From pac073 at dejazzd.com Sat May 1 09:24:20 2004 From: pac073 at dejazzd.com (Philip A. Colvin) Date: Sat May 1 19:24:45 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Re: Disengaged dog? In-Reply-To: <4093053A.772E0797@catskill.net> Message-ID: Mr. McDonald, I found your message helpful and have started to try some of your examples. I could use some advise on the targeting game. I am working with a 41/2 month old Lab. Whenever I put the target on the floor, that is where all of her focus is directed. She is more concerned about trying to pick it up with her mouth and play with it. Until she is over this stage, do you have any other suggestions for objects to use as targets that would not be so much like a toy to her? I am new to clicker training and need as much help as I can get. I have taught her sit, down and heel with the clicker very successfully. I have now seem to hit a road block in getting new behaviors. I'm sure the problem is on my part, not the dog's. I have sought some private lessons that have been very helpful, and I think I'm getting the hang of it but still have a ways to go. I guess my one big question is what should I be expecting from a 4 1/2 month old Lab. She is very capable of learning, but does not seem to be very motivated at times. I'm told much of her energy is yet to come. If this is the case, should I be frustrating her by trying to teach or shape new behaviors until she is a bit more motivated and focused? Thanks in advance. Phil Colvin -----Original Message----- From: Click-l-bounces@click-l.com [mailto:Click-l-bounces@click-l.com]On Behalf Of Barry McDonald Sent: Friday, April 30, 2004 9:03 PM To: Click-l@click-l.com Subject: [Click-l] Re: Disengaged dog? Hi. Merrell. Many dogs that have spent years undergoing conventional training are reticent to offer spontaneous behaviors. I think a certain degree of depression is also often a part of the dissociation you see. There is often a sense of, "I give up!" For a first step in clicker training, I would suggest either some free shaping or some very simple clicker "puppy games." These activities present the least stress and are very simple tasks. Your goal at first will be to find anything resembling an approximation of a behavior that you can C&T. 1) SHAPING WITH A FLAT FLOOR TARGET: The way I start out all my pups is also the way I interact with a new adult dog that has never been clicker trained during the first session. I use a large flat target that I place on the floor, and I simply C&T the dog for the slightest movement in the direction of the target. You can start rewarding for the quickest glance in that direction, and then for a head turn toward the target. If the dog just happens to take a step toward the target, C&T and, if the dog deals with it OK, give some verbal praise as well. The name of the game is to gradually get the dog to touch the target with a front paw. Normally, within a ten minute session with a dog that has never heard a clicker before, I can have the animal tagging the floor target with his or her front paw quite deliberately and very frequently. By this time, I have already seen a light bulb go off in the dog's head as it realizes what's going on. You need to gage your attitude and speed so it fits the dog's temperament. If the dog is lounging and taking five minutes to even take a peek at the target, sit down in a chair, relax, and use all your patience and self-control. Don't give any hints or motivation, and by all means, don't lure and don't talk! Let the fellow wander at his ease until he takes that lucky step in the right direction, and then C&T. On the other hand, if the dog starts to get into it, then pick up the pace and get excited and have some fun with it! The difficulty in getting started is that you need to use a very fast rate of reinforcement to get a a non-clicker savvy dog started. In a perfect world, you'd want to be C&T'ing the dog every five to ten seconds once he gets the idea. The problem is that this type of dog is probably not going to be in a rush to get engaged enough at first to allow a fast rate of reinforcement. That's why you need to be ready with plan B, which may involving sitting on the kitchen chair for 15 minutes before you get the first C&T in. The main thing is to not create any additional stress for the dog unintentionally by exhibiting your own expectations or eagerness! The best target to use for this situation is a perfectly flat target--such as a piece of cardboard or the center cut out of a paper plate. (I like circles and so do dogs!) You want it to be fairly large at the beginning--6 or even 8 inches in diameter. You can then decrease the size to about 3 inches once the dog has gotten the idea of touching the target with a paw for a reward. After a long time experimenting with different materials, I discovered what for me has been the PERFECT target! If you go to a craft store or a department store that has a craft section, you can find 8" x 11" sheets of a rubbery soft vinyl-like material that is about as thick as a sturdy piece of cardboard. I don't remember what it is called because I bought a mother load of the stuff years ago, and I'm still cutting sheets of it up into circles of various sizes. It lasts forever! Some craft person--SOS--tell us what they call this stuff? Anyway, these rubbery sheets come on various colors and are maybe a dollar each. I use black, yellow, and light green sheets because the yellow-green part of the spectrum is one of the areas that dogs can differentiate color best in. There is no color code--I simply use the target with the color that contrasts best with the surface I'm placing it on. I have dozens of circles. They vary in diameter from one inch to 6 inches. 3" is the size I most commonly use once I've gotten a dog used to tagging a larger circle. You can make various size circles by placing various cans or a cups or jar tops over the material, and either cutting through with a razor blade or trace the circle with a pencil and then cut it out with sharp scissors. So, the basic exercise is circle in the middle of the floor; no coaching; C&T for the slightest glance or move toward the target; continue, continue, continue; and most dogs within five to ten minutes will be heading right for the target and either stepping on it or slapping it repeatedly. At that point, you can start picking up the target and tossing it a few feet this way and that after the dog has had a minutes or two in one location. It's best to begin indoors where the space is more limited and the dog has fewer options ot walk way. Once you get the behavior gong indoors in several rooms, you can start taking it outside. >From there, you can start enhancing the behavior and having more fun. Start placing the target on a step or on the dog's doggy bed, or on top of a small cardboard box. You can then place it on higher objects like beds and wait for the dog to jump up to get at it. The best part requires only a few pieces of tape. The material is so light that just about any type of sticking tape will hold it to a vertical surface. You can tape it 6 inches up a wall, then raise it slowly higher and higher so the dog is now doing a stand-up on its rear legs to tag the target. If you have a large enough dog and work on this wall tagging in an area under a light switch---I'll leave it to your imagination what come next! The real value of this exercise is that it has no actual value as a behavior right now--although it can be shaped into many useful behaviors later. Shaping with the target is a pure exercise in learning how to become operant. Instead of focusing on a particular behavior, you're letting the dog go where it want to go and discover the behavior that will be rewarding. Highly recommended. 2) PUPPY EXERCISES AND BASIC FLUENCIES: A. Have an assistant join you in sitting or kneeling on the floor at opposite ends of the room, facing each other. Both should have a clicker and plenty of treats--hidden. Position the dog between you, and then wait. What you're shaping now is coming to either of the two people. Many dogs will come right over, so shaping is not necessary, but if your dog is shy, you may need to invite him the first few times. DO NOT use an established recall command. In fact, don't call his name or say anything. You are not shaping a response to being beckoned, you are trying to shape a tendency to want to come to you , cueless! You are shaping magnetism. When he reaches one or the other person, C&T. Then that person should ignore him, and Wait.... You can both just wait until he wanders toward the other person, or you may need to at first do some shaping just to get him turned around and headed in the opposite direction. (Most dogs on the first try will of course stick near the person who just rewarded them, which is why that person would become a statue after C&T'ing.) With a really reluctant dog, you can temporarily resort to calling his name, making some noise or hand motions, or even luring with a visible treat, but don't continue that for too long. It's just a jump-start. Soon, you should see the dog start to get the picture--and he will walk directly back and forth from one person to the other, as quickly and directly as he can as you C&T, C&T.... To enhance the basic drill, sit in different locations and then try it in different rooms. Then get a third person involved, and a fourth eventually. It's "Doggy in the Middle," and as soon as you add that third or fourth person, now add just the dog's name as a cue, and have one person at a time call his name to invite him over. Now it gets fun because with more than two, you can *randomly* call the dog from one person to the other, which is a lot more fun than the predictable back and forth between two people. Start mixing it up so the dog never knows who he's headed for next until is name is spoken. Try a fake out and have the same person call him back twice in a row! (:-) >From there, the only limit is your imagination. Toss some cushions or obstacles on the floor that he must jump over or go around. Move the people farther apart. Take it outside, and get gradually increase the distance even more. Begin doing a standing version. Then a standing version in which the people slowly walk and change position continuously. B. Another very simple puppy game is Back Up. Stand in front of the dog, and take a few steps backward. If he follows at all, C&T. Gradually increase the criteria until he is coming right to you. Again, no recall command, and not even the name now. You are conditioning a behavior that is called "Heading toward mom is always fun!" That's all you need to accomplish now. Gradually, back up farther before rewarding the arriving dog. Then backup faster and farther. Then turn your back to the dog and walk away forward. When you stop, turn to face the dog again and C&T. (Your turning will probably act as a reinforcer, also.) This can evolve into a more and more energetic chase. C. The last game is Hide and Seek. Have an assistant hold the dog while you show it a treat that you are holding. Use something very smelly or tasty for the first tries. Once the dog registers, "There she is with a treat," walk away calmly and go elsewhere in the house and hide! Have your assistant release the dog after one minute or some other preassigned time period. The assistant can give encouragement--"Go find Mom!" For your first few hiding places, try plain sight or somewhere the dog is used to going. (Maybe you will make a little too much noise the first couple times and give yourself away?) When the dog finds you, C&T--and a jackpot works well each time with this exercise. Over time, start really hiding in places that are out of sight, and stay quiet. Use a larger and larger area to play in. Take it outside if you have trees or nooks and crannies in your house to hide behind. By using very powerful and odiferous treats like real meat or peanut butter, you can actually start some dogs on a tracking and scenting career because what we call Hide and Seek to a dog is Smell and Find! All of the suggestions above have several things in common, which is why I specifically recommend them for your dog. 1) They are easy, but they are activities that can be built upon and made more and more challenging when the dog is ready. 2) They are low stress and potentially high fun! Always think of them and conduct them as games, not as training exercises. Place no pressure or expectations on the dog. Let him find his own way. 3) Most importantly, notice that all of the puppy games emphasize a single behavior--come to me! But you will be training and conditioning it through games and the maximum use of rewards. You will develop the "tendency" to come to you as a safe thing to do, as a rewarding thing to do, as the best thing to always do! That is what these games are about. And once you establish that, you will have a basic fluency--almost an instinct--that tells the dog, "When in doubt, go to her." I've trained dogs extensively with just these and a few other fluency exercises, and have ended up with auto-recall dogs---dogs that literally need no recall command. A call of their name, a few steps away from them, ignoring them and walking away... these are often the only cues needed to cause the dog to come to you. You are also building a strong bond by repeatedly rewarding the dog for approaching you. No other fancy behaviors required. Just coming to me is a wonderful thing, and I reward it. You let the dog know that it is the most important behavior he will ever do. This will get you in the vicinity of that connection that Suzanne Clothier was talking about in Bones. And a month spent on just these simple games will often yield a dog that will be easier to train in every other activity you teach it for the rest of its life. You've not only taught the dog how to learn, you've taught it that learning is fulfilling and fun! Regards, =========================================== Barry McDonald -------------------- DogSense =========================================== Pinto & Little Bits, Basenji Partners in Crime, rescues Shadow The Dog, Cheyenne, and Cherokee--Master of Calming Signals. =========================================== "A dog cannot be bad, it can only be a dog." =========================================== "Show me a dog that's been trained and trained and trained and still does not obey, and I'll tell you who the slow learner is!" =========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040501/390cf564/attachment-0001.htm From bmcd at catskill.net Sun May 2 01:28:37 2004 From: bmcd at catskill.net (Barry McDonald) Date: Sun May 2 19:31:50 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Disengaged dog? Message-ID: <409486EA.4A6EAC5@catskill.net> "Philip A. Colvin" wrote: > I found your message helpful and have started to try some of your examples. I could use some advise on the targeting game. I am working with a 41/2 month old Lab. Whenever I put the target on the floor, that is where all of her focus is directed. She is more concerned about trying to pick it up with her mouth and play with it. Until she is over this stage, do you have any other suggestions for objects to use as targets that would not be so much like a toy to her? < Hi, Philip. First, you have to realize you are working with a retriever--a breed that is typically orally-oriented, so it is of course not unexpected that a young Lab, especially a pup, prefers to use her mouth. In the process of "shaping" a behavior, we always tell the dog when it has done the correct thing by C&T'ing. In "traditional training," the dog is also "told" when it is doing the wrong thing by the application of a punishment or correction. In clicker training, we do not use positive punishments or correction, but instead usually ignore behavior that is not what we want. One of things that makes CT unique is that WHAT WE DO NOT DO when the dog is not reaching our goal is just as important as what WE DO when it does reach the goal. Dogs will tend to do what is rewarding, but they also make very quick decisions about what is not rewarding, and they will quickly abandon behaviors that "get them nothing." So you have to create a situation in which your dog gets rewarded for a paw touch, but ONLY when it happens BEFORE her mouth touches the target. Also, she must get NOTHING for a mouth grab that occurs before a paw touch. Being a Lab, grabbing the target in her mouth is self-rewarding already, so you need an advantage--a trick you can use to get the mouth out of the picture and get her to focus on the paw. That advantage can be gained by temporarily changing the distance from the target that constitutes a "correct touch." What you will do is set up a situation in which her paw will get to the target before her mouth most of the time. TARGET GAME WITH NO MOUTHING: 1) Place target on the floor, step away from it some distance to give your dog room, and do nothing. Stay still and make no comments. 2) Eventually--or immediately--she goes toward the target. C&T her for any turn, step, or approach to the target, just as before--if this is still necessary. If she is already going straight to the target, than just go to the next step. 3) If her mouth gets to the target first, before a paw touch, continue to ignore her. Don't react in any way and don't try to prevent it. If she should pick up the target with her mouth, that's fine. Remain still and continue to wait. (Obviously, no C&T for a mouth touch!) If she has picked up the target and then puts it down and it is out of her mouth, also do NOTHING! You don't want to reward this behavior, either. Continue to wait. Expect her to be a bit confused at first since you have now changed the rules and your behavior a bit. But remember, as you wait for the behavior you are looking for, she is free to do anything she wishes, and there is nothing wrong with her grabbing the target in her mouth, or doing a Sit, or going to sleep! If she mouths the target, YOU DO NOT CARE! Get the idea? Stop thinking of a mouth grab as "Wrong" and start thinking of it as "Irrelevant." If her paw should touch the target BEFORE her mouth does, C&T the paw touch. If she should mouth the target after the C&T, it doesn't matter. She has already exhibited the correct response--a paw touch--so you go ahead and C&T her for that. But, be quick in delivering the treat. You do not want to have: A) Paw touch, B) Mouth touch, C) C&T. If she should end up mouthing the target after a paw touch, you want it to happen in this order: A) Paw touch, B) C&T, C Mouth touch. Note that if you reward her immediately, you will probably be interrupting and preventing any immediate mouthing of the target. The key in this step is quick response and precise and accurate clicking. So when the paw has touched but the mouth has not yet touched the target, you will C&T. The paw MUST touch the target first, though. Since the click signals the end of the behavior and success, anything that comes after that means nothing and is not reinforced--as long as you ignore it! 5) But now the trick! To make it even easier in the beginning and to get more paw touches while also making the mouth grabs less likely, what you will do is C&T her for putting her paw within X number of inches of the target instead of only directly on the target. The X depends upon the size of the dog, so I can't give you an exact distance. I'd guess that 6-8 inches would be good. I won't go further than 8 to start, and if she is fairly small, maybe a smaller distance will be necessary. So, in other words, in the original exercise, you are constantly increasing the criteria. At first, she may have been clicked for just taking a few steps toward the target, but once she is going directly to the target, you don't C&T for the approach anymore. What you are going to do in this "modified version" is, for the time being, lower the criteria and require less of her. Instead of having to directly touch the target with her paw, you will C&T whenever her paw lands within the circumference of a larger imaginary circle that your mind draws around the target. Because the paw can be farther from the target now and still earn a C&T, her mouth will on many attempts not get close enough for her to mouth grab the target! Since her foot will reach the expanded target area before her mouth can reach the actual target, you should have many more opportunities to C&T for the paw touch without the mouth touch even occurring. 6) There is a saying, Click for behavior, feed for position." You'll understand how that can work in a moment. Again, if you C&T promptly, you will be rewarding only the paw, and not the mouth, and you will also be helping to prevent a mouth touch from following the paw touch because she will be busy receiving the treat right after touching with her paw. However, you can add an extra nuance here. AS YOU HAND HER THE TREAT, casually use your body movements to move her away from the target. You do not want her near the target once she has paw touched it because she might mouth it. You do not want her near the target after she has paw touched it because you need her to move away so she can repeat the behavior and approach and touch again. That's hard if she remains standing on the target as you treat her! So you are going to click for the behavior (paw touches the target) and feed for position (inconspicuously step her away from the target a bit as you present the food, or show her the food from a couple feet away and lure her to come to you to get it--whatever works best. You end up with a paw touch, a Click, a treat which moves her away from the target and interrupts any attempt to mouth it, and a dog back in position to try it again. 7) Work on the extended diameter target area for some time, until you are no longer seeing any mouth grabs or even attempts to duck her head toward the target. Then work on it an extra week! You see, the more she touches with a paw and is rewarded, the stronger that behavior becomes, but also, the more she does not have a chance to go for the target with her mouth, the weaker that behavior becomes! (It will undergo what we call Extinction.) So you want to let her have lots of practice until the mouth is hardly involved at all. 8) The last step involve increasing the criteria again and demanding more precise behavior before C&T'ing. Decrease the imaginary circle around the target. If you were C&T'ing for a paw within 6 inches, now only C&T if the paw is within 4 inches, and do nothing if it only gets to within 6. Gradually, over several session and days, make that boundary line smaller and smaller until her nails must hit within one inch of the target, and finally... she must make actual paw contact to get the C&T. As you decrease the distance, if she starts to make the slightest gesture or move toward the target that shows "mouth interest," temporarily increase the distance of the invisible outer circle again to the point where she is not longer thinking of her mouth. Don't wait until she actually begins to grab the target with her mouth--watch for earlier signs such as starting to drop her head, and if you interpret what she is doing as "mouth interest," then go back one step to a larger circumference and train at that level for a while longer before you try going for the closer paw touch again. 