Why Your Aren't Reaching Out to Your Trainer
Hello! It’s Melanie Canatella with Fluff and Feathers. This week I want to talk about the value of finding the right procedure to do when training. Often, people do not reach out to a professional trainer because they have tried different training methods using trail-and-error learning and have not gotten the desired results. Previous behavior-change strategies have or been successful, so there is less value of hiring a trainer because the caretaker feels as if they have exhausted all their options.
There can be a list of reasons why a behavior-change plan did not work. It does not boil down to you as a “failure” trainer, or your animal not being able to be trained. These are other things I hear when talking with people. Note that no person or animal is a failure at training or cannot be trained. Keeping this mindset out of your head will help greatly when starting to train your animal.
The first reason you may be having challenges is due to not having done enough or correct function assessment of the behavior. Functional assessment is the process of developing hypothesis about the functional relations of the behavior to the environment. It focuses on you documenting the animals’ observable behaviors and the conditions in which they happen in order to focus on the measurability of the behavior. It does not include labels or emotions, but we also do not want to discount the animal’s cognitions and emotions. For example, you won’t note “my bird is angle and aggressing towards me.” Using functional assessment, it may look like “when I approach my bird in its cage, it quickly moves towards me with its tail fanned and eye pinning, then jumps at the bars and bites them consistently until I move away.”
Not only does describing the behaviors need to be correct, but then accurately finding the relations of the behavior to the environment. Behavior is depending on its environment, which does include us, so finding the “triggers” for the behavior will in return help you understand the “root” of the behavior and create a plan to decrease the behavior, find alternative behaviors, bring reassurance through desensitization, etc.
Another struggle people face when trying to train behaviors by themselves is not coming up with the right behavior strategy. There are a lot of ways to train the same behavior. Professionals know different ways because they have worked with hundreds or thousands of animals with that behavior and know the methods that have worked with individuals. When our experience level is less, as well as not having enough background in the science of behavior, we are limited to ideas that are posted online, that friends have tried, etc. Most of these methods have also only been tested on a small number of animals, or not at all depending on where you get your information. This can give the perception that there are no other methods to work with.
Some caretakers need to be trained as well! When our timing and approach are off, even with the best training plan it can bring set backs or lack of success. It can give a false perception of success or “failure” leading to you being less motivated. Also, we can tend to be inconsistent with what we want or what we are doing. This is why I always recommend having a written training plan that outlines the objective, the steps outlined and detailed, and when to move onto the next step based off of the behavior you are seeing, not by the number of days or number of repetitions for most training plans.
The good thing is that most issues you are facing can easily be helped by contacting a professional trainer. Having the right understanding of the behavior, a detailed written training plan specifically for you and your animal, and support during training to help train the trainer is key to success when you are struggling to modify behaviors. You shouldn’t give up on a behavior you are seeing because that doesn’t do anyone justice! No matter your question or the behaviors you are seeing, you can always reach out to me! Most of the time I can answer your questions without needing to set up a training session. It is free to call and reach out to learn your options, get a professional opinion, and go from there!