A Broader Look at Drills
By Evan Graham
In a general sense, most modern training systems and programs rely on drills to form behavioral habits in dogs. There are drills for skill development, and drills to fix, maintain, or at least support field skills. It is my position that drills are not as well understood as one might think.
In the hope of starting with most of us being on the same page about what drills are in the dog training context, let’s examine what a good definition would be. Such a definition may or may not align well with dictionary, or textbook definitions – at least for our purposes. This is dog training, and we need to think like trainers.
What is a Drill?
From Merriam/Webster’s Dictionary
transitive verb 1 a : to fix something in the mind or habit pattern of by repetitive instruction <drill pupils in spelling> b : to impart or communicate by repetition <impossible to drill the simplest idea into some people> c : to train or exercise in military drill
It is reasonable to especially apply definitions “a” and “c” together to this discussion, and perhaps form a single definition that we, as trainers, can agree upon, understanding “b” as a good reference to modality. Although we all know that getting a group of trainers to actually agree on something is a tenuous venture, at best! But let’s give it a try.
From yours truly
Drill: 1 – instruct by repetition, 2 – strict training and instruction, 3 – term for a type of training exercise containing multiple exposures to a focused theme of training
I consider #3 as the overall definition I tie most conversations about drills to, with #1 implied at all times, and #2 as a fairly frequent component. Strict, in my view, does not necessarily include significant pressure, but rather refers to tightly upheld standards.
You may, or may not agree with this definition structure per se, but at least you understand the premise of my remarks on this topic.
Why drills for dog training?
Clearly, some trainers use drills because it’s what they were taught to do by someone they respected and/or relied upon. It’s not all bad to do something, or to do it a certain way simply because that’s what we were taught. But that usually has inherent limitations as to how far along someone will progress as a trainer. I understand that no matter who you are, you have to start somewhere, and drills have proven themselves as a good and reliable vehicle for teaching new dogs (and new trainers) how to form behaviors.
I believe better trainers understand some important things about drills that maximize their usefulness in training. Some of that is realizing that there are inherent downsides in nearly every act we perform in dog training, depending on things like –
1. Doing a drill or exercise too often
2. Doing a drill or exercise with too much pressure (especially elective pressure)
3. Doing a drill or exercise with too little pressure to cause a behavior change (merely nagging)
4. Using a drill to accomplish what another approach might do better, i.e. a cold set up, or multiple cold set ups
5. Robotically running a drill again and again, disregarding how a dog is negatively reacting to it, or the manner in which it is being applied
This list could go on (and I’m sure it will!). But the point is that there is no magic bullet for what is “the best way” to train a dog. But I do strongly believe that, generally speaking, drills come closest to being the best choice of all approaches for skill development, and often for maintenance, with all the above considerations applied, of course.
Finally, the “why” I believe in most centers around the fact that repetition is a key feature of any effective training exercise. Drills, by their nature, are repetitive. Better yet, they tend to often repeat a concept, rather than continuing to rely merely upon repeating the same retrieve over and over, although some early drills do just that. The important thing to remember about drills is that each has an objective that can be effectively met by even a novice level trainer, as long as they observe some fairly simple guidelines.
There are potential downsides to nearly everything we do with these dogs. Most of them can be avoided through common sense. Understanding that “common sense” isn’t as common as we might wish, no drill or exercise can overcome human incompetence. Use any technique you like. Using it wisely will tend to produce good results with good dogs.