9) You should end up with your dog getting the right idea and offering only paw touches as long as you stick with the basic principle---a mouth touch does not get C&T'ed, nor does it get any reaction or attention. It is as meaningless a behavior as Sitting or doing nothing in terms of this target game. Finally, starting immediately, take precautions to keep the target out of reach and out of sight at all times except when you are playing the target game--or eventually other target exercises! The pup should never have an opportunity to "find" the target on a table or any place accessible. In this way, you further prevent her from mouthing it, and eventually, the target will be viewed as an object that you just don't put in your mouth, from lack of repetition alone. That may be all you need to do. There is a separate exercise, however, that is good for all dogs to be drilled in, and that may help with her mouthiness in general. DOGGY ZEN: This is a version of what is called Doggie Zen. Sit on the floor with the dog in a Sit in front of you. Have a clicker and some treats, but keep the treats out of sight until after clicking. Take a ball or other toy that the dog really likes, and place it on the floor in front of you slowly and casually so it doesn't not seem like you are initiating play. Place the toy close to you and maybe 2 or 3 feet from the dog. If the dog looks at the toy, do nothing. Wait. If she goes to the toy or grabs it, do nothing and wait until she puts it down. Then reposition her and the toy and start again. The goal of this game is for the dog to look at you, not the toy. So, the second she looks up at your face, C&T. Repeat this 10-20 times per session. Do nothing unless she looks at your face; when she does, C&T. If she tend to keep looking at you after a C&T, you can pick up the toy and place it down again, to get her attention back on the toy, but at first, wait a moment to see if she will look back at the toy on her own. As you repeat the exercise, you can expect a very fast learning curve from most dogs. Often in just the first session, you will begin with the dog's attention riveted on the toy at first, and by the last few reps, she will be looking at you immediately and hardly noticing the toy. When she gets to that point, move the toy CLOSER to her and farther from you. (Remember, if she does go for the toy, you do not need to be within range to stop her--you do not want to stop her, you want to ignore her if she goes for it!) Once it is getting easy again, move the object still closer--see how close you can get it to her. Finally, try sliding yourself back farther. For a dog that is doing well, you might have an eventual goal of placing the object one foot in front of her while you step back and sit ten feet away--although that degree of difficulty is not necessary. The final stage of difficulty is to start to STAND rather than SIT in front of the dog as you do the exercise. When you add a new criteria, you should always lower the previous criteria temporarily, so when you first try standing, do it close to the dog, a few feet away, where you began when sitting. Then, as she masters looking up at your face instead of the object (a harder task now since you are higher), start moving the toy closer and then adding distance again. There's no specific distance or goal you must reach. You don't need to push this exercise too far, but at least get to where you can stand a few feet away. As I said, most dogs learn what is required very fast with this exercise. You may accomplish all of the above easily within a week if you're lucky. Also, in CT, we usually accept 80% compliance as a reasonable goal before we go on to the next level. I like to get a higher degree than that myself, but the point is that it doesn't have to be PERFECT before you add some distance or try the standing. But aim for at least 8 our of q0 tries being executed perfectly. Also, always make sure you end on a successful attempt that you C&T. When your dog is doing well and you can stand and get eye contact with no attempt to go after the toy, it's time to change to a different object--another toy she like, a food treat, rawhide, whatever normally attracts her. You should introduce new objects in order of worth: Start with less desired objects and work up to the piece of steak. (:-) For each new object, start at the beginning as though you had never done the exercise before--sitting on the floor near her with the object closer to you. Then move though all the steps with this new object until you can stand several feet away. Each time you repeat this with a new object, it will go quicker and quicker. If it took 6 days to get the dog trained with the first toy, it may take 2-3 to do it again with a second toy, and even less time with a third or fourth--although if the value of the object rises too quickly, you may need to slow down again for certain objects and train them longer. Once you have gone through 3-4 objects, start putting those objects into rotation. Do ten reps with the tennis ball, followed by ten more with a dog biscuit, or whatever. Use a different one of those objects every session. (Relating to the Target Game: After doing at least 4 other objects, make the target your next object! Again, work it until you can stand several feet away and the dog will prefer to look up at you instead of looking at or going for the target. She may be a bit confused at first if you've been doing the target game since in that context it is correct to go to the target, but your goal here is to teach her that in this exercise, she must ignore the target and focus on you just as she does with other objects. By including the target in this exercise, you may further diminish the likelihood that she will mouth the target in the game.) This Doggy Zen exercise is one that is worth repeating throughout a dog's life periodically. For example, if you work on it for a period of time using strictly food as the object to be ignored, you can de-emphasize food in general in the dog's mind and teach the dog that YOU are the key to all rewards, not the treat itself. Also, the more objects you train with, the more generalized the habit will become, and you will end up with a polite dog that doesn't instantly lurch at every object it passes. > I have taught her sit, down and heel with the clicker very successfully. I have now seem to hit a road block in getting new behaviors. If you review the altered version of the target game now and compare that to how you were training it, you should be able to identify some of the errors you may have been making. Three things that I would emphasize to any new trainer are A) The power and necessity of ignoring unwanted behavior and not reacting to it. When you react, you often unintentionally reinforce! B) Remember that you are rewarding whatever occurred a second or two before you click. Timing is very important. You do not want to click at times when the click may reinforce the wrong behavior. For example, if you were letting your girl touch the target with her paw and then also with her mouth, and then you C&T'ed, you were rewarding both the paw touch and the mouth touch! C) Be clear before you start about what your criteria is. In this instance, you wanted the dog to touch the target with her paw. That should then be the only thing she is C&T'ed for, and every other behavior becomes irrelevant. If the behavior you want to reinforce is closely linked to or followed by another unwanted behavior, you need to be clever and find a way to separate the two so you are clearly rewarding one and not both. > I'm sure the problem is on my part, not the dog's. That is nothing to be ashamed of because the problem is almost ALWAYS created by the trainer, not the dog! None of us need a smarter dog--we need better brains ourselves! > I guess my one big question is what should I be expecting from a 4 1/2 month old Lab. Expect a lot! You can begin clicker training a pup at 8 weeks! All of the dogs that I have raised from puppyhood (some of my dogs were rescued as adults) had Sit, Stay, Down, and Come and other basics working well by the end of their 12th week. Sometimes I have found it hard to explain to other people how much you can accomplish with CT in a tiny pup. In most cases, the thing that is holding the dog back or limiting it is the idea in your head that it is too young! The only caution is that the younger the pup, the shorter the sessions should be. 5 minutes is enough for a young pup. Use several short sessions instead of one long one each day. > She is very capable of learning, but does not seem to be very motivated at times. If the treat seems to be unappetizing, try a better treat. Most things sold as training treats don't taste that good to a dog. Although some dogs will work for their normal mealtime kibble, most will turn their noses up and regard that as an insult, not a reward. Also, many pre-packaged treats are much to large for training! A training reward should be, as a general rule, no larger thanthe size of a pea. For a lrger dog, not bigger than the fingernail on your index finger. Many people feed treats that are much to big, so the dog gets full and satisfied and stops working. Some of the food items that serve as powerful rewards for many dogs include: --Dried liver cubes, which you can buy in a large container, slice up into smaller pieces, and they will last for months. --Wet foods such as peanut butter, meat flavored baby food, or spray-on cheese. With these, you present the treat by simply sticking your finger into the jar and letting the dog lick a tiny bit off your finger. It's really very economical since these foods are very tasty, so a little dab goes a long way. On the other hand, these are not rewards that travel well since some need to be refrigerated once opened and do not stay wholesome in the heat for long. --If you've got a little money to spare, I've never met a dog that won't respond to Liver Biscotti! Look for it in many online pet stores. --Cherrios and String Cheese seem to be popular, although I don't use them. You will also do better if you vary the treat. Rather than using the same thing every time, mix them up and use several--either a different reward every day, or a variety mixed together and used the same day. In general, the more difficult or demanding the behavior you are training, the more powerful the treat needs to be. Make a list for your dog of what she likes best, and then put the items in order, with the absolutely irresistible food at the top of the list and the others following in order. Then select the lowest item on the list that will work well for each behavior. In other words, you don't need to waste chopped liver to train an easy behavior that the dog will readily accept kibble for. If you think the treat may be part of the problem, also try to train an hour or two before meals, and not after a meal or a treat, so the dog is hungry. Also, subtract an appropriate amount from the dog's daily meals to make up for the extra calories you feed as treats, or you will end up with a fat and unmotivated dog. Keeping the training treats tiny will help with this too. However, some dogs are not food motivated. In this case, you can use other things as rewards. With a retriever, the dog will probably eventually start retrieving things whether you teach this or not, and it will enjoy this behavior. Once that tendency appears, you could use the toss of a ball as a reward instead of a piece of food. I have a Rott/Siberian Husky who works hard to get the opportunity to tug on a rope. Also, you should try to use "real-life" rewards as much as you can. This means running ten second mini-training sessions all day long rather than relying only on longer formal sessions. For example, before you put the dinner bowl down, command a Sit. The dinner becomes the reward. If you are ready to walk your dog, stop at the door and command some simple behavior that she can do. Then go for the walk. The walk becomes the reward. These are what we mean by real-life rewards. Also, be happy when you reward and put some energy into it. As you present the food reward, give verbal praise, also. Many people reward or praise a dog like its a funeral! Men, especially, tend to be more reserved in the use of their voices and body language. If your dog does well, use a happy high-pitched (but not loud) voice, and heap the praise on. If she does something really hard for the first time, use a jackpot--three or four rewards at the same time with lots of praise. Be animated. CT is an interesting combination of patience and joy. While you wait for the dog to decide what to do, or when the dog does the wrong thing, you need to be silent, motionless, and an unemotional. But when a dog gets it right, you need to be animated and jump for joy! Ham it up! Other reasons for a dog showing low motivation include training too fast--so she doesn't really understand what to do and gets frustrated, and training too slow--so she becomes bored. Some dogs and breeds of dogs do not liek a lot of repetition, so they need a lot of variety. Some dogs like repetition. The length of a formal training session has to be adjusted to suit each dog, also. Short is always better. If you notice the lack of motivation getting greater as the session goes on, shorten the session. For puppies especially, five minutes is often the limit of their endurance. Doing four separate 5 minutes sessions is much better than doing one 20 minute session. One thing that can help a beginner more than a book and more cheaply than a class is to buy a few videotapes made by respected clicker trainers and watch them. DogWise is a great online store that carries lots of training books and videos. They are at: http://www.dogwise.com. So experiment with different rewards, keep the rewards small and vary them, extend your training into real life, and make the sessions short but frequent. And the next time you write, it's Barry--not Mr. McDonald, which makes me feel older than I want to admit. (:-) =========================================== Barry McDonald -------------------- DogSense =========================================== Pinto & Little Bits, Basenji Partners in Crime, rescues Shadow The Dog, Cheyenne, and Cherokee--Master of Calming Signals. =========================================== "A dog cannot be bad, it can only be a dog." =========================================== "Show me a dog that's been trained and trained and trained and still does not obey, and I'll tell you who the slow learner is!" =========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040502/cdfef7dc/attachment-0001.htm From dhafss at bellsouth.net Mon May 3 15:43:31 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Mon May 3 15:45:31 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Almost wrote "behaviours." American that I am, I have become heavily influenced by British, Canadian, and Australian spelling rules. No problem except I am writing lots and lots of papers about behaviors in my grad school classes- I have just about given up and gone over to the other side! However...on to the main reason for my post. I have read almost every book on clicker training and see that there are several ways to teach the various exercises that dogs normally learn (heel, come, sit, down, stay, etc). I wonder if everyone who wants to would be willing to briefly describe what method they are using on these exercises and take an exercise per week to talk about? If this has already been done and is in the archives, then someone please point me to the right section, and never mind about doing it over again. This comes to mind because while I was away at the 2004 Australian Shepherd National Specialty show, I got assigned a traditional class of 10. I asked one of the other instructors to explain clicker training and try to get me some clicker students, but returned to find that "no one was interested in clicker." Well, I'm using clicker methods anyway In teaching the "heel"/"walk with me" exercise, I chose Tillman's "magnetize the dog" method and I'm using it this way: 1/ using a tasty treat, lure your dog to your side and take 3 steps forward (no command). After 3 steps, release and give the treat. 2/ when the dog is following the treat well(after about 4 repetitions)add the cue word heel or walk with me 3/when the dog is walking willingly 3 steps, increase by 1 step up to 5 steps before release and give the treat 4/When the dog is walking with you happily for 5 steps, ease into a stop and lure the sit. 5/Repeat several times until the dog readily sits with the lure, then add the cure word, "sit." 6/ repeat this 5 steps-sit-5 steps-sit pattern 3 times before releasing and giving the treat and lots of petting/voice praise. (go back to repeating the pattern only once or twice if the dog starts making mistakes) Of course, the handlers would be *clicking* before the treat if it was a clicker class. Fortunately, there are no hard pulling, lunging, or jumping dogs in this class. At least the first week, all the dogs were happy to be magnetized and just did marvelously. Shirle From jonima at juno.com Mon May 3 22:25:10 2004 From: jonima at juno.com (Joni Marginot) Date: Mon May 3 22:40:24 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Disengaged dog? Message-ID: <20040503.212510.2952.1.jonima@juno.com> Barry - I also want to thank you for your response (that Philip referred to). I printed it and used it for clicker training yesterday. I have a 4 1/2 month old boxer mix and I am new to clicker training. All of my previous dogs, and myself, went through conventional choke collar training. If you don't mind, I have a couple of questions. Do you first try an exercise to get the dog to associate clicker with treat? Click then treat for no reason at all? Or do you begin with an exercise like target training? I tried target training with my puppy. She looked at the object once, but after C&T she kept her eyes on me. After a few minutes, she was still watching me. She got up, took a few steps and then sat in front of me. So I clicked for "sit". I changed the objective of our session to "sit". I continued our "sit" training until she ran to her bed and got into play pose. I ended our session. Am I confusing her by placing a target on the floor then training her to sit? Should I stick with one exercise until she knows it by heart and only then move on to another exercise? Any advice you can offer is greatly appreciated. Joni On Sun, 02 May 2004 00:28:37 -0500 Barry McDonald writes: "Philip A. Colvin" wrote: > I found your message helpful and have started to try some of your examples. I could use some advise on the targeting game. I am working with a 41/2 month old Lab. Whenever I put the target on the floor, that is where all of her focus is directed. She is more concerned about trying to pick it up with her mouth and play with it. Until she is over this stage, do you have any other suggestions for objects to use as targets that would not be so much like a toy to her? < Hi, Philip. First, you have to realize you are working with a retriever--a breed that is typically orally-oriented, so it is of course not unexpected that a young Lab, especially a pup, prefers to use her mouth. In the process of "shaping" a behavior, we always tell the dog when it has done the correct thing by C&T'ing. In "traditional training," the dog is also "told" when it is doing the wrong thing by the application of a punishment or correction. In clicker training, we do not use positive punishments or correction, but instead usually ignore behavior that is not what we want. One of things that makes CT unique is that WHAT WE DO NOT DO when the dog is not reaching our goal is just as important as what WE DO when it does reach the goal. Dogs will tend to do what is rewarding, but they also make very quick decisions about what is not rewarding, and they will quickly abandon behaviors that "get them nothing." So you have to create a situation in which your dog gets rewarded for a paw touch, but ONLY when it happens BEFORE her mouth touches the target. Also, she must get NOTHING for a mouth grab that occurs before a paw touch. Being a Lab, grabbing the target in her mouth is self-rewarding already, so you need an advantage--a trick you can use to get the mouth out of the picture and get her to focus on the paw. That advantage can be gained by temporarily changing the distance from the target that constitutes a "correct touch." What you will do is set up a situation in which her paw will get to the target before her mouth most of the time. TARGET GAME WITH NO MOUTHING: 1) Place target on the floor, step away from it some distance to give your dog room, and do nothing. Stay still and make no comments. 2) Eventually--or immediately--she goes toward the target. C&T her for any turn, step, or approach to the target, just as before--if this is still necessary. If she is already going straight to the target, than just go to the next step. 3) If her mouth gets to the target first, before a paw touch, continue to ignore her. Don't react in any way and don't try to prevent it. If she should pick up the target with her mouth, that's fine. Remain still and continue to wait. (Obviously, no C&T for a mouth touch!) If she has picked up the target and then puts it down and it is out of her mouth, also do NOTHING! You don't want to reward this behavior, either. Continue to wait. Expect her to be a bit confused at first since you have now changed the rules and your behavior a bit. But remember, as you wait for the behavior you are looking for, she is free to do anything she wishes, and there is nothing wrong with her grabbing the target in her mouth, or doing a Sit, or going to sleep! If she mouths the target, YOU DO NOT CARE! Get the idea? Stop thinking of a mouth grab as "Wrong" and start thinking of it as "Irrelevant." If her paw should touch the target BEFORE her mouth does, C&T the paw touch. If she should mouth the target after the C&T, it doesn't matter. She has already exhibited the correct response--a paw touch--so you go ahead and C&T her for that. But, be quick in delivering the treat. You do not want to have: A) Paw touch, B) Mouth touch, C) C&T. If she should end up mouthing the target after a paw touch, you want it to happen in this order: A) Paw touch, B) C&T, C Mouth touch. Note that if you reward her immediately, you will probably be interrupting and preventing any immediate mouthing of the target. The key in this step is quick response and precise and accurate clicking. So when the paw has touched but the mouth has not yet touched the target, you will C&T. The paw MUST touch the target first, though. Since the click signals the end of the behavior and success, anything that comes after that means nothing and is not reinforced--as long as you ignore it! 5) But now the trick! To make it even easier in the beginning and to get more paw touches while also making the mouth grabs less likely, what you will do is C&T her for putting her paw within X number of inches of the target instead of only directly on the target. The X depends upon the size of the dog, so I can't give you an exact distance. I'd guess that 6-8 inches would be good. I won't go further than 8 to start, and if she is fairly small, maybe a smaller distance will be necessary. So, in other words, in the original exercise, you are constantly increasing the criteria. At first, she may have been clicked for just taking a few steps toward the target, but once she is going directly to the target, you don't C&T for the approach anymore. What you are going to do in this "modified version" is, for the time being, lower the criteria and require less of her. Instead of having to directly touch the target with her paw, you will C&T whenever her paw lands within the circumference of a larger imaginary circle that your mind draws around the target. Because the paw can be farther from the target now and still earn a C&T, her mouth will on many attempts not get close enough for her to mouth grab the target! Since her foot will reach the expanded target area before her mouth can reach the actual target, you should have many more opportunities to C&T for the paw touch without the mouth touch even occurring. 