Motivation is also tied in closely with transfer of value. The motivation for the dog to do a correct and speedy weave pole entry is getting the toy thrown at the end; the toy is highly MOTIVATING because it is HIGH VALUE. Thus weave poles also become high value because there is a transfer of the toy's value to the weave performance.

I want my dogs to be HIGHLY motivated in everything they do, I want speed, accuracy and high arousal level (I want them to really ENJOY training, whatever it is). It is something I am always thinking about and working on - how can I motivate my dogs to enjoy, i.e. tugging? That was outlined in one of my recent posts about how I used crate games to increase the value of playing tug, to make it more exciting, in short to MOTIVATE the dogs to want to do it.

What about handler motivation? Getting ready for the Nationals motivated me to drag myself out of bed early in the morning (something that is practically unheard of). Now that I am no longer taking the dogs to the Nationals, suddenly the possibility of sleeping in a bit longer has once again clawed it's way to the top of the 6AM priority list. So I'm going to need to find other ways to motivate myself.

One of the first things I am going to do is start to set some clear goals. This will give me the motivation of something to work towards, and will also allow me to more accurately judge our progress. I also want to put together some better training plans, not just 'Well, I might do some 2x2 today, and maybe tomorrow I'll take the dogs for a run on the beach'. I need to be specific, I need to set major goals as well as minor goals, so I can still feel I'm achieving something along the way (working towards a goal = motivation; reaching a goal = reinforcement).

Currently I am highly MOTIVATED to go and find some chocolate, so that's it for today!