Creation passion in your dog🔥
We teach that the exercises are positive, and our dog are enthusiastic to do them. The exercises themselves have inherent value and the exercise itself is enjoyed: our dog does not work through it just to get the reward (ball or food).
We explain this using an example. If you’ve been to a toddler’s home you’ve seen the plethora of art. The parents admire the work and more and more art keeps getting created. Soon the fridge is full of paintings and the parents have no room to hang the rest. Painting has become the child's passion, and the child has intrinsic motivation to do so.
The opposite is extrinsic motivation, which is when parents want to incentivize painting. Paint & paper are ready and a chocolate is promised as a reward for every picture.🍫
The child will “produce” a picture, but will never enjoy painting itself. The process is forgotten and only the end (the rewarding chocolate) has value. Fast, rushed paintings are created. Ultimately, the child will paint less complex and elaborate pictures, and only if it has an external incentive. Psychokogy calls this the Corrupting Effect.
Since we want the highest possible intrinsic motivation within our dog, that can also survive in a trial where there are no external incentives, I praise Duncan a lot during tracking and give him a great feeling through positive language. Recognition can strengthen intrinsic motivation. Of course, we also use food on the track, but this should not be the main reason for the dog and is more for explanation purposes. This is how I create a passion for searching within Duncan.🕵️♂️
Do you find such scientific approaches interesting and would you like to know more?