6) There is a saying, Click for behavior, feed for position." You'll understand how that can work in a moment. Again, if you C&T promptly, you will be rewarding only the paw, and not the mouth, and you will also be helping to prevent a mouth touch from following the paw touch because she will be busy receiving the treat right after touching with her paw. However, you can add an extra nuance here. AS YOU HAND HER THE TREAT, casually use your body movements to move her away from the target. You do not want her near the target once she has paw touched it because she might mouth it. You do not want her near the target after she has paw touched it because you need her to move away so she can repeat the behavior and approach and touch again. That's hard if she remains standing on the target as you treat her! So you are going to click for the behavior (paw touches the target) and feed for position (inconspicuously step her away from the target a bit as you present the food, or show her the food from a couple feet away and lure her to come to you to get it--whatever works best. You end up with a paw touch, a Click, a treat which moves her away from the target and interrupts any attempt to mouth it, and a dog back in position to try it again. 7) Work on the extended diameter target area for some time, until you are no longer seeing any mouth grabs or even attempts to duck her head toward the target. Then work on it an extra week! You see, the more she touches with a paw and is rewarded, the stronger that behavior becomes, but also, the more she does not have a chance to go for the target with her mouth, the weaker that behavior becomes! (It will undergo what we call Extinction.) So you want to let her have lots of practice until the mouth is hardly involved at all. 8) The last step involve increasing the criteria again and demanding more precise behavior before C&T'ing. Decrease the imaginary circle around the target. If you were C&T'ing for a paw within 6 inches, now only C&T if the paw is within 4 inches, and do nothing if it only gets to within 6. Gradually, over several session and days, make that boundary line smaller and smaller until her nails must hit within one inch of the target, and finally... she must make actual paw contact to get the C&T. As you decrease the distance, if she starts to make the slightest gesture or move toward the target that shows "mouth interest," temporarily increase the distance of the invisible outer circle again to the point where she is not longer thinking of her mouth. Don't wait until she actually begins to grab the target with her mouth--watch for earlier signs such as starting to drop her head, and if you interpret what she is doing as "mouth interest," then go back one step to a larger circumference and train at that level for a while longer before you try going for the closer paw touch again. 9) You should end up with your dog getting the right idea and offering only paw touches as long as you stick with the basic principle---a mouth touch does not get C&T'ed, nor does it get any reaction or attention. It is as meaningless a behavior as Sitting or doing nothing in terms of this target game. Finally, starting immediately, take precautions to keep the target out of reach and out of sight at all times except when you are playing the target game--or eventually other target exercises! The pup should never have an opportunity to "find" the target on a table or any place accessible. In this way, you further prevent her from mouthing it, and eventually, the target will be viewed as an object that you just don't put in your mouth, from lack of repetition alone. That may be all you need to do. There is a separate exercise, however, that is good for all dogs to be drilled in, and that may help with her mouthiness in general. DOGGY ZEN: This is a version of what is called Doggie Zen. Sit on the floor with the dog in a Sit in front of you. Have a clicker and some treats, but keep the treats out of sight until after clicking. Take a ball or other toy that the dog really likes, and place it on the floor in front of you slowly and casually so it doesn't not seem like you are initiating play. Place the toy close to you and maybe 2 or 3 feet from the dog. If the dog looks at the toy, do nothing. Wait. If she goes to the toy or grabs it, do nothing and wait until she puts it down. Then reposition her and the toy and start again. The goal of this game is for the dog to look at you, not the toy. So, the second she looks up at your face, C&T. Repeat this 10-20 times per session. Do nothing unless she looks at your face; when she does, C&T. If she tend to keep looking at you after a C&T, you can pick up the toy and place it down again, to get her attention back on the toy, but at first, wait a moment to see if she will look back at the toy on her own. As you repeat the exercise, you can expect a very fast learning curve from most dogs. Often in just the first session, you will begin with the dog's attention riveted on the toy at first, and by the last few reps, she will be looking at you immediately and hardly noticing the toy. When she gets to that point, move the toy CLOSER to her and farther from you. (Remember, if she does go for the toy, you do not need to be within range to stop her--you do not want to stop her, you want to ignore her if she goes for it!) Once it is getting easy again, move the object still closer--see how close you can get it to her. Finally, try sliding yourself back farther. For a dog that is doing well, you might have an eventual goal of placing the object one foot in front of her while you step back and sit ten feet away--although that degree of difficulty is not necessary. The final stage of difficulty is to start to STAND rather than SIT in front of the dog as you do the exercise. When you add a new criteria, you should always lower the previous criteria temporarily, so when you first try standing, do it close to the dog, a few feet away, where you began when sitting. Then, as she masters looking up at your face instead of the object (a harder task now since you are higher), start moving the toy closer and then adding distance again. There's no specific distance or goal you must reach. You don't need to push this exercise too far, but at least get to where you can stand a few feet away. As I said, most dogs learn what is required very fast with this exercise. You may accomplish all of the above easily within a week if you're lucky. Also, in CT, we usually accept 80% compliance as a reasonable goal before we go on to the next level. I like to get a higher degree than that myself, but the point is that it doesn't have to be PERFECT before you add some distance or try the standing. But aim for at least 8 our of q0 tries being executed perfectly. Also, always make sure you end on a successful attempt that you C&T. When your dog is doing well and you can stand and get eye contact with no attempt to go after the toy, it's time to change to a different object--another toy she like, a food treat, rawhide, whatever normally attracts her. You should introduce new objects in order of worth: Start with less desired objects and work up to the piece of steak. (:-) For each new object, start at the beginning as though you had never done the exercise before--sitting on the floor near her with the object closer to you. Then move though all the steps with this new object until you can stand several feet away. Each time you repeat this with a new object, it will go quicker and quicker. If it took 6 days to get the dog trained with the first toy, it may take 2-3 to do it again with a second toy, and even less time with a third or fourth--although if the value of the object rises too quickly, you may need to slow down again for certain objects and train them longer. Once you have gone through 3-4 objects, start putting those objects into rotation. Do ten reps with the tennis ball, followed by ten more with a dog biscuit, or whatever. Use a different one of those objects every session. (Relating to the Target Game: After doing at least 4 other objects, make the target your next object! Again, work it until you can stand several feet away and the dog will prefer to look up at you instead of looking at or going for the target. She may be a bit confused at first if you've been doing the target game since in that context it is correct to go to the target, but your goal here is to teach her that in this exercise, she must ignore the target and focus on you just as she does with other objects. By including the target in this exercise, you may further diminish the likelihood that she will mouth the target in the game.) This Doggy Zen exercise is one that is worth repeating throughout a dog's life periodically. For example, if you work on it for a period of time using strictly food as the object to be ignored, you can de-emphasize food in general in the dog's mind and teach the dog that YOU are the key to all rewards, not the treat itself. Also, the more objects you train with, the more generalized the habit will become, and you will end up with a polite dog that doesn't instantly lurch at every object it passes. > I have taught her sit, down and heel with the clicker very successfully. I have now seem to hit a road block in getting new behaviors. If you review the altered version of the target game now and compare that to how you were training it, you should be able to identify some of the errors you may have been making. Three things that I would emphasize to any new trainer are A) The power and necessity of ignoring unwanted behavior and not reacting to it. When you react, you often unintentionally reinforce! B) Remember that you are rewarding whatever occurred a second or two before you click. Timing is very important. You do not want to click at times when the click may reinforce the wrong behavior. For example, if you were letting your girl touch the target with her paw and then also with her mouth, and then you C&T'ed, you were rewarding both the paw touch and the mouth touch! C) Be clear before you start about what your criteria is. In this instance, you wanted the dog to touch the target with her paw. That should then be the only thing she is C&T'ed for, and every other behavior becomes irrelevant. If the behavior you want to reinforce is closely linked to or followed by another unwanted behavior, you need to be clever and find a way to separate the two so you are clearly rewarding one and not both. > I'm sure the problem is on my part, not the dog's. That is nothing to be ashamed of because the problem is almost ALWAYS created by the trainer, not the dog! None of us need a smarter dog--we need better brains ourselves! > I guess my one big question is what should I be expecting from a 4 1/2 month old Lab. Expect a lot! You can begin clicker training a pup at 8 weeks! All of the dogs that I have raised from puppyhood (some of my dogs were rescued as adults) had Sit, Stay, Down, and Come and other basics working well by the end of their 12th week. Sometimes I have found it hard to explain to other people how much you can accomplish with CT in a tiny pup. In most cases, the thing that is holding the dog back or limiting it is the idea in your head that it is too young! The only caution is that the younger the pup, the shorter the sessions should be. 5 minutes is enough for a young pup. Use several short sessions instead of one long one each day. > She is very capable of learning, but does not seem to be very motivated at times. If the treat seems to be unappetizing, try a better treat. Most things sold as training treats don't taste that good to a dog. Although some dogs will work for their normal mealtime kibble, most will turn their noses up and regard that as an insult, not a reward. Also, many pre-packaged treats are much to large for training! A training reward should be, as a general rule, no larger thanthe size of a pea. For a lrger dog, not bigger than the fingernail on your index finger. Many people feed treats that are much to big, so the dog gets full and satisfied and stops working. Some of the food items that serve as powerful rewards for many dogs include: --Dried liver cubes, which you can buy in a large container, slice up into smaller pieces, and they will last for months. --Wet foods such as peanut butter, meat flavored baby food, or spray-on cheese. With these, you present the treat by simply sticking your finger into the jar and letting the dog lick a tiny bit off your finger. It's really very economical since these foods are very tasty, so a little dab goes a long way. On the other hand, these are not rewards that travel well since some need to be refrigerated once opened and do not stay wholesome in the heat for long. --If you've got a little money to spare, I've never met a dog that won't respond to Liver Biscotti! Look for it in many online pet stores. --Cherrios and String Cheese seem to be popular, although I don't use them. You will also do better if you vary the treat. Rather than using the same thing every time, mix them up and use several--either a different reward every day, or a variety mixed together and used the same day. In general, the more difficult or demanding the behavior you are training, the more powerful the treat needs to be. Make a list for your dog of what she likes best, and then put the items in order, with the absolutely irresistible food at the top of the list and the others following in order. Then select the lowest item on the list that will work well for each behavior. In other words, you don't need to waste chopped liver to train an easy behavior that the dog will readily accept kibble for. If you think the treat may be part of the problem, also try to train an hour or two before meals, and not after a meal or a treat, so the dog is hungry. Also, subtract an appropriate amount from the dog's daily meals to make up for the extra calories you feed as treats, or you will end up with a fat and unmotivated dog. Keeping the training treats tiny will help with this too. However, some dogs are not food motivated. In this case, you can use other things as rewards. With a retriever, the dog will probably eventually start retrieving things whether you teach this or not, and it will enjoy this behavior. Once that tendency appears, you could use the toss of a ball as a reward instead of a piece of food. I have a Rott/Siberian Husky who works hard to get the opportunity to tug on a rope. Also, you should try to use "real-life" rewards as much as you can. This means running ten second mini-training sessions all day long rather than relying only on longer formal sessions. For example, before you put the dinner bowl down, command a Sit. The dinner becomes the reward. If you are ready to walk your dog, stop at the door and command some simple behavior that she can do. Then go for the walk. The walk becomes the reward. These are what we mean by real-life rewards. Also, be happy when you reward and put some energy into it. As you present the food reward, give verbal praise, also. Many people reward or praise a dog like its a funeral! Men, especially, tend to be more reserved in the use of their voices and body language. If your dog does well, use a happy high-pitched (but not loud) voice, and heap the praise on. If she does something really hard for the first time, use a jackpot--three or four rewards at the same time with lots of praise. Be animated. CT is an interesting combination of patience and joy. While you wait for the dog to decide what to do, or when the dog does the wrong thing, you need to be silent, motionless, and an unemotional. But when a dog gets it right, you need to be animated and jump for joy! Ham it up! Other reasons for a dog showing low motivation include training too fast--so she doesn't really understand what to do and gets frustrated, and training too slow--so she becomes bored. Some dogs and breeds of dogs do not liek a lot of repetition, so they need a lot of variety. Some dogs like repetition. The length of a formal training session has to be adjusted to suit each dog, also. Short is always better. If you notice the lack of motivation getting greater as the session goes on, shorten the session. For puppies especially, five minutes is often the limit of their endurance. Doing four separate 5 minutes sessions is much better than doing one 20 minute session. One thing that can help a beginner more than a book and more cheaply than a class is to buy a few videotapes made by respected clicker trainers and watch them. DogWise is a great online store that carries lots of training books and videos. They are at: http://www.dogwise.com. So experiment with different rewards, keep the rewards small and vary them, extend your training into real life, and make the sessions short but frequent. And the next time you write, it's Barry--not Mr. McDonald, which makes me feel older than I want to admit. (:-) =========================================== Barry McDonald -------------------- DogSense =========================================== Pinto & Little Bits, Basenji Partners in Crime, rescues Shadow The Dog, Cheyenne, and Cherokee--Master of Calming Signals. =========================================== "A dog cannot be bad, it can only be a dog." =========================================== "Show me a dog that's been trained and trained and trained and still does not obey, and I'll tell you who the slow learner is!" =========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040503/1d6b63e8/attachment-0001.htm From clickertricks at yahoo.com Tue May 4 08:21:03 2004 From: clickertricks at yahoo.com (Susan Yee) Date: Tue May 4 08:21:09 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20040504122103.9496.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Well my dog's heeling hasn't the greatest since I don't devote enough time for generalization. I tend to follow Sue Ailsby's idea of explaining something to the dog several different ways..... 1) Sue Ailsby's "get lost" game 2) Shirley Chong's responsible heeling 3) targetting the palm of my hand as most of my dogs are relatively large. I'll work on finding old posts explaining these. The most fun method to use was Sue Ailsby's "get lost" which will be resurrected soon as I'd like to do Rally-O with Snowflake when my personal life settles down. Snowflake did heeling about 3-4 yrs ago and vaguely remembers it so that helps! Susan Yee (Chicago area, Illinois USA) http://photos.yahoo.com/clickertricks --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040504/4674233d/attachment.htm From dhafss at bellsouth.net Tue May 4 09:50:35 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Tue May 4 09:52:52 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Teach the clicker first? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I have tried it both ways, and for my Australian Shepherds, things seem to progress faster if I charge the clicker first so that they understand what the click means. I'm working with a 15 week old puppy who is so ambitious that she pushes me to teach her stuff. She throws all her behaviors at me like a wild woman (cracks me up!) and learns things so fast that it's scary. I almost can't teach her fast enough. She does something then looks up at me with a canny expression that says, "I did something, where's my click, woman!?" She's having a little trouble with down because she's so mentally and physically active. Her down is about 2 seconds long, but we're working on it. I guess I need to teach her "puppy push-ups" so she can practice down and wear herself out at the same time! From: Joni Marginot <<<>> ************************************* FOR THE LIST MODERATOR Could you send me the link to join the list? I have a puppy buyer who is click training in a semi vacuum, and I'm sure she would benefit from the expertise on the list. Thanks, Shirle From sharon at horsemansarts.com Tue May 4 16:16:47 2004 From: sharon at horsemansarts.com (Sharon) Date: Tue May 4 16:20:58 2004 Subject: FW: [Click-l] RE: Disengaged dog? Message-ID: -----Original Message----- From: Sharon [mailto:sharon@horsemansarts.