Train Positive Dog!

Why is training your dog like the Yellow Brick Road?

First of all – it is a journey. A journey taken by you and your dog. Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, is snatched up by a tornado and transported to a foreign land after her dog bites a neighbor, and must find her way home. You may have been suddenly confronted by a problem behavior in your dog that you need to deal with. Or, you may have a specific goal in mind – such as being able to walk easily down the sidewalk on leash, and you know you have to take many steps to get there. Dorothy’s companions are on the Yellow Brick Road going to Oz in hopes of being able to obtain something that is missing from their lives – a brain, a heart, courage. Another traveler may have a different goal but can travel the same road to reach their destination.

The journey leads you through an unknown land to a new place, but ultimately leads you home. Oz sparkles in the distance as the goal you want to reach, that place with new skills and new experiences in your relationship with your dog. Those skills, that goal, improves your life and your dog’s life, allowing better communication and new activities you can both enjoy. Like the characters in The Wizard of Oz, you may not know how you are going to get there, but you know the goal is worth working for.

The Yellow Brick Road has a foundation, just as good dog training has a foundation. The LIFE model – Least Inhibitive Functionally Effective model of force-free animal training as described by Eduardo J. Fernandez (see link below) increases meaningful choices for the animal learner, identifies behavior functions, and maximizes training success while keeping animal welfare a top priority. The foundation of force-free animal training, like the roadbed which underlies any well-constructed road, defines its path and supports its continued function.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787823001430?via%3Dihub

The Yellow Brick Road is made of bricks, which are consistent in shape and have several distinct sides. The different sides of the bricks represent fundamental training skills for the handler and the dog. These aspects of training are present all the time, beneath your feet, as are the bricks in the Yellow Brick Road. The skills are required, over and over again, like steps on the road, in order to reach your training goals.

You might stray off the road, on purpose or by mistake, but you can get back on the road and continue your journey. Sometimes a short cut tempts you off the road, or you may be kidnapped by flying monkeys, but the road, with its foundation and bricks, will still be there when you get back to it.

At the end of your journey, you (and your dog) have learned a lot. Using your brain, your heart, and courage, you have deepened your relationship, and a new way of seeing the world is opened up to you. There’s no place like home.

Let’s Go!

This blog is an AI-free zone and was written by Dawn.