CBS3 Pet Project: Is Commanding Or Cueing Better For Pet Training?
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Do you command or do you cue your pet for the behavior you would like? Animal advocate Carol Erickson joined Eyewitness News with some tips on training your pet.
An article in the Your Dog Newsletter talked about the importance of how you even think about, am I commanding my dog or am I cueing my dog? Because that can change the relationship entirely and also change the outcome.
So how you think of it, giving a command or a cue is very important because the language actually reflects and shapes our thinking.
Now, a command is considered to be a very talk down heavy doesn't allow the animal to have any kind of choice at all it's do it or else.
A cue implies that you've got a choice. It's a guide to better outcomes that can result in a reward for the dog for doing it right or no reward.
It's their choice, it's not our order that they must do it or else.
Thinking of cueing teaches us that communication is key and it has to be respectful loving and the most effective way since dogs, like the rest us, learn best to a cooperative relationship.
Now how else would a border collie learn how to read signs, not through a command but through a cue, they respond then and we give a reward.
So if a dog doesn't seem to understand a cue then Erickson says that could be a breakdown in communication.
"You need to slow down some of those steps and break them down a little bit more until they get it a little bit better," she said.
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Watch the video to see this week's segment.