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 2004 8:19 AM To: List for discussing clicker training. Subject: RE: [Click-l] RE: Disengaged dog? I tried target training with my puppy. She looked at the object once, but after C&T she kept her eyes on me. After a few minutes, she was still watching me. Hi, I'm not Barry. :-) But I will relate how I introduce the clicker to horses (dogs too). I start with target training. The thing that stood out to me in what you experienced was I would guess that you expected too much at once. What I do is put the target so close to the horse's nose that breathing would cause them to touch it. (although curiosity usually is all that is needed) This allows me to me to put "touching" the target on a very high rate of reinforcement. Within a few to several clicks I begin to experiment with holding the target close but not SO close to see if the horse will seek it out and they usually do. If they don't I go back to a distance where it can happen accidentally easier. Then I might begin holding the target several inches away. If they wander off mentally (which they usually do) I wait and c/t if they look in the target's direction (or touch it of course). In the beginning I will c/t if they just *happen* to touch it on the way to doing something else. It does not matter at that stage if the animal is not doing it "on purpose". Lots of people get hung up on thinking the animal needs to do it consciously. Later they will in that first session, those first clicks, c/t ANYthing. It is hard to imagine that this kind of shaping actually works. But it does! Most horses DO begin to actively seek out the target at a distance of a 2-3 feet away (say when it is placed on the floor) within one or two 10-15 min sessions. Even at this stage I do not assume anything. It is very common for the animal to appear to "get it" only to have them suddenly start to appear "bored". This is usually due to the trainer jumping ahead to assuming that the animal is confirmed with the behavior and have started to expect too much again. Usually dropping back to an easier task thereby putting it on a higher rate of reinforcement does the trick. We DO want to push the behavior along but not faster than the animal can handle. It is hard to imagine that something as "simple" as targeting would need to be made easier. ;-) People seem to prefer to believe that the animal is just being "stubborn". In all the cases I've had to work with it always comes down to if the horse knew what you wanted and was able to do it, he'd be doing it. Therefore if he is not doing it then one of those criteria is not being met. He DOESN'T know or he CAN'T (or doesn't think he can). Anyway, you might consider trying again with those thoughts in mind?? I hope this helps some. Sharon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040504/42c623b0/attachment.htm From bmcd at catskill.net Thu May 6 00:03:47 2004 From: bmcd at catskill.net (Barry McDonald) Date: Wed May 5 22:58:34 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors References: Message-ID: <4099B917.FECC1933@catskill.net> ---"Shirle Rogers" wrote: > there are several ways to teach the various exercises > that dogs normally learn (heel, come, sit, down, stay, etc.). > I wonder if everyone who wants to would be willing to > briefly describe what method they are using on these > exercises... Hi, Shirle. I'll start you out with some theory to toss about rather than an example of how I would train a specific behavior. You mention Peggy Tillman. In "Clicking With Your Dog," she identifies three distinct methods of obtaining behavior: The Magnet Method, The Capture Method, and the Shaping Method. To be clear, her Magnet Method is what older trainers would call Luring or Lure Training, integrated into CT. As far as I know, "Magnet Method" is her own term. The other two methods are commonly used CT terms. Capture means simply waiting until the dog does what we want, and then C&T it. (A dog is bound to Sit sooner or later!) And of course we all understand Shaping--taking an approximation of a behavior or a tiny piece of behavior and slowly developing it to resemble the complete behavior we are looking for though differential reinforcement. In "Don't Shoot the Dog," Karen Pryor describes Shaping, but does not use the term Capture, which seems to have come later. However, I believe to Karen at that time, Shaping and Capturing were two aspects of the same thing. Usually, a spontaneously emitted behavior needs to be shaped, and we cannot shape at all unless the dog emits a behavior! In Ch. 2, Karen addresses Shaping, and has a subsection titles "Shaping Shortcuts: Targeting, Mimicry, and Modeling." The first method is one that some of us use formally--target sticks, stationary targets, hand targeting, etc.--while others use it less formally and perhaps without knowing it, as when we may slap our leg to suggest a Heel. In a sense, Targeting and Luring (or to Tillman, The Magnet Method) are really the same method. We establish Targeting skills in our dogs by transferring the power of the Primary Reinforcer--the food lure--to an object. So I would suggest that Targeting is simply the use of a secondary reinforcer to lure. Pryor suggest that Targeting is an important tool, yet interestingly, throughout her book, she has little to recommend about Luring. Throughout her career, she has regarded Luring as one of the "lower" arts of CT, which if used should be faded ASAP. Karen's slant on this was undoubtedly formed during her early years as a trainer of marine mammals. Although a whale or porpoise can be taught to make contact with an obvious target, it is not usually practical to get a whale to follow a treat you are holding between your fingers. Mimicry is dismissed by Pryor as a tool that does not work well with dogs. She suggests that when we do think we see a dog "imitating" another dog or a human gesture, it is more likely a case of the animal responding in a similar way to a similar stimulus--not true mimicry. I don't know about other trainers, but I have yet to demonstrate a behavior for even the brightest dog and have it copy my movements. As a matter of fact, unless trained specifically to understand the gesture, dogs don't have the foggiest idea what we are doing when we point! How many times have you pointed at an object to have your dog stare earnestly at your finger? Finally, Pryor discusses Modeling--which doesn't have the precise meaning the word has in normal language, By Modeling, she means physically manipulating the dog--manually or otherwise placing it in position or moving its body to simulate the desired behavior. When a conventional trainer applies pressure behind a dog's rear legs to make them buckle to cause the dog to Sit, that's Modeling. To quote Pryor: " I am always a little dubious about modeling as a training device... Until the subject is doing the behavior or at least trying to do the behavior without being held or pushed or modeled, I am not sure much learning takes place" (p. 61). One of the practical limitations of modeling is that applying physical pressure on a dog can trigger what is called the "opposition reflex"--if you push the dog's rear down, it will resist and push its rear up! Clicker Trainers might best appreciate the negative connotations of Modeling by realizing that conventional snap & pull leash training is a great example of Modeling combined with punishment. So Pryor clearly favors Shaping (and what would become known as the Capture Method) over all other methods she mentions except for Targeting. Of course, in training a behavior, there is no single "better" or "right" method. The method used needs to first reflect the temperament, anatomy, and abilities of the individual dog. If I want to use the Modeling rear leg sweep to cause a dog to Sit, I may find it effective with a Cocker Spaniel, but it may be a challenge with a 180 lb. Wolfhound. The Luring method of teaching Sit by raising a treat over the dog's head--which I believe Tillman uses as an example of the Magnet Method--is also notoriously useless with some dogs who, presumably after practicing body contortions for some years, seem to be able to keep the lure in sight without sitting, no matter where it goes! The Capture Method is great, but it is unlikely you will capture a 12 pole weave! Also, each method is not exclusive. When you lure a Sit by raising a treat over the dog's head, your Luring, as I mentioned, is a close cousin to Targeting. (Nose follows lure.) Shaping is used with virtually all of the methods listed so far to perfect the behavior, yet some dogs such as crossover dogs are reluctant to offer behaviors, and so Shaping may not be the best choice for getting them started in CT. So we end up with a tentative conclusion--which seems reasonable enough--that there is a time and place for all of these methods--except perhaps Mimicry, where the general behavioral community tends to agree with Pryor's early pronouncement that dog's are not good "copy cats." We also see that various methods can be similar and/or complementary to one another. It is a rare behavior that we "get" into final form via a single method. In Melissa Anderson's "Click for Joy," she divides ways of "getting the behavior" into Modeling, Luring, Capturing, and Shaping. If we combine the terms of Tillman, Pryor, and Anderson, we end up with: ==SHAPE: AGREED UPON AS A STANDARD CT METHOD. ==CAPTURE: AGREED UPON AS A STANDARD CT METHOD. ==TARGETING: USED IN CT & RELATED TO LURING. ==LURE OR MAGNET METHOD = OLDER TECHNIQUE. ==MODEL: NOT USUALLY RECOMMENDED IN CT. ==MIMIC: PROBABLY NOT EFFECTIVE WITH DOGS. The main point I wanted to lead up to is that in CT today, there is a clear preference for some methods over others. I've intentionally listed the methods above in order of the preference that Karen Pryor and most other modern trainers would list them. Again, this doesn't mean that any of them are forbidden! It does mean, however, that some of them offer more advantages in the long run than others. Some carry problems and potential drawbacks. Others foster the most preferred kinds of learning. So *given the choice in a perfect world,* one would prefer to Shape or Capture a behavior rather than to Lure it or Model it. In my own opinion and the comments of other trainers, there is a quick "drop off" on the list after Luring. While the first four methods listed above are used commonly and can be used effectively, once we get to Modeling, we are making the transition between Operant Learning and a rather mindless "Do this!" technique in which WE move the animal ourselves rather than expect it to move. And again, for most practical purposes, Mimicry is useless. There are scientific and behavioral reasons why the methods list themselves in this order. OnE apparent and important organizing principle is that the list starts with the methods which require the animal to think on its own, and omit behaviors most spontaneously and by its own choice. It then moves downward toward those methods which require the least thought and choice on the subject's part. (Mimicry--a poor candidate in the first place for inviting learning in dogs--is the one method that does not really fall into this scheme.) I like Shirle's question and request for descriptions of how particular behaviors are trained by different people. I hope I've made the question more interesting and thought-provoking by providing this background. Yet perhaps the textbook doesn't tell all! I've experienced dogs that were dead from the neck up when it came to shaping, and I am sure someone will present us with a wonderful example of how their dog learned a complex behavior solely through mimicry, so the question remains, "Have all our dogs read the same book on Operant Conditioning?" =========================================== Barry McDonald -------------------- DogSense =========================================== Pinto & Little Bits, Basenji Partners in Crime, rescues Shadow The Dog, Cheyenne, and Cherokee--Master of Calming Signals. =========================================== "A dog cannot be bad, it can only be a dog." =========================================== "Show me a dog that's been trained and trained and trained and still does not obey, and I'll tell you who the slow learner is!" =========================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040505/e1512401/attachment-0001.htm From ahabinski at sbcglobal.net Wed May 5 23:23:21 2004 From: ahabinski at sbcglobal.net (Amy Habinski) Date: Wed May 5 23:28:02 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Intro and Question Message-ID: <20040506032321.11388.qmail@web80604.mail.yahoo.com> Hi - I'm Amy Habinski - a dog lover with no professional training background. I recently adopted an approximately 6 year old Pekingese. He is completely blind and not particularly motivated by food. If anyone has any experience clicker training a blind dog, I would appreciate any thoughts you have to offer. Thanks, Amy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040505/fc214c03/attachment.htm From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Thu May 6 01:26:30 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Thu May 6 03:13:35 2004 Subject: [Click-l] mimicry References: <4099B917.FECC1933@catskill.net> Message-ID: <009301c4333b$4a2767c0$b7ad3dcb@work01> >> and I am sure someone will present us with a wonderful example of how their dog learned a complex behavior solely through mimicry,<< I have been thinking about the 'following a pointed finger' behaviour quite a bit recently. Both my dogs do it to some degree, although not reliably. I'm pretty sure it's learned, probably by the expected outcome of something being thrown for them to retrieve - when in fact nothing has been thrown. It is also context specific. My GSD has been trained to close doors with her paw, if I point at something in the house she is very likely to thump it with her paw. If I point at something outside she is more likely to look for an item to retrieve. If one of my dogs misses a retrieve I can usually point to the missing item (usually washed back by a wave). I haven't really formally trained this behaviour, I'm sure I could increase reliability but it is reliable enough for our informal games without deliberate training. In any case, I would say that this is NOT an example of mimicry. At a recent Nina Bondarenko seminar she suggested that "looking" at something is likely to get the dog interested in it. It certainly seems to work quite well. Nina uses this technique while training service dogs. Again, I wouldn't say it was an example of mimicry per se. Body language, calming signals etc, are often well understood by dogs who observe humans using them. I suppose you could call it pseudo-mimicry? Surely *something* is learned? What about teaching a dog to bark at something by barking at it yourself? That can work. The most freakish case is my cat, Chloe. Karen Pryor has an account of Chloe in her gem posts under 'learning by observation'. One day I was training Django (Golden) to target a post-it note, unsuccessfully I might add. Chloe had been watching. Django lay down, and Chloe wandered over and simply put her nose on the target. I proceeded to move the target to different locations and she performed the behaviour reliably every time. I'm not sure that this was a case of learning by observation. She did not observe Django perform the behaviour! It was either an assumption on her part, or telepathy. Around about that time we had just moved to a new house. We kept Chloe inside for a week or so so she didn't get lost. There were two sets of double-doors leading outside from the living room. It was a cold and windy valley we were living in, so each door had two bolts, one top and one bottom, holding the doors firmly shut and to keep them from rattling in the wind. Chloe had seen us unlock the bolts. Without a word of a lie, Chloe would try to open the bolts with her front paws! She also left claw marks on the cedar door frames attempting to get to the bolts at the top of the doors. Clever cat! Chloe also figured out how to open the cat door when it was locked. Sadly we no longer see much of Chloe's antics. She has taken up an ascetic lifestyle in our front garden and no longer comes inside. Regards, Aidan From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Thu May 6 03:26:29 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Thu May 6 03:14:37 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors References: <4099B917.FECC1933@catskill.net> Message-ID: <00a401c4333b$7398d760$b7ad3dcb@work01> >>In a sense, Targeting and Luring (or to Tillman, The Magnet Method) are really the same method. We establish Targeting skills in our dogs by transferring the power of the Primary Reinforcer--the food lure--to an object. So I would suggest that Targeting is simply the use of a secondary reinforcer to lure.<< Kaye Hargreaves reckoned I was making things unneccessarily complicated when I looked at this in terms of Antecedent->Behaviour->Consequence I rarely disagree with Kaye, so she is probably right. >>Throughout her career, she has regarded Luring as one of the "lower" arts of CT, which if used should be faded ASAP.<< I think most who have used a lure for too long while teaching a behaviour that they need to use without having food on them would agree! Having that lure as part of the Antecedent is a pain. So is a target, but I have found that often something intrinsic to the behaviour is used as a target and if it's not, it is easy to fade. Mind you, there are some neat tricks for fading food that I have learned and probably dozens more I don't know about... Regards, Aidan From clickertricks at yahoo.com Thu May 6 08:27:14 2004 From: clickertricks at yahoo.com (Susan Yee) Date: Thu May 6 08:27:18 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: <4099B917.FECC1933@catskill.net> Message-ID: <20040506122714.34782.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Uh, while there's been some comments about luring being a less desirable approach, Bob Bailey teaches luring and has used it alot in his own training work. Susan Yee (Chicago area, Illinois USA) http://photos.yahoo.com/clickertricks --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/a46013b4/attachment.htm From karen.tiede at eds.com Thu May 6 10:42:56 2004 From: karen.tiede at eds.com (Tiede, Karen E) Date: Thu May 6 11:14:59 2004 Subject: [Click-l] pointing Message-ID: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD5C@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> >How many times have you pointed at an object to have your dog stare earnestly at your finger? I think it's Stanley Cohen?? Coren?? who says that the trouble with this is that dogs point with their noses. He did an experiment by putting a cone over his nose, held with an elastic strap around his head--shaped his face to look more like a dog. When he pointed with his nose, his dog got it. N=1, but it is something to consider. I've tried pointing by putting my hand alongside my nose, but can't claim much success. (He stopped the experiment when the dog got enthusiastic, jumped at his "nose" and pulled it back only to let go and let it snap back to his face.) This wasn't in The Intelligence of Dogs--one of his other books, maybe? From lmcguire at sasktel.net Thu May 6 11:27:06 2004 From: lmcguire at sasktel.net (Lee McGuire) Date: Thu May 6 11:21:18 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors References: <20040506122714.34782.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00bf01c4337e$97099520$6401a8c0@grouch1> HI All If you desire an animal or bird to learn a behavior when the animal hasn't presented the first successive approximation in the chain of your behavior plan how would you go about getting the animal to submit that behavior? Is luring not a tool that can be used to get that first behavior? When the behavior is exhibited you "click" and move on to shaping the desired behavior? Surely luring is simply another tool in the box to be used judiciously to communicate to the animal the behavior you wish to see. Use it and then move on to shaping the desired end point. Lee Learning is like rowing upstream, not to advance is to fall back. Chinese Proverb ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Yee Uh, while there's been some comments about luring being a less desirable approach, Bob Bailey teaches luring and has used it alot in his own training work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/f9cefc9d/attachment.htm From johnbalestra at earthlink.net Thu May 6 12:22:24 2004 From: johnbalestra at earthlink.net (johnbalestra@earthlink.net) Date: Thu May 6 12:22:25 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? Message-ID: Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/22bd55f7/attachment.gif From stefani.akins at comcast.net Thu May 6 13:04:12 2004 From: stefani.akins at comcast.net (Stefani Akins) Date: Thu May 6 13:04:23 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? References: Message-ID: <003601c4338c$2b8d6020$2db73044@Baebchen> John, typically, the piddling indicates submission to whoever comes near. I find it interesting that she does it with your wife but won't with you. How do the two of you treat her differently? As far as the nipping is concerned, be sure that she has plenty to chew on. If she's still teething, the nipping will be pretty bad for a while --sore gums hurt. You can help alleviate the pain by offering ice cubes or freezing a wet rag in a plastic bag (or get a canvas chilly bone at a pet store). I know it's hard to resist those pathetic dog looks, but it sounds as if she's not entirely convinced by your leadership-- and neither are you. Make the commitment to squeal "ouch" and end all play when she gets too nippy. Walk away and ignore her for half an hour. Most people are capable of that. Watch your play style: while I love playing tug with my dogs, some get too excited about this game. Play fetch related games instead, run her around the yard, or join a doggy play group. Once she is old enough (and with your vet's ok), you can train her to jog or hike with you. Works great with my lab, who runs with my husband, and my shepweiler, who walks with me. Also, NEVER encourage rough housing during play! And be sure that nobody in the family is inadvertently teaching her that sometimes (no such thing for a dog), chewing on a person is ok. For example, puppy is getting tired and nibbling on your finger. That's a no-no. Once she gets to a certain age (around five months for most dogs), she'll have to deal with the onset of adolescence. Now add teething on top of that, and you get one rambunctious, cranky teenager! Forgive her teenage moments (I'm going through that with both my dogs right now) and just keep teaching her good manners. Reinforce your rules that you have set, and practice your Inner Peace chants... you'll need them. Luckily, most dogs come out of adolescence with flying colors, provided they continued training and weren't allowed to suddenly run the house. Good luck, Stef -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/262386c7/attachment-0001.htm From dhafss at bellsouth.net Thu May 6 14:04:37 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Thu May 6 14:07:50 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Favorite methods Message-ID: [[[[[I like Shirle's question and request for descriptions of how particular behaviors are trained by different people. From: Barry McDonald Subject: RE: Methods of teaching behaviors ]]]]]] I'm glad to hear that. I hope others will like it too, since I think we can all benefit from discussing and reviewing methods. I'm still trying to make that difficult mental jump from traditional to clicker thought. You had some great points in your post, and I'm still reading and thinking about them. [[[[[[[Well my dog's heeling hasn't the greatest since I don't devote enough time for generalization. I tend to follow Sue Ailsby's idea of explaining something to the dog several different ways..... 1) Sue Ailsby's "get lost" game 2) Shirley Chong's responsible heeling 3) targetting the palm of my hand as most of my dogs are relatively large. I'll work on finding old posts explaining these. The most fun method to use was Sue Ailsby's "get lost" which will be resurrected soon as I'd like to do Rally-O with Snowflake when my personal life settles down. Snowflake did heeling about 3-4 yrs ago and vaguely remembers it so that helps!]]]]]]]] Thanks, Susan. I look forward to seeing those. Is the "get lost" game anything like the "catch me" heeling game? [[[[[[Uh, while there's been some comments about luring being a less desirable approach, Bob Bailey teaches luring and has used it alot in his own training work. Susan Yee (Chicago area, Illinois USA)]]]]]]] Halleluja!! I have Attention Deficit Disorder, and working with shaping/capture is like torture to me. [[[[[From: Lee McGuire If you desire an animal or bird to learn a behavior when the animal hasn't presented the first successive approximation in the chain of your behavior plan how would you go about getting the animal to submit that behavior? Is luring not a tool that can be used to get that first behavior? When the behavior is exhibited you "click" and move on to shaping the desired behavior? Surely luring is simply another tool in the box to be used judiciously to communicate to the animal the behavior you wish to see. Use it and then move on to shaping the desired end point.]]]]] Fabulous, Lee. Maybe this is the answer to my delimna about shaping. I can first lure a behaviour then move more into shaping. [[[[[Mind you, there are some neat tricks for fading food that I have learned and probably dozens more I don't know about...]]]]]] Alright, Aidan, give 'em up! [[[[[[[From: "Stefani Akins" Subject: Re: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play?]]]]] I missed the original post on this one, but let me ask what may be a related question. What to do about young dogs that run behind you and grab at slippers or pants legs? Thanks to all for the great ideas. Shirle From kathleen_w at mailblocks.com Thu May 6 11:17:11 2004 From: kathleen_w at mailblocks.com (Kathleen Weaver) Date: Thu May 6 14:33:42 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: <20040506122714.34782.