Random thought on raising a dog for a working sport like Mondio or French Ring, bird dog/retriever trials/hunting, IPG, etc. if you're striving for a mostly or totally force free approach:
How likely are you to succeed if you set a traditional drive based foundation and then progress without corrections as you begin to add rules to the game? Not so likely.
If your goal is mostly or totally force free, you START with the understanding that drives and control are two sides of the same coin - they are NOT in conflict. Your number one interest should be to ensure that this is internalized by the dog. Teach your new dog that their choices control the game, and then set up games and choices to allow for whatever future you have in mind. This should not be stressful or "controlling" - it should be fun. Sort of like the game of Simon Says for a child - it's fun to listen! It's fun to try not to get tricked!
Here's an example:
When Dice was 8 weeks old, I had him chase a toy. I held a second toy in my other hand. At some point, I stop the first toy and make the second toy come alive.
He can choose what he does. He can stay with the first dead toy. That probably has a value of 5 out of 10.
Or he can switch to the active toy, which I will then play with in whatever fashion I believe he finds most rewarding - that's (hopefully) a 10 out of 10.
The control comes from the choice - move away from what you have and get an ever bigger party! The drives are reinforced the entire time, regardless of which toy he stays with - he's always winning but sometimes bigger than other times. That keeps the stress very low, which is critical with a young learner.
The control element comes from my responses to his choices - slowly shaping the games that we play to reinforce choices that line up with my long term interests.
Okay; so what might be next? How about both toys behind my back. He wants them so he circles me. I keep circling to face him - he finally looks up at my face and...
the toys come out and the game is on!
Lesson learned? Look to me for direction.
First lessons are super easy - eye contact is all you need. But that eye contact is the basis of cues - the "if/then" statement that drives the dog's behavior and how I respond. If you look at my face then the toy shows up. Soon that will be "if you listen to what I ask you to do/follow the cues given by my body, then I will give you what you want."
Now add that to the game of "sometimes you have to give up one thing to get something even better" and we have some useful foundation to work from.There's no reason to say "no" or get stiff and disengaged, punishing your dog emotionally., because you set up a game which was too hard. There's no reason to get upset if on a given day your dog grabs a toy or a cookie without permission - the sky is not falling.
Just shape bits and pieces, slowly and over time, so that every session is ensuring that your dog internalizes the value of cooperation.
Eventually, the goal is that the dog says to himself, "If I listen and watch carefully; if I internalize the games, then I get the biggest possible party - and its's always a party I want to play" The dog should see the control parts of the game as part of the party, not a separate matter.
Sounds simple and maybe it's a bit harder in practice.
Watch Dice's work. He routinely drops the toy he is holding so that he can start a new game - even though the reward is going to be sent back to the exact toy he just put down! Why does he do this; give up the thing he has to work more to get it back again when he could have kept it the entire time?
Because the game - working within the structure and valuing the energy and interaction that I can add when we're on the same page, is what he knows, and he values that greatly.
If could communicate one thing to a person who wants a force free working dog, it would be this: drives and control are not in conflict - they are two sides of the same coin, and must be built simultaneously as part of the game because the game cannot exist with only one of the two parts. The rules give the game structure and the joy of anticipation and cooperation. The reward is the whole thing - not just getting the classic reinforcer.
A dog built up to work force free will never have the experience of a free for all - snatching and grabbing and losing one's mind because you don't ever let that happen if you don't want to see it in the adult working version. The same as all good training really - if you don't want to see something in the adult version, you don't want to see it in the puppy version either.
Source: Denise Fenzi