Organic Training

I was pulling weeds from my front lawn last weekend when a neighbor drove by. He stopped to chat and asked why I was wasting so much energy doing yardwork “the hard way.” Mind you, this man’s yard is immaculate. Putting greens look shabby compared to his velvet emerald lawn.

When I first moved to my neighborhood three years ago, I coveted this perfection. I guess you could say I was green with envy (pun intended). Soon enough, though, I realized that his flawless splendor came at a cost. Every week, a truck, absurdly emblazoned with a huge mural of a killer whale, pulled up to that house. A white-suited man would get out and unroll the hose he used to spray buckets of chemicals – pesticides, herbicides and other defecticides – on the grass and shrubs. The result: an illusion of a healthy garden.

Sure, it looked great on the surface, but those chemicals destroyed the microorganisms and insects that support long-term viability of the soil. In addition, all those toxins run off the lawn into the sewer system, reeking havoc on our Pacific Northwest environment. I wince at the irony of this neighbor grilling salmon on his barbecue amidst his carpet o’ green. He’ll be the first to complain when the endangered local salmon runs finally disappear, but he’ll never see the connection this tragedy will have to his own personal choices.

I’m committed to the principles of organic gardening. Admittedly, my yard is less than perfect. It’s a bit out-of-control, actually. But it’s also full of life. Worms and ladybugs, bees and butterflies abound. I spend plenty of time tilling the soil, enriching it with compost and other amendments. I choose plants appropriate for the soil and light conditions in our garden. I welcome diversity and am often pleasantly surprised by the “volunteers” that sprout in my beds. The eventual result: a truly vibrant garden.

Choosing to tend my garden with organic products is a lot like choosing to train our dogs with operant conditioning. Though both approaches – organic gardening and clicker training -- have gained legions of faithful adherents in the past decade, they are still not the method used by the majority of folks. They aren’t yet mainstream. Which may be a good thing, too, because that ol’ main stream is filled with garbage.

To people who have achieved success using “tried and true” methods, (e.g., spraying Dursban™ -- the recently-banned toxic pesticide -- on their apple trees; using a shock collar on their hunting hound), these newer philosophies may seem extreme, labor-intensive, and unnecessary. Why bother doing it “the hard way,” they wonder?

We clicker trainers know why. Right from the start, we invest a great deal of time developing a fertile, rich rapport with our animals. We build up trust, the tilth of relationships. We commit to the dictum “First, do no harm.” We acknowledge the potential for irrevocable fall-out resulting from indiscriminate and widespread use of positive punishment, the Round-Up™ in a trainer’s toolbox. We value diversity and are grateful for the myriad behaviors our animals offer us, because we realize that behavioral variability is the foundation of efficient training. When unwanted, “weedy” behaviors crop up in our animals, we remember that the best way to get rid of them is to nurture desirable substitutes to use as replacements. And we know that just as weeds take advantage of sterile, microorganism-depleted lawns, undesirable habits (e.g., destructiveness or whining) require a behavioral void to take root.

Gardening and dog training both attempt to direct the growth and behavior of living organisms. They are intended to exert some degree of control over messy Mother Nature. But though we may aspire to create a perfectly-maintained perennial bed or a perfectly-behaved pug, the chaos of real life always intervenes. We need to remember that no living thing is perfect. And thank goodness, too, or else boredom would consume us.

I believe the best we can do is to invest time early on, sowing seeds of creativity and nurturing the natural strengths of each unique being in our care. All that diligent effort lays the groundwork for a later explosion of accelerated growth. The animal learns new tasks with incredible speed and ease; the garden bursts forth with color and abundance. We will spend time maintaining this peak performance, to be sure, but the bulk of our job was completed with all “the hard work” of the early days. We’ve earned the right then to sit back in a lawn chair, soaking up compliments, content in the knowledge that no creatures were harmed in the making of our masterpiece.