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I've used it myself when I couldn't get the point across any other way. I spent years trying to get my beagle to spin in the opposite direction that I taught first. She just couldn't get it. Then one day I used a target stick to lure the behavior, and she got it right away. While target sticks aren't exactly the same as luring -- both can be effective. --------------------- Kathleen Weaver Marcie - Bettner's Byte O' Magic OA OAP NAP OJP Maggie - in training From jgilligan at rialtosquare.com Thu May 6 11:44:26 2004 From: jgilligan at rialtosquare.com (Jan Gilligan) Date: Thu May 6 14:33:42 2004 Subject: [Click-l] pointing In-Reply-To: <32989DBAB2B20F4CBB2D38B0B8C53775590008@JOLIET.rialtosquare.com> Message-ID: <32989DBAB2B20F4CBB2D38B0B8C5377507F278@JOLIET.rialtosquare.com> It was in Stanley Coren's How to Speak Dog. -----Original Message----- From: Click-l-bounces@click-l.com [mailto:Click-l-bounces@click-l.com]On Behalf Of Tiede, Karen E Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 9:43 AM To: 'Click-l@click-l.com' Subject: [Click-l] pointing >How many times have you pointed at an object to have your dog stare earnestly at your finger? I think it's Stanley Cohen?? Coren?? who says that the trouble with this is that dogs point with their noses. He did an experiment by putting a cone over his nose, held with an elastic strap around his head--shaped his face to look more like a dog. When he pointed with his nose, his dog got it. N=1, but it is something to consider. I've tried pointing by putting my hand alongside my nose, but can't claim much success. (He stopped the experiment when the dog got enthusiastic, jumped at his "nose" and pulled it back only to let go and let it snap back to his face.) This wasn't in The Intelligence of Dogs--one of his other books, maybe? _______________________________________________ Click-l mailing list Click-l@click-l.com http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/2e581770/attachment.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 16:08:52 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 16:58:23 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: <20040506122714.34782.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Bob still recommends shaping as the preferred method of getting a behavior. Luring can work but requires skillful fading of the lure so that your animal doesn't become lure dependent. You want the animal, of course, to respond to the cue rather than to the enticement of food to do the behavior. Many an animal won't work unless there is food in the environment. Try shaping a dog that has been trained primarily using lures and you'll find you have an animal that won't offer novel behaviors and in whom new behaviors become difficult to shape. Kellie Uh, while there's been some comments about luring being a less desirable approach, Bob Bailey teaches luring and has used it alot in his own training work. Susan Yee (Chicago area, Illinois USA) http://photos.yahoo.com/clickertricks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/0a07280a/attachment-0001.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 16:30:17 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 16:58:24 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: <00bf01c4337e$97099520$6401a8c0@grouch1> Message-ID: Sure, you can use luring to get the behavior the first time if you simply aren't getting a behavior and you're in a hurry. The secret with luring is making sure to quickly and effectively fade the lure. Don't use it for long. Get rid of the food in your hand within the first session if at all possible. But try looking for smaller approximations and other techniques, too. I have a Greyhound who used to offer NOTHING, so I know how challenging that can be. In her case, the secret was to start clicker training my cat in front of her. She will offer behaviors once she sees the cat getting clicks and treats. It is so helpful to have an animal who will offer behaviors so you have something to shape, so with the animal who won't do the first approximation, first click ANY MOVEMENT. Then select only the movements that resemble in any small way the desired behavior. Then shape, shape, shape. The first behaviors may look very little like your target behavior- you may be just clicking for "doing something" instead of for the ultimate behavior you want. It's good practice as a trainer and for your animal to learn to just free shape without relying on food. The first few sessions may be challenging, but it will get faster and easier as your mechanical skills improve. Kellie > If you desire an animal or bird to learn a behavior when the animal hasn't presented the first successive approximation in the > chain of your behavior plan how would you go about getting the animal to submit that behavior? > Is luring not a tool that can be used to get that first behavior? When the behavior is exhibited you "click" and move on to > shaping the desired behavior? Surely luring is simply another tool in the box to be used judiciously to communicate to > the animal the behavior you wish to see. Use it and then move on to shaping the desired end point. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/de2a9af1/attachment-0001.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 16:37:52 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 16:58:24 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction Message-ID: Hi, everyone. I'm a new member, and thought I should introduce myself! I will receive my BS degree in Behavior Analysis on Saturday at the University of North Texas, and will start graduate school in the fall. (Also in behavior analysis.) I've been clicker training since 1998, starting with parrots, then moving to dogs, cats, and a variety of zoo animals. I give private dog training lessons and behavior consultations. Next week I'll begin working at a center for autism that integrates preschoolers with autism with typically developing kids. I'm looking forward to the discussions here! Kellie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/65250b5e/attachment-0001.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 16:54:19 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 16:58:25 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/gif Size: 862 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/aba6b2ba/attachment.gif From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 16:59:51 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 17:00:18 2004 Subject: [Click-l] pointing In-Reply-To: <32989DBAB2B20F4CBB2D38B0B8C5377507F278@JOLIET.rialtosquare.com> Message-ID: RE: [Click-l] pointingThink of pointing with your hand as a cue and looking at the other thing as the behavior you want to teach. Teach the behavior first, then add the cue. I know someone who can get her dog to go all over the house just by looking at things with her eyes. Whatever she looks at the dog goes to. Pretty nifty and useful. A great skill for service dogs whose owners aren't very mobile. Kellie >How many times have you pointed at an object to have your dog stare earnestly at your finger? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/82a4e3ff/attachment.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 17:12:22 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 17:12:48 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors In-Reply-To: <4099B917.FECC1933@catskill.net> Message-ID: Karen has changed her views on mimicry, apparently. At UNT last year she said that she's collecting stories about mimicry, and has (or at least had!) a collection of stories on her website about animals that have learned through mimicry. My Greyhound has learned behaviors strictly from watching the cat, and a cat I used to have learned "sit" and "down" by watching me train the dog from a distance. Sure they're responding to the same cues, but until they watched the other animal doing it, they weren't inclined to do it themselves. She told a delightful story about an afghan hound who had been subjected to watching his border collie house mate work on utility trials for a long period of time one afternoon. The BC was learning to pick up the dumbbell and jump over a hurdle with it in his mouth. Everyone knows afghans don't pick things up in their mouths, and are not really good at this kind of stuff so the owner had never worked with the hound on any of this. Finally the afghan was released from his crate, at which he ran to the dumbbell, picked it up and jumped over the hurdle. > Mimicry is dismissed by Pryor as a tool that does not work well with dogs. She suggests that when we do think we see a > dog "imitating" another dog or a human gesture, it is more likely a case of the animal responding in a similar way to a > similar stimulus--not true mimicry. Kellie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/084c9f68/attachment.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 6 17:14:17 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 6 17:14:44 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Intro and Question In-Reply-To: <20040506032321.11388.qmail@web80604.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Amy, does he enjoy being stroked or massaged? Those were the first effective reinforcers I found for my Greyhound. (She's not blind, but was too afraid to accept treats when I first got her.) Kellie **3 days to graduation!** Hi - I'm Amy Habinski - a dog lover with no professional training background. I recently adopted an approximately 6 year old Pekingese. He is completely blind and not particularly motivated by food. If anyone has any experience clicker training a blind dog, I would appreciate any thoughts you have to offer. Thanks, Amy -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040506/cb66bfb6/attachment-0001.htm From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Thu May 6 19:31:44 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Thu May 6 19:19:45 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors References: <20040506122714.34782.qmail@web21005.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00a501c433c2$4ba6a160$12ad3dcb@work01> >>Uh, while there's been some comments about luring being a less desirable approach, Bob Bailey teaches luring and has used it alot in his own training work. << Hi Susan, I use it too, I just prefer to use a target. I'm sure Bob Bailey teaches the correct use of a lure, unlike the method I was originally taught and see used often enough. Regards, Aidan From jacdobe at comcast.net Thu May 6 19:28:28 2004 From: jacdobe at comcast.net (Jean Clark) Date: Thu May 6 19:28:30 2004 Subject: [Click-l] pointing References: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD5C@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Message-ID: <004201c433c1$d9c64190$0f2c5444@Jeanscomp> Stanley Coren, and I believe the book is "How to Speak Dog", although I am not 100% positive without looking it up. Jean Clark and the gang Sadie (GW) Jaderbug and Nissa (LJs) Dober-brats: Bubba, Kayla and Jasmine the Dober-Angel at the Bridge Scaredy-cats: Sabien and Angel Pics of my gang: http://community.webshots.com/user/jacdobe jacdobe@comcast.net > > I think it's Stanley Cohen?? Coren?? who says that the trouble with this is > that dogs point with their noses. He did an experiment by putting a cone > over his nose, held with an elastic strap around his head--shaped his face > to look more like a dog. When he pointed with his nose, his dog got it. > N=1, but it is something to consider. I've tried pointing by putting my > hand alongside my nose, but can't claim much success. > > (He stopped the experiment when the dog got enthusiastic, jumped at his > "nose" and pulled it back only to let go and let it snap back to his face.) > > This wasn't in The Intelligence of Dogs--one of his other books, maybe? > > _______________________________________________ > Click-l mailing list > Click-l@click-l.com > http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com > Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com > From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Thu May 6 21:44:49 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Thu May 6 21:58:48 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? References: Message-ID: <013001c433d8$7ff917c0$12ad3dcb@work01> >>and just will not stop despite a strong "NO", or by holding her mouth closed for a short period (this gets her more charged up).<< Hi John, you mention she is a high-drive puppy. Whilst the laws of OC are the same for all dogs, their motives and drives can be quite different. If holding her mouth shut gets her more charged up, you have unintentionally reinforced that 'charged up' state, so don't do that My own east german working lines GSD is now 2, so these memories are still fresh in my mind! I'm still learning every single day. Stefani gave some good advice, but I have to suggest caution with squealing "ouch" with a highly prey-driven pup. You might find it reinforces the biting. My preference was to say "no" and walk out of the room, leaving her for a few minutes. Yes, they look distressed. Oh well, they have to learn to deal with being left alone anyway, but the important thing is that they make the connection "biting too hard"="being left alone"; saying "no" at the exact moment is like using a clicker to mark the unwanted behaviour. Anyway, how do you know she looks distressed? You're not supposed to be looking back at them, you're supposed to be ignoring them! A great idea with pups like this is to teach controlled games of tug using a rag (so you don't hurt their teeth). There are times during a pup's development that you shouldn't play tug with a pup, and when exactly escapes me. Anyone doing Schutzhund on this list? They will probably know. When the new teeth are just coming through? The idea is "controlled" games of tug. This means, you start the game, and you decide who "wins". So you need to teach "out". My preferred method is with "The Two Hose Game" which is outlined in Dildei and Booth's "Schutzhund Obedience, Training in Drive". It is also available on-line as "The Two Squeakies Game" at www.nwk9.com in the Reading Room. Something to remember, prey moves away from the dog. To stimulate prey drive, the hose, rag, squeakie toy etc should be moving *away* from the dog. To stimulate defence drive, the hose, rag, toy etc moves towards the dog. That is intimidating, so avoid it! That means, avoid putting the tug toy in her mouth, let her catch it herself. To "de-stimulate" prey drive, the tug toy stops still - as if dead. That's a useful trick if you have to take something from pup's mouth. If you're pulling it away, you are stimulating drive, if you stop dead, stimulation eventually stops. Even better to have something equal or better to take her focus off of whatever is in her mouth (hence, the two hose game). >> including growling and aggressive barking/biting when in the "hyper" mode. << It is important to be able to turn this 'hyper' mode on or off. The tug games are very helpful in this regard. Obedience training is also very helpful. If you can find a positive Schutzhund, Ring or Mondio club in your area I'm sure you will receive guidance, I wish we had such things here! Just half an hour with Nina Bondarenko when she toured recently made an enormous difference to my relationship with Sabella. The importance of turning the hyper mode "off" is obvious, but why would we want to be able to turn it "on"? I believe it comes down to stimulus control and giving the dog an appropriate outlet for drives it's going to express regardless. It's good leadership, you set the terms. Dogs dig that. >>One other issue is that she has started "tinkling" when my wife or other people enter a room and she comes up to greet them. She does not do this with me. Any ideas about his? << Pup is very young, so long as pup is allowed to build some confidence whilst still understanding the boundaries you set she will probably grow out of it. That's one of the beauties of clicker training, pups do tend to build confidence and understand boundaries. Are you taking her to a good, positive puppy class? An experienced puppy instructor familiar with the subtleties of different temperament and the long-term effects of appropriate socialisation will be worth their weight in gold to you. Regards, Aidan From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Thu May 6 22:26:19 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Thu May 6 22:14:21 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Favorite methods References: Message-ID: <015301c433da$af3cc8e0$12ad3dcb@work01> > [[[[[Mind you, there are some neat tricks for > fading food that I have learned and probably dozens more I don't know > about...]]]]]] > > > Alright, Aidan, give 'em up! Even better if I give you the principle - that is to 'hide' the food in your hand, even though they know it's there, so when you don't have food it's not so obvious. An example, if you are using a lure to start heeling off, show Fido the food then hide it behind your thumb. Click and treat in position. You should be able to stop having the food in your hand very quickly. Regards, Aidan From pbarrett at buncombe.main.nc.us Fri May 7 10:41:19 2004 From: pbarrett at buncombe.main.nc.us (Paul T. Barrett) Date: Fri May 7 11:11:04 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? In-Reply-To: <013001c433d8$7ff917c0$12ad3dcb@work01> References: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20040507101034.00a0eec0@sun.science.wayne.edu> I've been lurking on this list and involved with Schutzhund almost as I've had my puppy. She's a bit over two years now. The quality of this list is amazing, and I've never felt that I could improve on what's been said. I thought I'd write something now because of a request for Schutzhund related info. Generally, you don't want to play tug when they are teething. The concern is that you could possibly rip out the "baby" teeth before they are entirely ready to come out on their own, which could be painful for the dog and serve as punishment for playing tug. Everything should be fine once all the baby teeth are out. Some people recommend using chromed (smooth) leather for tug for two reasons. It is less likely to pull teeth, and it encourages the dog to bite harder to hold on to it. A strong, hard bite is a good thing in Schutzhund. The two-hose (or ball, toy, etc.) is good for teaching out. The idea is to teach the dog that "out" is not necessarily the end of the game. The general principle is that you reinforce the out by additional play. You can also offer a treat for the out. I know this list strongly emphasizes positive reinforcement, but I still believe punishment is appropriate in some cases. Nipping and biting humans is one of those cases. I found that a loud, nasal Aaannnnn! worked pretty well on my pup (no physical punishment). I don't think it damaged her psyche in the least. I think the key is consistency and persistence. Play biting is a natural behavior and will not extinguish immediately, especially if it was reinforced when the dog was very small and the nibbles weren't painful. Even with consistent discouragement, I'd expect it to take a few weeks before the pup stopped the behavior entirely. -Paul At 11:44 AM 5/7/04 +1000, you wrote: >A great idea with pups like this is to teach controlled games of tug using a >rag (so you don't hurt their teeth). There are times during a pup's >development that you shouldn't play tug with a pup, and when exactly >escapes me. Anyone doing Schutzhund on this list? They will probably know. >When the new teeth are just coming through? From BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net Fri May 7 13:41:37 2004 From: BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net (BMcDonald@monticelloschools.net) Date: Fri May 7 18:40:20 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040507/25d7a755/attachment-0001.htm From BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net Fri May 7 14:59:01 2004 From: BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net (BMcDonald@monticelloschools.net) Date: Fri May 7 18:40:21 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Methods of teaching behaviors Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040507/b5ab6f09/attachment.htm From BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net Fri May 7 15:06:42 2004 From: BMcDonald at monticelloschools.net (BMcDonald@monticelloschools.net) Date: Fri May 7 18:40:22 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: pointing Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040507/75a7cd66/attachment.htm From azdm at dycon.com Sat May 8 11:14:46 2004 From: azdm at dycon.com (Ann Moore) Date: Sat May 8 11:25:17 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction References: Message-ID: <01ce01c4350f$333fd760$a2910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> I have been lurking on the list for a month or so since I am a beginner in clicker training--or would be beginner, I'm still reading. My name is Ann Moore, I live in the Charleston SC area, and have problems with Aggie, my Airedale terrier (1 yr) and Rocky, my 8 yr old greyhound, both rescues in our care for 2 and 7 mos respectively. Their behavior/personalitys seem to be at opposite poles--hyperactive and hypoactive, responsive and staid, low brow and high brow, etc. and I think/hope that clicker training will help. Tom, my husband and I plan to start with the Airedale since she needs training desperately (at least we're desperate). I did some work with her last night, but I sort of feel like I'm trying to rub my tummy while patting my hair (never really knew which was which--but I thought patting my hair was neater than rubbing it but had to concentrate long and hard to get it right). First though, how do you train one without the other. Aggie is in her crate in the living room when not outside or on leash with my husband or me close by in house. Rocky is usually on the sofa, in the hall, or in his bed in our bedroom. Neither likes to be outside very long and when either hears the other get attention and/or food he/she has to be present--and barking with Aggie. I bought several books and I one video, but I did not think the video helped much (it was cheaper) and have ordered several of the recommended ones. I think I may need to start with the Zen game since she is VERY interested in the reward--I'm using a combination of cheerios and some "sirloin tips" Meaty Treats from Foster & Smith. Rocky doesn't like cheerios very well even when I have mixed them