Canine Path To Motivation

In the software world, even more so today with web programming, there is a structure we follow when developing software.

This structure is not based on the needs of the programmer, it is based on the needs of the client the software is being written for with an eye on the eventual users.

What about the dog? What actually does a dog (or most any animal) need?

What can a dog achieve past basic survival?

What motivates a dog to continue to share life with humans, live in a human world and learn what is needed to be learned?

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What motivates a dog to continue to share life with humans

What drives behavior and what reinforces it

What can a dog achieve past basic survival

How a dog functions – how a dog avoids death and creates survival

What motivates a dog in its responses to others, to the environment, to change?

Energy – that which is needed to fuel the body for survival
Safety – security of body and resources, an understanding of the body and the environment to ensure the acquisition of resources, confidence that one can respond appropriately, effectively and efficiently to outside forces of change and create a new balance
Connection – survival as part of groups, family, procreation and the raising and education of young, ensuring the survival of the group and the species. This would include developing a mode of communication that makes connection possible.
Cognition – Confidence that one can achieve the survival goals of life, ensure appropriate and meaningful mental and physical stimulation, be willing and able to perceive and resolve problems, be resilient to change and understand the need for a predictability of response
Potential – This is where one achieves the freedom to flow with life challenges, to make choices based on exploration and curiosity for greater abundance of resources and connections, and the mastery of one’s life.

There are many “tools” one needs in working with the emotional responses and subsequent behavior of a dog. This path is one such tool and provides the trainer with questions that can be asked about the dog and his behavior and responses. Questions such as:

What is he concerned with/worried about

What does he respond to / gravitate toward

What does he avoid

What is he indifferent to / appears to have no meaning for him

How does he respond when attracted

How does he respond when avoiding

This path also helps us to understand our dog’s potential. Too often both in the past and in the present, a dog is viewed only for his aesthetic value or as a companion and otherwise only thought of as an “animal”.

Applying the path of motivation and answering the above questions with the path as the model also leads us to see what is reinforcing a dog’s behavior and what may be preventing (punishing) them from doing as we wish them to do

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