This piece first appeared in the June 11, 2024 issue of our newsletter.
What is the difference between giving your dog a command and giving your dog a cue? This might feel like a question of semantics, but to our learners it can have intense undertones.
Common dictionary definitions of “command” include “an order given” and “to exercise a dominating influence over,” whereas a cue is commonly defined as “a signal to a performer to begin a specific speech or action” or “to prompt” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).
Our language choices have lasting effects on how we perceive the animal’s response to our direction. Soldiers receive commands, and punishment is implied if such commands are not followed. When using a positive reinforcement-based or, better yet, errorless learning approach, if a learner does not respond to a cue, the teacher assesses why rather than placing blame. Perhaps an internal trigger such as pain or stress has prevented the learner from responding to the cue appropriately. Perhaps the dog does not have enough repetitions to understand that the word “sit” is an antecedent for the behavior of sitting, which yields a consequence of a yummy treat.
Changing our language changes the way we perceive the animal’s lack of response, and our relationship to the animal altogether. The rat is always right. Accept the instant feedback that something in your learning plan did not go as predicted and move on. Focus on getting your learner to contact reinforcement as quickly as possible following the error by cuing a different, more fluent behavior.
By taking this tact, are we being permissive? No. “Permissive” suggests no management of antecedents or consequences. Whatever happens, happens. Instead, teachers are in charge of carefully managing the learning environment and process to keep their learner successful and on track. A learner who can respond to a sit cue in a quiet room but cannot at a busy street corner waiting for the crosswalk is not being disrespectful. Forcing a sit when the animal is overwhelmed and overstimulated (and possibly didn’t even hear the cue over the sounds of traffic) is in direct contrast with our ethical approach and is poor teaching. Instead, observe the “error” as a data point. Think: “If my learner cannot respond to my cue under this specific set of conditions, how can I adjust to make my learner successful?” and “What is the function of the behavior that my learner did offer? What does my learner need right now?”
We would rather an animal happily choose to work with us than submit out of fear or avoidance of pain.
References:
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). America’s most trusted dictionary. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/
Pryor, K. (2002, June 25). The Poisoned Cue: Positive and Negative Discriminative Stimuli. Clickertraining.com. https://www.clickertraining.com/node/164
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