What is the difference between commands and cues? This is something that I know I used to wonder when I first got started and I have heard of others who wondered the same thing. In this post I am going to explain the difference between commands and cues and explain why we use cues in positive reinforcement training.
Commands
Commands, as I like to explain them, essentially push from behind. They are designed to motivate the animal to do something many times by applying what is essentially phycological pressure and are often trained and stated in a “do it or else” sort of way. However, even if commands are trained with more thoughtfulness, from what I have witnessed myself and from what I have heard from many professional trainers, this process of people motivating behavior through commands often results in a situation where the animal is only doing the behavior because it was told to do so. This comes from the fact that commands are used in punishment-based training methods. You might be wondering what is wrong with dogs doing something just because they were told to? The problem is that we essentially end up with a robot animal. They are taught that they have no say in the matter and this creates a lot of stress in the animal. When this happens, we often end up with unreliable behaviors because the animal associates a certain amount of stress with the command and can end up working to avoid having to fully respond.
Cues
Cues essentially are a gateway. They are an opportunity. When we train animals with positive reinforcement, we build drive to perform and engage in the behavior. A big part of positive reinforcement is allowing the animal the choice to engage or disengage. This often creates a huge amount of trust between handler and animal and, within the dog, promotes a desire to work for the person. This “desire” is then amplified by reinforcement which drives behavior! As a result, you end up with an animal who wants to engage in behavior for you and is filled with internal drive to perform the behavior! At this point, the animal often so enjoys performing the behavior that we must teach it self-control! This is when we apply a cue to the behavior. The cue acts as a gateway. When we have not given the cue, the gate is closed for the behavior associated with it. When we do give the cue, the gate is open, and the dog has the opportunity to apply all that drive and perform the behavior! This often results in much more reliable behaviors because the dog wants to perform the behavior!
The Training Method
Cues are what we use when we train using positive reinforcement and they are designed to add to the motivation inside the learner! Positive reinforcement and cues are hugely important parts of developing a relationship built on trust! If you are interested in getting started with Positive Reinforcement training, or continuing past education, email me at happyats@outlook.com!
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