Better Decisions

By Minou Tpain

Better Decisions

Let’s take a deep dive into a dog’s brain. Every movement, thought or feeling in a dog is an accurately timed signal traveling through a chain of neurons. These neurons are insulated or wrapped by something called myelin. Every time a particular action is carried out the neurons are wrapped with myelin. The more myelin these circuits have, the stronger, faster and more fluid the action becomes.

A dog that has not been trained has all of the neurons but they are not yet fully insulated with myelin, therefore they are at a point where they will heavily rely on their instincts to tell them what to do.

This is where training comes in handy. If you are looking to alter your dog’s response to a specific stimuli, the training must be repetitive. The repetitions will allow more and more myelin to insulate the neurons, helping it to become the stronger behavior but this doesn’t happen until the circuit is fully insulated, hence the repetitions.

More importantly, it must have more myelin than the previously practiced behavior. This is the point where management of behavior would be necessary. Management helps to stop the dog from practicing the unwanted behavior otherwise if they continue to practice the unwanted behavior, myelin will just be wrapping around those circuits, making it a stronger behavior and preventing the desired behavior from ever becoming the stronger one; it essentially will never catch up.

Understanding how brains work and the role that myelin plays gives us the understanding of why repetition, patience and positive experiences are important factors in training.

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