A little backstory.
Daphne Starnes is a freshman at the CCHS campus. Besides training dogs, she also enjoys doing theater, playing cello, and archery.
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What is this hobby?
Dog training is a kind of animal training, the application of behavior analysis that uses the environmental events of antecedents (triggers for behavior) and consequences to modify the dog’s behavior, either for it to assist in specific activities or undertake particular tasks, or for it to participate effectively in contemporary domestic life. While training dogs for specific roles dates back to Roman times at least, the training of dogs to be compatible household pets developed with suburbanization in the 1950s.
A dog learns from interactions it has with its environment. This can be through classical conditioning, where it forms an association between two stimuli; non-associative learning, where its behavior is modified through habituation or sensitization; and operant conditioning, where it forms an association between an antecedent and its consequence.
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Answers from the expert.
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How much work goes into the hobby?
“A few hours a week. I try to do at least one twenty minute session with each of our 3 dogs daily. With my therapy dog I try to do 4 visits to facilities a month. With my Therapy dog in training I try to get him out in public (pet friendly stores) at least once a week.”
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How long have they been doing the hobby?
“I’ve had an interest in training dogs for years, I decided to train my dog as a therapy dog last summer (2023) and he’s been making visits since January when he got registered.”
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Why did they pick up this hobby?
“I love dogs and as I said I’ve had an interest in training for a while now. I also enjoy volunteering and helping in the community, so it was really the perfect option for me.”
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Does this hobby help anywhere else in their life?
“It helps me with social skills, getting to meet people of all ages, sometimes in tough situations. It also helps me with getting involved in the community. ”
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How might others who are interested in this hobby get started?
“Research! Not every dog is cut out for this line of work, and therapy dogs need to be well-trained so it requires a lot of effort. I would say to research what training goes into this. Research different organizations, and figure out which one works best for you.”
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Final remarks.
“For clarification, since the terms get easily confused, a therapy dog is the kind of dog who goes into places like hospitals, nursing homes, schools, etc to provide comfort. Service dogs are task trained to help one person’s disability and go everywhere the public can go. ESA’s are for one person, but they stay at home.”
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Reflection.
Personally, I don’t know Daphne, but what I can say about her is that she is clearly experienced in the discipline of her work. Training dogs isn’t anything easy, especially to new owners or to people with particularly rowdy canines; it’s doubly impressive when she’s only a freshman and taking on this amount of responsibility. There is no doubt she will go far in this field which she is so passionately participating.
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