with the cubes of meaty treats, so I give smaller pieces of the meaty treats. However, Rocky's food intake is the one we must watch since he is a real chow hound who must have lower calorie yet enticing treats. Tom and I are both slowing down considerably and need to do as much training without a lot of physical activity, but most of the beginning games seem within our capabilities. I also searched for any clicker trainers in the Charleston SC area without success. PetsMart in No. Charleston has classes where clicker training is discussed, but I'm afraid I'll just get more confused with parts of the class doing different things. Does anyone know of a trainer in the low country of SC? I've rambled on too long. The list is definitely getting me a little more in tune. Thanks. Ann Moore -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040508/a66d3468/attachment-0001.htm From yee at kwom.com Sat May 8 11:21:44 2004 From: yee at kwom.com (Yee Family) Date: Sat May 8 12:16:41 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors References: Message-ID: <409CFB08.B405462B@kwom.com> Sue Ailsby's "get lost game", my recollection from a seminar a while back...... Start by luring with your eyes. Imagine a spot about 12 inches diameter immediately in front of you where OB front position is. The goal is to get Rover to make eye contact with you while his head is in that 12 inch diameter area. So at first you c/t for eye contact while Rover is in that position. When Rover is consistently boring holes at you, start slowly turning away. This is where you "get lost". Rover should start to move to make that eye contact, again in the spot immediately in front of you. Your turn at first may be a few degrees. As Rover works to keep eye contact with you, the turns start becoming larger and larger. When Rover is consistently maintaining eye contact, then I'd start with the next portion. I taught this in my tricks class and of course had one dog for whom this won't work. For this particular dog, all the handler had to do was move away and the dog followed. So we used that to teach the dog to initially find the handlers' eyes. next steps from a post written a long time ago for a different audience.... <> The scoots are used in competition heeling for turns or could be used for a swing finish. Work toward you turning in place 360 degrees (covering a coin) and the dog scooting, staying in heel position. This is part of competition work for figure 8 and can be used to train lateral work. Susan Yee (Chicago area, Illinois USA) From yee at kwom.com Sat May 8 11:24:10 2004 From: yee at kwom.com (Yee Family) Date: Sat May 8 12:18:57 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Methods of teaching behaviors References: Message-ID: <409CFB9A.AB38BA07@kwom.com> Generally I have more energy to talk about luring, targetting, capturing, shaping, etc. In c/t a preference is often expressed to use shaping to train behaviors. There are ups and downs to each approach, including shaping. Training is a mechanical skill. That's one of Bob's expressions. We can discuss luring, targetting, capturing, shaping, etc for a very long time, though it still all comes down to first "getting the behavior" and going on from there. Any training plan needs to take into account the animal as well as the trainer. I don't know whether the person who started this thread knows the theory or is even ready for it. When teaching a class, I go over the basic theory in week one though most of the students truly learn it as the weeks go by and they go thru the steps of "getting the behavior, change the picture, give it a name, make it harder, and take it on the road" (Dani Weinberg's model). In previous years, Bob didn't allow observers/auditors at the Hot Springs camp. That's because training is a mechanical skill. We can observe and in our mind understand what is needed to train X, though successful execution is a bit different. This is not meant to discourage anyone. I mean to encourage people to actually train. Discuss the theory AND get out there and train! I'll be in "sleep mode" due to some personal circumstances. Happy training everyone! Susan Yee Chicago area, Illinois USA From judyjones at lvbw.net Sat May 8 13:32:11 2004 From: judyjones at lvbw.net (judy jones) Date: Sat May 8 13:32:37 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi Ann, My dog is very food motivated as well and I decided to switch from "treats" which tend to be high cal and full of stuff to make them "tasty" to plain old dog food. I feed her Science Diet as her normal diet, but for training I use "Moist and Meaty" by Purina. It's little sacks of perfect sized tidbits for training. It's moist so they don't have to chew and she thinks it is the greatest thing ever. I bought the "less active" formula so it wouldn't be as fattening either. She thinks she's getting Filet Mignon! You can get some great videos at www.takeabowwow.com by the way! I know a service dog trainer who just loved the video "The How of Bow Wow" to get some insight on clicker training. I'm currently reading Morgan Spector's "Clicker Training for Obedience" as I'd like to start competing with my malamute. My favorite book thus far has been "The Dog Listener" by Jan Fennell. I read it in one day! And of course "Don't shoot the dog" by Karen Pryor. Best of Luck! Judy From sophiewits at hotmail.com Sat May 8 15:56:21 2004 From: sophiewits at hotmail.com (Sophie W) Date: Sat May 8 16:08:12 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction Message-ID: Hello Kellie, Welcome from a dutch listmember. From your introduction I conclude that you are very actively involved in clicker training (positive reinforcement training). You really have some experience in clicker training different animals, wow! Really like to hear about your experiences and the differences/similarities in species (in CT). My own experience in clickertraining is limnited to my own two dogs, though pretty soon I´ll see how goats, pigs rabbits and rats will respond to clicker training when my students ( I teach animal care students) will start training some of our school´s animals. Also congratulations on your BS degree! Hope to see you around on this list (must admit I am not one of the most active listmembers, though) I am sure you will enjoy it. Greetings, Sophie _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail en Messenger on the move http://www.msn.nl/communicatie/smsdiensten/hotmailsmsv2/ From sophiewits at hotmail.com Sat May 8 16:29:29 2004 From: sophiewits at hotmail.com (Sophie W) Date: Sat May 8 16:40:51 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction Message-ID: Hi Ann, First of all welcome. As an owner of a 7 yr old greyhound-whippet- cross (or lurcher for short) I think clicker training will work very well for your grey. I am sure Rocky is just as much a couch potatoe as my Zazou, but I ´ve been clicker training with him for a while now and he became more and more reactive and enthusiast in the process. At this moment I just have to reach for my clicker and he is all attention and waiting for the fun to begin! Do you know whether your dogs we´re trained by their previous owner? Most dogs that have been trained in a traditional way have learned to only do as they are told and not to show any initiative (which is something you want when clicker training). These so-called cross-over dogs may have a little difficulty with switching to clicker training (showing initiative/think for themselves) and games like '101 things to do with a box' (and all the varieties on this game) may be a good start (and they also don´t acquire much physical activity for the trainer). Hope this little piece of advice is of any use for you, anyway there are a lot of experienced clicker trainers on this list who will surely try to help you with your difficulties and can do this much better than I can. Good luck with Aggie and Rocky. Greetings, Sophie _________________________________________________________________ Play online games with your friends with MSN Messenger http://messenger.msn.nl/ From azdm at dycon.com Sat May 8 19:39:09 2004 From: azdm at dycon.com (Ann Moore) Date: Sat May 8 20:03:33 2004 Subject: [Click-l] new to list--long with questions References: <021401c424c1$36b583d0$9a00a8c0@ThirdNewToy> Message-ID: <027101c43555$a98b2fa0$a2910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> ----- Original Message ----- From: Sheila Edwards To: Click-l@click-l.com Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 5:16 PM Subject: [Click-l] new to list--long with questions Hi! I am new to the list and clicker training. I recently adopted a 4 year old Great Dane from Great Dane Rescue of Ohio. I use the GL, and she does tend to have raspier sounding breath when she pants but she doesn't seem bothered by the GL itself. She (Sable) is a real sweetie and is responding well to the training. I have only been to one class so far (I am in a group lesson with about 4 other dogs) and I didn't make it to the "parent" training part because I enquired about the class the week after that. Anyhow, I have some questions and hope some of you might be able to help. Sable is a wonderful girl, she obviously came from a home that wasn't great but we don't know exactly why. She does tend to follow ME around everyplace but she seems to love my 4 year old twin boys, my husband AND tolerates nicely my German Shepherd mix, male 8.5 years old (he does pretty well with her also) Problem 1--she seems to be dog aggressive, she doesn't really want to eat the other dog (too badly) but she lunges and growls at every dog she sees. Of the 2 experiences she has had in my back yard with my other dog and a friends dog she has done that a couple of times, they do it back and then everyone seems fine. How do I get her socialized to other dogs when she is soooo big and acts like she does? She will not take a food treat when she sees other dogs, even if they are at a distance and she is sitting nicely. Problem 2--When training at home I am not really sure how I am supposed to do this. Do I walk around with a bag of food treats and a clicker all day and try to catch the behavior I want or do I do only specific "training" Problem 3--How do I keep her off the counters and out of the kids food? And how do I keep her off the furniture. I KNOW that when I tell her off and then lead her off by her collar that she is getting on the furniture while we are not around (little fawn colored hairs, LOL) When she gets excited she has a tendency to get pretty wild and do things like vault the furniture--okay it is kind of funny to see her do that but in the long run I would prefer she didn't ;) She really is a mild and mellow dog and we really already love her very much. Just need some advice on training ourselves how to handle her a bit better. Sheila Edwards Hamilton, Ohio ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Click-l mailing list Click-l@click-l.com http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040508/7a5d9507/attachment.htm From rwoodcock at pa.net Sun May 9 09:27:03 2004 From: rwoodcock at pa.net (Ruth Woodcock, Sangoma Kennel) Date: Sun May 9 10:05:10 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Trainer list? Message-ID: <001f01c435c9$526277a0$7b7e3b42@rwoodcock> Is there an up to date list of trainers anywhere? I am looking for one in Michigan, the northwestern LP to send to the people who purchased one of my pups. Ruth Woodcock Sangoma Terriers Mercersburg, PA rwoodcock@pa.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040509/e27a9ab7/attachment.htm From jim at ridogguy.com Sun May 9 10:17:18 2004 From: jim at ridogguy.com (Jim Barry) Date: Sun May 9 10:17:22 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Trainer list? Message-ID: <200405091417.BIL38817@ms4.netsolmail.com> Try the Association of Pet Dog Trainers trainer search list, http://www.apdt.com/trainers-and-owners/trainer- search/choosing-a-trainer.htm. Many (though not all) apdt members are clicker and/or positive trainers. Jim Barry R. I. Dog Guy Positive Training for Lifelong Companionship (401) 849-1821, http://www.ridogguy.com Association of Pet Dog Trainers, Member Number 063267 AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator Number 9664 Head Start Trainer, Potter League for Animals "If dogs don't go to heaven, then when I die I want to be where they are." Will Rogers From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 12:15:42 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 12:16:16 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Aggressive Nipping and Barking or Just Play? In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20040507101034.00a0eec0@sun.science.wayne.edu> Message-ID: There are mixed opinions about the appropriate use of punishment procedures, even among behaivor analysts and in the field of human treatment. I try to avoid them whenever possible because of the side-effects that are associated with them, but can't say that the occasional, "Aaannn!" is going to ruin most dogs. Yet, I don't think it will work with some dogs, either. Melissa Alexander has written some about teaching dogs bite inhibition, as have other trainers. Some of those methods are really good. There are some things that pups (and kittens) learn best from mother dogs (and cats). One is bite inhibition. I think we, too often, adopt animals too young. Kellie >I know this list strongly emphasizes positive reinforcement, but I still >believe punishment is appropriate in some cases. Nipping and biting humans >is one of those cases. I found that a loud, nasal Aaannnnn! worked pretty >well on my pup (no physical punishment). I don't think it damaged her >psyche in the least. I think the key is consistency and persistence. Play >biting is a natural behavior and will not extinguish immediately, >especially if it was reinforced when the dog was very small and >the nibbles >weren't painful. Even with consistent discouragement, I'd expect >it to take >a few weeks before the pup stopped the behavior entirely. > >-Paul From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 12:32:52 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 12:33:23 2004 Subject: Hi, Ann [was: RE: [Click-l] Introduction] In-Reply-To: <01ce01c4350f$333fd760$a2910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Message-ID: Hi! I'm a greyhound person, too! My greyhound is a retired racer- is yours? One thing that is VERY typical in Greyhounds, from a young age, is that they are good at being lazy. They sleep long hours like a cat, and then are happy to sprint around the yard twice and take a nap. Our Greyhound was afraid of the world when we got her in Dec. 2001 but she's a friendly, sweet, interested companion these days. I started her with clicker training within 6 months of getting her. (I'd been clicker training for years, but with parrots.) Before that we just worked on helping her not be as afraid of everything outside the kennels she always lived in. If your hound is interested in food, you'll be able to make progress with him although you may find that training your Airedale goes much faster simply because he offers more behaviors you can click! Don't give up on your hound, though! One very nifty training trick I've found with Bravo is to have her in the room with us while I'm training the other dog or cat. I tried for what seemed like forever to shape a simple "high 5" with that dog, and she wouldn't lift her feet off the floor. My son taught our cat to do High 5, and suddenly the dog will run in and do high 5s all over the place when she hears us working with him. When I was teaching our Chinese Crested to put his toys away, she initially would steal a toy and run into the other room, but quickly learned that if she stays in the room and manipulates toys there are treats to be had! So, she definitely learns from observation and competition. And if your dogs aren't working for the treats you're using, just try other things, like cheese, meat, etc. Kellie ------- Kellie S. Snider, B.S. Behavior Analysis -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040509/5194de80/attachment.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 14:10:38 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 14:11:15 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Thank you for the warm welcome, Sophie! This looks like a terrific list! I graduated yesterday with my BS in Behavior Analysis, and start grad school in the fall. I'm told it will eat my lunch (an American term meaning "challenge me ever so much!", so you may not see much of me after the end of August! I'm starting to work Monday at a preschool that integrates typically developing kids and kids with autism. We use essentially the same procedures with them. I worked for 4 months collecting data at a school for adults with developmental delays as part of my course work, and again, the same techniques! No clickers, usually, although some people are using clickers with kids nowadays. I participated in an operant training lab called ORCA, too. (One thing I love about the BA programs at UNT is that you have a chance to do a lot of hands on "real" work- not just book learnin'!) In ORCA I assisted with the training of two bears- they were American Black Bear and Grizzly mixes that were rescued from a circus trailer. They were in the habit of either pacing, sitting completely still or... and excuse my frankness... masturbating. The zoo wanted not only to enrich their lives, but wanted them to do other things that didn't look so unhealthy to the general public, so they were taught to manipulate things in their environment, play with toys, bat tree trunks that were hanging from chains in their cages, and fake bee-hives that were stacks of sliced wood hanging from chains. They would also get in their swimming pool and play with a ball. We used clicker training, and the reinforcer was gator aid squirted into their mouths with a large plastic syringe of the sort used to measure medicines for the animals. We also worked with ostriches. One of the students was doing a research project involving the location of reinforcer delivery for that species, and my job was to keep the other ostrich occupied. I clicker trained her to raise or lower her head on cue, to turn her head from side-to-side, stand up to her full height on cue, and several other silly little things. She had a tendency to interfere with the training. We worked entirely from the outside of their enclosure since they weren't very tame. Of course we worked outside the bear enclosure, too! We also taught llamas to put their own heads into their halters so they didn't have to be man-handled to get them in there. It was a simple process of shaping successive approximations, and worked great. Some of the llamas weren't tame, so we used negative reinforcement to get them to even come near. The student doing the project would approach the llamas, wait for any movement toward the trainer, drop carrot slices, and walk away. Walking away reinforced moving toward the trainer, and they were soon coming close enough to be taught to put their heads in their halters. That was very cool, and made me want a llama. We did all the work with them inside their enclosure with them. Let's see... I did data collection on a very cool project involving cotton top tamarin monkeys, where they were taught to target to specific colors of keys. Each of four monkeys was trained to touch a certain color of keys. The goal was to get them where they could be targeted to go into a crate when they needed to me moved for any reason. The method until then had been to chase them around and net them which was dangerous for the monkeys and just made them harder to catch each time. Then there were several projects involving goats and sheep. I started out clicker training with parrots, which lead to reading more and more about behavior analysis, which lead to going back to school. My goal at this point is to be able to work with parents and reduce the use of corporal and other aversive punishments in child rearing and educational settings. Kellie >Welcome from a dutch listmember. From your introduction I conclude >that you >are very actively involved in clicker training (positive reinforcement >training). You really have some experience in clicker training different >animals, wow! Really like to hear about your experiences and the >differences/similarities in species (in CT). >My own experience in clickertraining is limnited to my own two >dogs, though >pretty soon I?ll see how goats, pigs rabbits and rats will respond to >clicker training when my students ( I teach animal care students) >will start >training some of our school?s animals. >Also congratulations on your BS degree! >Hope to see you around on this list (must admit I am not one of the most >active listmembers, though) I am sure you will enjoy it. >Greetings, Sophie > >_________________________________________________________________ >Hotmail en Messenger on the move >http://www.msn.nl/communicatie/smsdiensten/hotmailsmsv2/ > > >_______________________________________________ >Click-l mailing list >Click-l@click-l.com >http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com >Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com From daniw at earthlink.net Sun May 9 10:38:36 2004 From: daniw at earthlink.net (Dani Weinberg) Date: Sun May 9 14:11:52 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Trainer list Message-ID: <8DE7C35E-A1C6-11D8-9C2E-0003934F7EC0@earthlink.net> <> Yes indeed! There's a list of clicker teachers around the world: The list is organized geographically. Just realize that people post their own names and information, so you'll have to find out for yourself if a specific trainer is what you're looking for. Dani Dani Weinberg Albuquerque, New Mexico daniw@earthlink.net From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 14:31:05 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 14:31:42 2004 Subject: [Click-l] new to list--long with questions In-Reply-To: <027101c43555$a98b2fa0$a2910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Message-ID: Hi, Sheila! > Problem 1--she seems to be dog aggressive, she doesn't really want to eat the other dog (too badly) but she lunges and growls > at every dog she sees. Of the 2 experiences she has had in my back yard with my other dog and a friends dog she has > done that a couple of times, they do it back and then everyone seems fine. How do I get her socialized to other dogs when > she is soooo big and acts like she does? She will not take a food treat when she sees other dogs, even if they are at a > distance and she is sitting nicely. Remember that it's not "aggression", it's just a collection of behaviors. If she doesn't act nicely around other dogs, she simply hasn't learned how. She's learned (for whatever reason) that reacting harshly to other dogs has worked better in the past. Your job is to help her learn that other dogs aren't anything to worry about and can mean fun things are about to come around. If she can't take food treats when she sees other dogs at a distance, that's asking too much. Start with her in the car with the windows rolled up, or in the house, or even with a video tape of dogs on the TV in the living room. Back up until she's comfortable, do the treating and work up