Smart Dog University Archives - Page 4 of 4

Teaching “Wait” (Video)

October 7, 2009

I was giving the dogs their dinner the other night when I realized Talos didn't have any idea how to wait his turn. Easy enough to teach, wait, so today I decided to teach him wait using his lunch. If I'd have planned this session (like a good trainer should), I would have had my clicker handy, I would have created a short training plan, and I would have reinforced the tiny correct steps.

What did I do instead?

Everything that I shouldn't do. I winged it. I didn't use a clicker. And I lumped behaviors together. In short, I made a mess of the session, but around 53 seconds in, I salvage it and actually pull it off.

Not one to show you just the good stuff, I thought it would be interesting to show you how not to do something. In the end it all works out, but it would have gone faster if I'd done it the right way.

Watch how Talos gets a tad frustrated. He goes through several behaviors he thinks I might be looking for. He backs away once or twice, clearly confused. Finally, I wise up and start to incrementally reinforce the appropriate behaviors (backing away from the dish, waiting just one second, two seconds, etc.).

I haven't added the cue yet "Wait," because we're nowhere near ready for that. I'll add the cue once I'm ready to bet $50 that Talos wont' go for the food bowl until I release him. Once I have the behavior I want, then (and only then) will I start to call it something.

It won't take many sessions for Talos to master the Wait - especially if his trainer gets her act together!

Talos Learns about Shaping (Video)

August 31, 2009

I love shaping. I love teaching a dog how much fun shaping can be. It takes the dog just a few minutes to understand what shaping is, and then: hold on and be ready to click – the dog loves this new game!

What is shaping, you ask? Imagine a sculptor with a chunk of clay. How does he get that clay from chunk to masterpiece? He shapes it with his hands, slowly changing the form, until it meets the artist's satisfaction. That's what we do with the behavior of an animal: we take whatever "chunk" of behavior the dog gives us, and we slowly mold that behavior into something we like. We use the clicker to tell the dog "Yes, I like that!" If the dog knows the way to earn a click (and therefore a goodie), it's only a matter of a few clicks before you've got the dog creating behavior that matches what you wanted to see.

If you want to try it with your own dog, here's what you need:

Clear the room – no other dogs allowed. Keep the distractions to a minimum.
Have high value treats. No dog food, biscuits, or Pupperoni. We're talking ham, turkey, cheese, chicken, or hot dogs!
Have a large object ready to put on the floor. Put the object down, step back, and zip your lips!
Click the dog for any interaction with that object. This is not the time to be stingy or to have high expectations.
Remain still. Remain quiet. Resist the urge to help your dog.

I made a video of Talos learning how to shape. (At the bottom of this post.) The sound isn't very good (sorry, I'll remember this for the next video), so you may have to turn your volume way up. Originally, I thought I might shape Talos to use his feet to interact with the box. But it turns out he's not that advanced yet – he's still learning that interacting with the box is a good thing. So I decided to lower my criteria and reinforce any and all interactions with the box.

At one point, Talos stops, sits, and waits for me to direct him to do something with the box. That indicates to me that he doesn't understand fully what shaping is all about. And that's ok! That's why I didn't raise my criterion to paw touch. The more experience he has with shaping, the better he'll get.

Why is shaping important? Your dog is learning how to learn – which is the most important reason to work on shaping. Another thing, it's FUN for the dog! Your dog gets to engage with you, work his mind, and try to figure out how to get you to click. The more you practice shaping with your dog, the faster he'll be able to figure out a solution. So when you actually need to teach a new behavior, it's super easy!

Now here's the video of Talos shaping:

Being Quiet is Hard (Video)

August 25, 2009

One of the things service dogs have to be good at is waiting quietly. They'll be asked do a lot of that in their life – they only need to work when their person needs them, so downtime is a big part of their day. At first glance it may seem like an easy task, but being quiet is sometimes difficult for a dog to learn.

Today I took Talos to the local public library. I'd planned to do some work on my laptop, while giving Talos some "office experience:" how to lay quietly for an hour or two in a public place. Two years ago, when I worked for the Federal government, the pups learned this relatively quickly – they were immersed in office life nine hours a day, five days a week. We had a few restless meetings, but in general, the pups learned that when nothing was required of them, it was nap time.

I don't have an office environment, so today was Talos' first real "office experience." I was prepared: I took his portable bed, a stuffed food toy, and a regular dog toy to help occupy his body and mind. We found a nice, quiet cubby out of the way of the library traffic and away from other patrons. I gave him a quick tour of the library, so he could have a few moments to see where he was and what was (and wasn't) going on, then headed back to my cubby to get some work done.

I put Talos' bed under the desk, gave him his chew bone, and got to work. For about two minutes. He wasn't interested in the chew bone. He could hear children across the library, and apparently they'd peaked his interest. I threw a few pieces of dog food under the table to get his attention back to where I needed him to be. He was happy to eat the food, then was ready to explore again.

I took him on another quick circle of the library, letting him sniff and explore, but not letting him meet any people. (No one asked to meet him – I would have let him greet if anyone asked.) He flopped down on his side, began running his big lips along the carpet in one of the aisles and proceeded to sing. Oh good lord – not now, not here!

I managed to get him up and back to our out-of-the-way cubby, only to find a woman had chosen to sit right next to us. Out of the 50 free cubbys, she picked ours to sit next to. Another distraction for Talos. I tried again to get him to sit or lay quietly under the table, but he was having nothing of it. He flopped down again, and began rolling on the floor and singing. Imagine this at your local library, except he's not on a couch, but on the library floor. We've got a lot of work ahead of us:

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