I recently read Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, by Angela Duckworth, and was introduced to the concept of Deliberate Practice. It’s changed how I look at my sport training with my own dogs in a positive way.
Basically, Deliberate Practice is supposed to be hard. It’s not the fun, feel good reps of things you’re already good at. It’s not the sweet spot where everything comes together effortlessly and flows.
Deliberate Practice is when you choose to work on the hard stuff. It’s when you’re tired of failing the same way over and over, and decide to go head on to the hard stuff and go address it. It’s not always fun or enjoyable, but it’s what takes you to the next level.
It’s what separates serious competitors from those who are not progressing or are satisfied with lower scores and titles.
It’s also the difference between training to look good and feel good at club practice in front of your friends, vs training to perform on trial day.
So what does that look like for dogsport training?
For me, it means finding a balance between helping a dog succeed and then pushing to the edge of what is challenging for them.
For example, recently I have been working on Levi’s send out in AKC obedience. If I show him where to go ahead of time, he always goes to the right place with confidence and power. He looks great! But we don’t get to do that on trial day, he needs to run to the opposite end of the ring on his own, without me showing him where to go every time. When I started sending him without showing him, he would sometimes take a jump on the way out. In AKC obedience, this automatically disqualifies you from passing your run. NQ. So it really matters that the dog gets this right!
Feel Good practice would have me showing my dog where to go every time. But it wouldn’t get me what I wanted on trial day. Showing your dog where to go is what you do when you’re first training this exercise with a young dog, its not how you get an experienced dog to do a send out reliably and correctly on trial day.
Deliberate Practice meant going and really working on this until Levi could do it right the first time, without me showing him where to go. It also meant lots of “failed” sends where he took a jump on the way out. So I started correcting him when he headed for a jump, and didn’t head straight to the opposite side of the ring. This meant he temporarily lost confidence on his send outs, and sometimes wasn’t sure where to go. It looked messy. It definitely was NOT what I wanted to post on Instagram. I hoped no one I knew would drive by the park where I was training and see my dog getting it wrong! I questioned whether this was a good move. It felt so messy. Not the methodical and flowing training I normally love.
But then… Levi stopped taking the jump, ran across the ring to the opposite side and touched the gates. Cue a massive jackpot reward! Even HE looked relieved and proud of himself. Success! We had a couple sessions like this of struggles followed by making a huge deal out of it when Levi got it right.
And now, I can send him to his send out spot from almost in front of the jumps. He knows the drill, and he knows what NOT to do. And his confidence came roaring back. When I send him now, it’s with a confidence that’s been earned.
Was it fun to get there? No. It was frustrating and messy. I wasn’t always excited to go train, but was it worth it to get a reliable and solid send out? YES. 100%
The funny part is now send outs are fun. Now its “easy.” Now it flows and we look good. Now we have something that will hold up on trial day.
Being realistic, we need to give our dogs both challenges and things that are easy. Believe it or not, but nothing boosts a dog’s confidence like overcoming a challenge. But we need to be fair. We can’t just give our dogs pep talks and tell them to persevere, we need to show them they can succeed through direct experience. So challenges need to be done on a large foundation of confidence building successes. This is a big part of the art of dog training: knowing when your dog needs help vs to be pushed, and then also building successful reps of easier tasks without helping your dog so much they can’t do it without help.
Challenges given to a dog need to be just beyond their reach with a clear path to success. Again, a lot of knowing what is a good challenge and what is too much comes down to experience and hundreds of hours of training many different dogs. A good challenge for Levi might discourage another dog, and an appropriate challenge for a seasoned adult dog would be far too hard for a younger green dog. Don’t throw your dog in the deep end of the pool and tell them to figure it out. They’ll just learn that training sucks and is hard.
So essentially, Deliberate Practice is challenging yourself and your dog to push beyond what you’re currently able to do. Its SUPPOSED to be hard. It’s not the time to show off and look good in front of others – save that for the trial field
So, is there a time to train without pushing it? To just train and flow and feel good?
YES.
It’s a good balance to mix easier training sessions a day after a hard one. If you accidentally made something too hard for your dog and they’re now unsure about what to do? Give them a confidence boosting session and make them feel good about it again.
Or maybe you’ve had a rough day at work or school, and you just want to go have fun with your dogs. Or you want to get great video to show off what your dog can do? Go for it!
Just understand that repeatedly working what you’re already good at and what feels or looks good won’t make your weaknesses go away. Its important to balance out challenges with feeling good, absolutely. But the feeling good moments are always sweeter after overcoming challenges.
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