in teeny tiny baby steps, never progressing to the point she makes mistakes. If she makes a mistake, back up, rethink your program, and start over from a successful point. > Problem 2--When training at home I am not really sure how I am supposed to do this. Do I walk around with a bag of food treats > and a clicker all day and try to catch the behavior I want or do I do only specific "training" Both! Wear a bag of treats any time you're working on specific behaviors. (I find cheap nail belts much more convenient than any training bait bag I've tried. You can have treats on either side and plenty of them! Plus the pockets are big and easy to reach into.) But remember that other things in the environment are reinforcers, too. The opportunity to go outside, toys, rawhide chews, being petted, a chunk of ice, running to the door with Mom, etc. I taught my little Chinese crested "off" by only petting him when he responded correctly to the cue. No treats involved. I taught both my Greyhound and my CC to wait until called by name when getting out of the car by simply blocking them with my body, waiting for them to settle, and giving the cue, "Okay, Bravo!" when it's time for the Greyhound to get out and "Okay, Pan" when it's time for the CC to get out. Again, no treats involved. > Problem 3--How do I keep her off the counters and out of the kids food? And how do I keep her off the furniture. I KNOW that > when I tell her off and then lead her off by her collar that she is getting on the furniture while we are not around (little fawn > colored hairs, LOL) Maintenance! Unless you are there you have to prevent her getting up on the couch or in those other places. The children will have to learn not to leave food at doggie level, and you'll have to not to leave food out on the counters. We put guitar cases on the couches our Greyhound isn't allowed on for about a year! Now she knows to just go straight to the old ratty couch in the back that is dog-friendly. You could use boxes or other deterrents. Now, when you're working in the kitchen, what I did was keep a bowl of treats on the counter, and gradually shape my dogs to lay on towels outside the kitchen door. Anytime they got on their towels, they got a treat. Now they automatically go to their waiting places even if there is no towel there. They NEVER get treats when they are inside the kitchen, and they usually do when they are in those places, so that's where they go. The Greyhound's food dish is at the edge of the kitchen, but she knows going farther than that is useless, and staying outside the door is a lot more likely to pay off. > When she gets excited she has a tendency to get pretty wild and do things like vault the furniture--okay it is kind of funny to see > her do that but in the long run I would prefer she didn't ;) She really is a mild and mellow dog and we really already love her > very much. Just need some advice on training ourselves how to handle her a bit better. You have a great attitude, and you'll probably have a long happy life with this dog! Great Danes are wonderful! You can train her to do alternative behaviors instead of vaulting the furniture, and you can also devote some time each day to providing her with strenuous exercise outside. Tired dogs tend to be easier to manage! Kellie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040509/4c8e93dc/attachment-0001.htm From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 14:35:57 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 14:36:30 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I love those videos! They were actually used in a class I took this year at UNT, and Virginia Broitman and SHerry Lippman, the trainers who made the tapes, came down to do a seminar for the students and taught one of our classes. Kellie >You can get some great videos at www.takeabowwow.com by the way! I know >a service dog trainer who just loved the video "The How of Bow Wow" to >get some insight on clicker training. I'm currently reading Morgan >Spector's "Clicker Training for Obedience" as I'd like to start >competing with my malamute. My favorite book thus far has been "The Dog >Listener" by Jan Fennell. I read it in one day! And of course "Don't >shoot the dog" by Karen Pryor. > >Best of Luck! >Judy > > >_______________________________________________ >Click-l mailing list >Click-l@click-l.com >http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com >Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com From awarner at charter.net Sun May 9 15:23:33 2004 From: awarner at charter.net (Judy Warner) Date: Sun May 9 15:27:39 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction References: Message-ID: <026801c435fb$1e73b760$ca59bd42@gateway> This sounds like a really interesting program--what is UNT though? I think you may find working with kids tame after all this? I'm a retired classroom teacher--wish I'd known about clickers then. (grin--_ Judy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kellie" To: "List for discussing clicker training." Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 2:10 PM Subject: RE: [Click-l] Introduction > Click-l mailing list > Click-l@click-l.com > http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com > Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com > From the.kellie at verizon.net Sun May 9 15:41:53 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Sun May 9 15:42:23 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction In-Reply-To: <026801c435fb$1e73b760$ca59bd42@gateway> Message-ID: UNT is the University of North Texas. It's in Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas. It has the only stand-alone undergraduate program for behavior analysis in the country, and was the first stand-alone Master's program, still widely considered the best. It's a 48 hour Master's program... about twice the usual hours for a Master's. We beg and cajole regularly about extending it into a PhD program but the department head doesn't want to- Sigh! Usually Behavior Analysis is housed in the psychology department but since the philosophy has such a different focus (behavior instead of internal conditions) it is housed in the School of Community Service here. I'm a long time getting to this point- at the age of 47 I have two teenagers and a plethora of pets. I returned to school after clicker training for a few years and starting to read insatiably about BA. I still wonder if I want to stick with training animals because I do love them and feel comfortable with them. But I keep going back to the idea that humans still need a lot of information about effective, non-aversive ways to manage their young, and I think perhaps that is where I can do the most good. My goal (at least for now!!) is to work with parents, either through the foster care system, or private consultations. There are so many beneficial directions to take in this field. At the place I'll be working, some of the kids are typically developing, others have autism spectrum disorders. Some have already developed self-injurious behaviors, so I think the challenge may be more intense in many ways than working with a couple of horny bears! At least more tiring, I fear! Kellie ------- Kellie S. Snider, B.S. Behavior Analysis >This sounds like a really interesting program--what is UNT though? I think >you may find working with kids tame after all this? I'm a retired >classroom >teacher--wish I'd known about clickers then. (grin--_ Judy > From karen.tiede at eds.com Mon May 10 09:27:51 2004 From: karen.tiede at eds.com (Tiede, Karen E) Date: Mon May 10 09:28:05 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction and encouragement Message-ID: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD82@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Ann Moore's greyhound-and-Airedale introduction prompted me to write this. Ann, I've been lurking for a while--read the list regularly two years ago while trying to train two violent Briards, both beyond what Jean Donaldson talks about in Neptune. My use of clicker training was not successful. I dropped off the list for a while. Now I'm back with my totally pacifist, boring, no-trick black golden retriever dog named Molly and partial responsibility for a very young, very wild Australian sheepdog mix, Sam. Molly's default response to anything is a submissive roll, and Sam runs in circles. I'm totally not a purist and I do what I can. My experience is that as long as you don't punish in association with the clicker, you really can't go wrong. At worst you will make slower progress than if you do "everything right." I've even caught myself getting the food to Molly before the click, but she seems to be catching on (as am I). She'll follow a coffee can lid target around the room even when it means turning away from the food to touch it. Sam throws me a 2-second sit when he sees the clicker, and if that doesn't get food, he'll toss a quick down in the pot. If only he had a recall... What a dream. So you read and click and keep showing up to your dogs. Seems that 10 min a day attempted training, almost regardless of what you do in those 10 min, as long as it's 10 minutes every day, is worth more than any perfection in method. I'm in a "clicker-supportive" class now, but the instructor doesn't really get it. She's telling me to teach three different actions in one session--stay, look, getit (plus the verbal prompts, so really it's six). I can barely get it, let alone Molly. But I go back because it's the "honesty" of showing up to class next week and demonstrating any progress at all that helps keep me doing those 10 minutes when I might otherwise decide we could use a break. A partial-clicker class is also helpful in pointing out that other people have worse problems (mean, but true). Good luck. From the.kellie at verizon.net Mon May 10 16:51:05 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Mon May 10 16:51:38 2004 Subject: Punishment combined with shaping [was:RE: [Click-l] Introduction and encouragement] In-Reply-To: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD82@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Message-ID: >I'm totally not a purist and I do what I can. My experience is >that as long as you don't punish in association with the clicker, you really can't go >wrong. At worst you will make slower progress than if you do "everything >right." I've even caught myself getting the food to Molly before >the click, but she seems to be catching on (as am I). It's far better to get the food to the dog before the click than to get it to the dog too long after the click! I have to share some info about new research and the combining of punishment and shaping procedures in training. A graduate student at UNT is doing her thesis work on just this subject, and the results are pretty clear so far. More dogs will be tested as time goes on, but so far, this is what has resulted. The research is called Poisoning the Cue, a term coined by Karen Pryor, and the supervising behavior analyst on the research is Dr. Jesus Rosales who has appeared at some Expos. One dog was trained to come using the French word for "come" and the traditional method of pulling on the leash until the dog learns to come to avoid being dragged by the leash. The same dog was trained to come using the Spanish word for "come" and pure shaping with the clicker. The dog learned to come reliably with both cues, and no longer needs to have his leash pulled or to be clicked on each and every response, but when he is called with the French cue, he drops his head, walks in a curve, wags his tail slowly, averts his eyes, licks his lips and takes as long as he can get away with to get to her. When he comes with the Spanish cue, however, he bounds over so quickly the time can barely be recorded, his tail wagging a million miles a minute, his head up and all the signs we would all refer to as the sign of a happy dog. Same dog. Two methods. SAME BEHAVIOR. He still has to come to her. He still has to come quickly. But it is obvious that he is a very unhappy dog when he is called using the French word and a very happy dog when he is called using the Spanish word. So, training with punishment sometimes and with the clicker at other times is not without risks. Also, I have one dog who was raised in an aversive environment and another who was "fresh" except for having lived in a shelter for a few months. The difference in the ease of training these two dogs is astonishing. The little guy has never been punished in relation to training (I have no idea what his previous life was like. He was a year old when I got him and had been in the shelter for 4 months.) I can teach this little dude new stuff in a few minutes that takes me months- literally months- to teach my other dog. The problem with punishment is not that it doesn't work. It DOES work. That's why everyone resorts to it so easily. But it has a whole host of side effects that screw up your outcome. I choose to try every positive method at my disposal before resorting to punishment for this reason. Punishment, for me, is a last resort, and I always consider it a failure on my part, not the result of an animal who can't learn through positive methods. Kellie From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Mon May 10 02:48:09 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Mon May 10 22:27:24 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Gentle Nibbles References: <5.1.0.14.0.20040507101034.00a0eec0@sun.science.wayne.edu> Message-ID: <000401c43701$2ce1b160$14ad3dcb@work01> Hi all, just on the topic of puppy biting. I've been reading Michael Fox's "Superdog". Fox suggests that gentle nibbling (which can sometimes hurt quite badly) could be "altruistic" behaviour. He shows a photo of two feral dogs, one sick and one healthy. The healthy one is grooming the sick one with gentle nibbles. Our GSD does this sometimes, try as we might it's a behaviour that is remarkably persistent. Looking at it from this perspective I feel bad about trying to diminish it! At least it's more gentle now, but if she gets you in the wrong place it can really pinch. Regards, Aidan From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Tue May 11 00:01:30 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Mon May 10 23:49:40 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction and encouragement References: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD82@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Message-ID: <00ca01c4370c$a51a0e60$14ad3dcb@work01> >> Sam throws me a 2-second sit when he sees the clicker, and if > that doesn't get food, he'll toss a quick down in the pot. If only he had a > recall... What a dream. Hi Karen, is Sam a foodie dog? Or does he prefer to catch a ball or play tug? That could help your recall. Sounds like one of those dogs (I have one) who would rather be having fun than having dinner when he's out and about. The Two Hose Game I mentioned earlier ( http://www.nwk9.com/twosqueakies.htm ) is a good fun way to teach a recall with that sort of dog. Regards, Aidan From azdm at dycon.com Mon May 10 20:19:34 2004 From: azdm at dycon.com (Ann Moore) Date: Mon May 10 23:54:10 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann References: Message-ID: <008f01c436ed$a3e43e90$b4910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Thanks Judy, I've been trying to work with both dogs with Cheerios. As I think I wrote in my intro--I'm not well coordinated--and the Cheerios aren't satisfactory with either dog. Aggie (ADT) is so hyper--probably better described as aggressive--the treat missed amidst all her behaviors. Rocky (GH) doesn't like them although they were a little more acceptable when I kept them in the same container as a treat he loves--but is too caloric, probably, since he is probably already a pound or two over his ideal. The Moist and Meaty sounds ideal for them--more easily seen yet not too caloric and for me it will be easier to toss correctly since Cheerios seem to be as easily directed as feathers. So they're now on my next shopping list. Thanks. Ann ----- Original Message ----- From: "judy jones" To: Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 1:32 PM Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann > Hi Ann, > > My dog is very food motivated as well and I decided to switch from > "treats" which tend to be high cal and full of stuff to make them > "tasty" to plain old dog food. I feed her Science Diet as her normal > diet, but for training I use "Moist and Meaty" by Purina. It's little > sacks of perfect sized tidbits for training. It's moist so they don't > have to chew and she thinks it is the greatest thing ever. I bought the > "less active" formula so it wouldn't be as fattening either. She thinks > she's getting Filet Mignon! > > You can get some great videos at www.takeabowwow.com by the way! I know > a service dog trainer who just loved the video "The How of Bow Wow" to > get some insight on clicker training. I'm currently reading Morgan > Spector's "Clicker Training for Obedience" as I'd like to start > competing with my malamute. My favorite book thus far has been "The Dog > Listener" by Jan Fennell. I read it in one day! And of course "Don't > shoot the dog" by Karen Pryor. > > Best of Luck! > Judy > > > _______________________________________________ > Click-l mailing list > Click-l@click-l.com > http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com > Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com > From the.kellie at verizon.net Tue May 11 15:23:57 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Tue May 11 15:24:28 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann In-Reply-To: <008f01c436ed$a3e43e90$b4910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Message-ID: Ann, I feed my dogs the raw meaty bones diet, and they simply don't have weight problems. I feed them cooked meat, freeze dried liver, cheese or other "real" treats for training. Many dogs lose interest in dry cereal, or store bought treats pretty quickly. If you feed a kibble diet, just use a portion or all of their meals as their training food. When I got my small dog, I fed him ALL of his meals as part of training for a couple of weeks. They don't mind it a bit, and it gives you lots of good training opportunities. This just makes YOU a conditioned reinforcer. Kellie >Thanks Judy, > >I've been trying to work with both dogs with Cheerios. As I think I wrote >in my intro--I'm not well coordinated--and the Cheerios aren't satisfactory >with either dog. Aggie (ADT) is so hyper--probably better described as >aggressive--the treat missed amidst all her behaviors. Rocky (GH) doesn't >like them although they were a little more acceptable when I kept them in >the same container as a treat he loves--but is too caloric, probably, since >he is probably already a pound or two over his ideal. The Moist and Meaty >sounds ideal for them--more easily seen yet not too caloric and for me it >will be easier to toss correctly since Cheerios seem to be as easily >directed as feathers. From karen.tiede at eds.com Tue May 11 15:46:36 2004 From: karen.tiede at eds.com (Tiede, Karen E) Date: Tue May 11 15:48:01 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Sam the young aussie Message-ID: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD8D@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> >> Sam throws me a 2-second sit when he sees the clicker, and if > that doesn't get food, he'll toss a quick down in the pot. If only he > had a recall... What a dream. >Hi Karen, is Sam a foodie dog? Or does he prefer to catch a ball or play tug? That could help your recall. Sounds like one of those dogs (I have one) who would rather be having fun than having dinner when he's out and about. >The Two Hose Game I mentioned earlier ( http://www.nwk9.com/twosqueakies.htm ) is a good fun way to teach a recall with that sort of dog. Sam's biggest problem is his non-training owner. I'm just the owner's soon-to-be-former girlfriend, doing what I can to teach Sam a few words a) so he won't be completely wild and b) in the not-unlikely event he becomes my dog sometime soonish. Sam likes a treat well enough when he's indoors, but he's learned not to come to food when he escapes. Mostly, he has the attention span of a gnat, or maybe of any one-yo untrained dog. Bounce, zing, bounce, zing, bounce. Sigh. Other people's dogs. I'll look at the game. Thanks From the.kellie at verizon.net Tue May 11 16:15:21 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Tue May 11 16:15:53 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Sam the young aussie In-Reply-To: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD8D@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Message-ID: Control his "out" time while training a solid recall. First train him to consistently come inside the house with few distractions. Shape it with the clicker- he looks at you- click, treat. He moves toward you, CT, He comes all the way to you, CT. Add distractions... boyfriend stands in different places. You cue him from different positions and locations. In different rooms of the house. With other people visiting. And so forth. When you're solid with an inside, easy recall, open the door a tiny crack (screen closed!) and work on a solid recall under that distracting condition. Open it a more and train until he's solid on his recall. Then work outdoors with a leash. Then with a longer leash. Then with the leash on the ground- under your foot. Then on the ground not under your foot, then with a short leash you're not holding. Always return to the last successful stage and take smaller steps if he makes any mistakes. (The student is never wrong! The program merely needs to be adjusted!) Other things to train are for him to always sit and wait in a predetermined place when the doorbell rings and the door is opened, and to wait indoors as you walk all the way down the sidewalk and eventually out of sight with the door open. Oh, and definitely train him to accept having someone quickly and roughly grab his collar! This is how humans capture their dogs when the dogs are out and the humans are stressed, so it's best that our dogs learn that it isn't a threat. That will be part of a chain that includes walking agreeably back to the kitchen for a big meat treat. All this is done by training eensy teensy tiny baby steps a little at a time and building on previous steps. And you can train your boyfriend to be a trainer, too! Kellie >Sam likes a treat well enough when he's indoors, but he's learned not to >come to food when he escapes. Mostly, he has the attention span of a gnat, >or maybe of any one-yo untrained dog. Bounce, zing, bounce, zing, bounce. >Sigh. Other people's dogs. I'll look at the game. > >Thanks > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Click-l mailing list >Click-l@click-l.com >http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com >Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com From dhafss at bellsouth.net Tue May 11 16:56:25 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Tue May 11 17:02:28 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Behaviors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <<<<< Subject: Gentle Nibbles Hi all, just on the topic of puppy biting. I've been reading Michael Fox's "Superdog". Fox suggests that gentle nibbling (which can sometimes hurt quite badly) could be "altruistic" behaviour. He shows a photo of two feral dogs, one sick and one healthy. The healthy one is grooming the sick one with gentle nibbles. Our GSD does this sometimes, try as we might it's a behaviour that is remarkably persistent. Looking at it from this perspective I feel bad about trying to diminish it! At least it's more gentle now, but if she gets you in the wrong place it can really pinch. Regards, Aidan>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Reading this, it brought to mind a question I often ask myself when people talk about dogs' social behaviors (usually with the attitude that dogs are animals and can't possibly have any behaviors we would regard as altruistic or cleverly thoughtful and indicative of intelligence). That question is, how can we ever be sure what's going through their minds or what it means. I think dogs get smarter and smarter being associated with humans who more and more are (rightly or wrongly) assigning human-like traits to them. I have often said that if the aliens come, the world governments should get dog trainers to go talk to them- we deal in alien intelligence daily And a final note. Quinn, my 14 month old black tri Australian Shepherd did something so clever last week that I just have to share. I was sitting in the easy chair watching TV and eating dinner. We're just so informal at our house, and it *was* CNN, so not a total waste of time I happened to catch Quinn carrying a pair of my husband's expensive wool hiking socks down the hall and called his name. He turned back to me, grinning around the socks- he is accustomed to our taking them away. This time, I traded him a tidbit from my plate for the beloved socks and all was well. He disappeared for a few minutes, then returned with another, different sock. Okay, I'm pretty clever too, I caught on. I traded a tasty morsel for that sock and off he went. He was gone for a while and returned with yet another sock. By this time, I was totally impressed and amused. I traded him food for sock and watched him as he ambled away. When I began to watch him, I could tell he was searching the laundry room, the computer room, and under the sofa- looking for socks to trade. I ended up giving him most of my dinner. And on the topic of persistent grooming- our cows which we raised from babies on bottles, always want to groom any exposed skin (or sometimes our hair). Cows' tongues are very rough and hurt after a few swipes, but like Aidan, I don't have the heart to fuss at Flossie who is lovingly lapping me. I just trade arms until she is satisfied that she has groomed me adequately. Shirle From the.kellie at verizon.net Tue May 11 17:43:50 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Tue May 11 17:44:27 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Behaviors In-Reply-To: Message-ID: My take is that we over-estimate our own behaviors and emotions just as much as we underestimate those of non-human animals. We have a lot of behaviors that are related to our abilities to speak. But in all species concept-formation is just generalizing within a stimulus class and discriminating between that stimulus class and other stimulus classes. IOW, putting thoughts into categories so that we can use them in new and different ways is no different than learning that we can lift our hands, extend a finger and turn off a push-button light and use the exact same motion to turn on the microwave. This is what intelligence is. The ability to use what we know to do things that seem different. All the new stuff builds on the existing knowledge. And it's all behavior- whether it's in the fingers or the brain. Emotions are the results of changes in the conditions and contingencies for our behaviors. Grief, for example, comes when a collection of our reinforcers is no longer available because perhaps, for example, a loved one died. The removal of reinforcers (the loved one is no longer available to interact with) is extinction (you will stop trying to interact with someone who is no longer living and therefore no longer reinforcing your behavior), and the natural first phase of extinction is an extinction burst... and extinction bursts are one cause of the experience of emotions. There's no reason to think that dogs don't feel the same ways we do when their reinforcers go away, or when they are subjected to too many aversives or whatever the case may be. It's the same thing that happens to us. And I think the same thing causes altruistic behavior in humans and in dogs... they & we do it because it is reinforced in some way. And mean behavior is also reinforced! When we first got our Greyhound she was getting her first experience of being allowed to sleep on furniture, and she loved it. When we all settled in to watch a movie she was relegated to one of her four dog beds (She went from racing kennels to spoiled rotten in nothing flat!) The dog beds, of course, were inadequate, so she would rush to the back door and beg to be let out. When one of us would go to open the door, she would jump over the couch and steal our spot! She is also the queen of "There's Haley's Comet!" When we first got our Chinese Crested a couple of months ago, I tried feeding them both in the back yard- far apart. (I feed raw, so it's best fed outside!) One day I was sitting on the porch while they ate, and I saw Bravo go over to Pan and stand near enough that he started growling in defense of his food. She stood perfectly still for a while, then suddenly she lifted her head and ears and looked at the gate as if she'd seen something amazing. The new dog fell for it, hook line and sinker. He ran to the gate, barking his head off, while she stole his food. (Yes, I rescued it and learned to feed the dogs separately!) Kellie >Reading this, it brought to mind a question I often ask myself when people >talk about dogs' social behaviors (usually with the attitude that dogs are >animals and can't possibly have any behaviors we would regard as altruistic >or cleverly thoughtful and indicative of intelligence). That question is, >how can we ever be sure what's going through their minds or what >it means. I >think dogs get smarter and smarter being associated with humans >who more and >more are (rightly or wrongly) assigning human-like traits to them. From azdm at dycon.com Tue May 11 18:18:26 2004 From: azdm at dycon.com (Ann Moore) Date: Tue May 11 18:18:26 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann References: Message-ID: <007701c437a5$e2a59350$be910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Hi Kellie! I've read the pro's of the BARF diet on the gh-list, but ruled it out because of the extensive shopping and preparation needs. Both of us are limited in what we can do, so this was out from the beginning. Along with a mixture of the others, I think I'll try the kibble idea, offering Rocky, Aggie's kibble and vice versa. The other always has the best, ya know. With all these selections, we should be on the right track. Once we get going good, we can try the dried liver. Thanks, Ann "Kellie" > Ann, I feed my dogs the raw meaty bones diet, and they simply don't have > weight problems. I feed them cooked meat, freeze dried liver, cheese or > other "real" treats for training. Many dogs lose interest in dry cereal, or > store bought treats pretty quickly. > > If you feed a kibble diet, just use a portion or all of their meals as their > training food. When I got my small dog, I fed him ALL of his meals as part > of training for a couple of weeks. They don't mind it a bit, and it gives > you lots of good training opportunities. This just makes YOU a conditioned > reinforcer. > > Kellie > > >Thanks Judy, > > > >I've been trying to work with both dogs with Cheerios. As I think I wrote > >in my intro--I'm not well coordinated--and the Cheerios aren't satisfactory > >with either dog. Aggie (ADT) is so hyper--probably better described as > >aggressive--the treat missed amidst all her behaviors. Rocky (GH) doesn't > >like them although they were a little more acceptable when I kept them in > >the same container as a treat he loves--but is too caloric, probably, since > >he is probably already a pound or two over his ideal. The Moist and Meaty > >sounds ideal for them--more easily seen yet not too caloric and for me it > >will be easier to toss correctly since Cheerios seem to be as easily > >directed as feathers. > > > _______________________________________________ > Click-l mailing list > Click-l@click-l.com > http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com > Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com > From the.kellie at verizon.net Tue May 11 18:39:01 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Tue May 11 18:39:36 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Treats for Ann In-Reply-To: <007701c437a5$e2a59350$be910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Message-ID: I totally know about the "His Food Must Be Better Than Mine" routine! My Greyhound loves that game! I hope it works for you- sounds like it will! Regarding the raw food, I admit to periodically reverting to a few cans of dog food and kibble when I'm rushed (like during finals last week!), but I have found a store that carries the "Disgusto-Meal" stuff I feed so it's not normally a big ordeal, and it's no more expensive than feeding canned. And I feed the Raw Meaty Bones version- the least work intensive of all. I just toss the raw meaty bones into the back yard- voila! I do NO mixing, grinding, searching for perfect cuts of meat... and the dogs think they are in heaven. For veggies, they only need miniscule amounts and I feed them left overs from the human table. Kellie > I've read the pro's of the BARF diet on the gh-list, but ruled it out >because of the extensive shopping and preparation needs. Both of us are >limited in what we can do, so this was out from the beginning. >Along with a >mixture of the others, I think I'll try the kibble idea, offering Rocky, >Aggie's kibble and vice versa. The other always has the best, ya know. >With all these selections, we should be on the right track. >Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Tue May 11 20:44:57 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Tue May 11 23:46:33 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Behaviors References: Message-ID: <009301c437d5$642aba20$96ad3dcb@work01> > By this time, I was totally impressed and amused. I > traded him food for sock and watched him as he ambled away. When I began to > watch him, I could tell he was searching the laundry room, the computer > room, and under the sofa- looking for socks to trade. I ended up giving him > most of my dinner. Hi Shirle, just out of interest, has this dog been trained to retrieve before now? I'm just wondering if this behaviour is generalising to include socks in the same way that dumbells or balls might be in his repetoire already? Certainly a nice behaviour if you can put it on cue, "get me my socks please", "fetch my slippers please" :-) Regards, Aidan From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Wed May 12 01:54:21 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Wed May 12 01:42:27 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Sam the young aussie References: <79D80D394197764997DC956801CABCEE72DD8D@ushem204.exse01.exch.eds.com> Message-ID: <00f401c437e5$930c1ea0$96ad3dcb@work01> > Sam likes a treat well enough when he's indoors, but he's learned not to > come to food when he escapes. Mostly, he has the attention span of a gnat, > or maybe of any one-yo untrained dog. Bounce, zing, bounce, zing, bounce. Yes, I think he would benefit from that game or something like it. Don't be in such a rush to put him on-lead or back inside if you can help it. Find somewhere safe to practise, let him off, recall, play a short game or feed, release, let him play or sniff or whatever... on and on Recall, Reward, Release; Recall, Reward, Release... Then Recall, Clip on Leash, Reward, Release; Recall, Clip on Leash, Reward, Release etc etc Mix it up so that sometimes you clip on the leash, sometimes you don't. Regards, Aidan From azdm at dycon.com Thu May 13 00:03:07 2004 From: azdm at dycon.com (Ann Moore) Date: Thu May 13 00:03:33 2004 Subject: Hi, Ann [was: RE: [Click-l] Introduction] References: Message-ID: <00af01c4389f$33ad56d0$6c910d0c@annmv5rkzxxoj> Clicker training is the greatest. ----- Original Message ----- From: Kellie To: List for discussing clicker training. Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2004 12:32 PM Hi! I'm a greyhound person, too! Q My greyhound is a retired racer- is yours? A And we are Rocky's second post-track home. Comment--Rocky was seven when we got him in Sept 03 but he was used to home life. His family had given him up because of a new baby and he was also the first dog they've ever had. I felt our staid existance and his missing the other family was the cause of his lack of interest and/or depression. xxxxxxxxxxx Kellie says If your hound is interested in food, you'll be able to make progress with him although you may find that training your Airedale goes much faster simply because he offers more behaviors you can click! Don't give up on your hound, though! One very nifty training trick I've found with Bravo is to have her in the room with us while I'm training the other dog or cat. Ann--He loves food but is picky and you're right. Aggie gives us many behaviors while Rock just lays on the sofa next to me. He's interested but only toward the end of the session with Aggie when we had put her back in the crate did he pull himself off the sofa to pick up a treat. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Kellie said I tried for what seemed like forever to shape a simple "high 5" with that dog, and she wouldn't lift her feet off the floor. My son taught our cat to do High 5, and suddenly the dog will run in and do high 5s all over the place when she hears us working with him. When I was teaching our Chinese Crested to put his toys away, she initially would steal a toy and run into the other room, but quickly learned that if she stays in the room and manipulates toys there are treats to be had! So, she definitely learns from observation and competition. Ann--Yes. He is definitely getting more responsive. When Aggie and I are working, in fact since treats may be in the offing more often, he rarely goes to his bed in the corner of the bedroom, but lies on the sofa or in the hall where he can see and here whats going on in several places. After just four days the difference in Aggie is tremendous. And Rocky is a lot more interested and will actually come when his name is called. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040513/57e94f32/attachment-0001.htm From am-barta at mchsi.com Thu May 13 15:21:17 2004 From: am-barta at mchsi.com (Amy Barta) Date: Thu May 13 15:21:19 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Puppy feeling "romantic" Message-ID: Skipped content of type multipart/alternative-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/bmp Size: 27702 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040513/288b3c83/attachment-0001.bin From kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com Thu May 13 16:21:32 2004 From: kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com (kathleen_w-click5733@mailblocks.com) Date: Thu May 13 16:21:37 2004 Subject: [Click-l] ADMIN: Bounces Message-ID: I just went through the list and turned everyone back on, whose mail "bounced". A bounce is when a mail message can't be delivered, and it gets sent back to the list -- thus bouncing -- (personally I think more of a boomerang, but that's okay). The most common reasons for these bounces was posts made in Outlook without Plain Text on. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, go to you address book and set "plain text only" for click-l@click.com THANKS! --------------------- Kathleen Weaver Marcie - Bettner's Byte O' Magic OA OAP NAP OJP Maggie - in training From gelacb at yahoo.com Thu May 13 12:32:33 2004 From: gelacb at yahoo.com (Angela Cook) Date: Thu May 13 16:22:27 2004 Subject: [Click-l] puppy behaviours Message-ID: <20040513163233.46423.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Hi, I'm new to the group, but I have a few questions already that maybe you folks can help me with. Lily is my 9 week old Lab/shepherd cross that we are hoping will become my new seizure alert dog. She's very bright, and is settling in very nicely after living with us for a week; she has the beginnings of a recall, a good "sit", and a "down", although all need some shaping, of course. But all of my experience has been with adult dogs, and I have a few questions about how to handle a puppy. I don't want to rush her, but I also don't want to let problems develop... nip things in the bud, so to speak... but I need a little guidance. So here are a few of my concerns. She seems to have an inclination to "herding" behaviour towards small children... not really appropriate. Any ideas on how to teach her more appropriate ways to interact with small children? She also likes to chase the cats... it's simply more rewarding to chase the cats than, well pretty much anything. Any suggestions? Lily has also got wonderful walking habits. She more or less heals naturally. I put her on the leash and she doesn't even notice, because she stays so close she never reaches the end of the leash!!! I'd really like to reinforce this behaviour before she un-learns it? Can someone tell me how I should go about doing that? Otherwise, things are going beautifully; we're cementing housebreaking, and working on chewing habits... and having a lot of fun! I'm really looking forward to learning more through the discussions in this group. Thanks for your help!! -Gela __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861 From the.kellie at verizon.net Thu May 13 16:36:15 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Thu May 13 16:36:51 2004 Subject: [Click-l] puppy behaviours In-Reply-To: <20040513163233.46423.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: It is never too early to start training a puppy or a human child. I would decide how you want the puppy to act toward children, and ask yourself these four questions: 1) Where are we now with regards to his behavior around children? (Describe BEHAVIORS, things you can observe him physically doing.) 2) Where do we want him to end up? (Again, describe the finished behavior.) 3) What are the steps we can take to get from #1 to #2. Create a series of tiny approximations toward the ideal final behavior. 4) What reinforcers will be needed to maintain this behavior. As much as possible you'll want to use natural social reinforcers in the environment, but you may need to start with yummy food treats to get things going. The first approximation in #3 may be to click and treat when he sees a child but before he has a chance to come into physical contact with the child. Once he's expecting that intervening click and treat you can start clicking him to look at you and sit, and require that he remain in this position while the child greets and pets him. (You may want to choose another target behavior... this is just an example!) If you have a small child, or a friend or relative who is a small child, ask the same 4 questions regarding how the child should act toward your dog and begin training that... with the parents' help, of course. Kellie ------- Kellie S. Snider, B.S. Behavior Analysis >Hi, I'm new to the group, but I have a few questions >already that maybe you folks can help me with. Lily is >my 9 week old Lab/shepherd cross that we are hoping >will become my new seizure alert dog. She's very >bright, and is settling in very nicely after living >with us for a week; she has the beginnings of a >recall, a good "sit", and a "down", although all need >some shaping, of course. But all of my experience has >been with adult dogs, and I have a few questions about >how to handle a puppy. I don't want to rush her, but I >also don't want to let problems develop... nip things >in the bud, so to speak... but I need a little >guidance. >So here are a few of my concerns. >She seems to have an inclination to "herding" >behaviour towards small children... not really >appropriate. Any ideas on how to teach her more >appropriate ways to interact with small children? >She also likes to chase the cats... it's simply more >rewarding to chase the cats than, well pretty much >anything. Any suggestions? >Lily has also got wonderful walking habits. She more >or less heals naturally. I put her on the leash and >she doesn't even notice, because she stays so close >she never reaches the end of the leash!!! I'd really >like to reinforce this behaviour before she un-learns >it? Can someone tell me how I should go about doing >that? >Otherwise, things are going beautifully; we're >cementing housebreaking, and working on chewing >habits... and having a lot of fun! I'm really looking >forward to learning more through the discussions in >this group. Thanks for your help!! >-Gela > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Movies - Buy advance tickets for 'Shrek 2' >http://movies.yahoo.com/showtimes/movie?mid=1808405861 > >_______________________________________________ >Click-l mailing list >Click-l@click-l.com >http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com >Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com From dhafss at bellsouth.net Thu May 13 16:55:20 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Thu May 13 17:03:05 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: The sock trading Aussie In-Reply-To: <20040513040611.RNUE1757.imf04aec.mail.bellsouth.net@taylor.uurnet.net> Message-ID: I don't know if "trained" is exactly the right word. He has brought things to me since he was a puppy and I would toss them for him. Right now, he will go and get anything I throw. Over and over ad infinitum. He will bring things for me to throw for him so he can go fetch them until I am exhausted :~) I once played fectch with him with an empty dog food can- he would scoop it up by putting his lower jaw into the can. He will fetch anything. As for the "get me my socks," well, it's probably not something I should ask him to do. His real goal is to take our socks and chew and slobber all over them. Or by now to trade them for all our dinner! I'm so impressed with the thought that must be going on in his head that I don't want to discourage this neat trick, but I'm kinda scared of what he's going to decide to bring to trade next! I have this comic image of myself piled high with shoes, books, rugs, etc Shirle From: "Aidan" <<<<>>> From tgf at bellsouth.net Thu May 13 21:59:37 2004 From: tgf at bellsouth.net (Robert Myrick) Date: Thu May 13 23:39:53 2004 Subject: [Click-l] Introduction Message-ID: Hey! My name is Devona Myrick and I have been playing around with clicker training for about four years now. We own 6 aussies and one border collie. I mostly Trial in herding but have also done some agility. Live in Covington, Ga. on a small farm. Thanks, Devona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040513/a12608e9/attachment.htm From abindoff at ozemail.com.au Fri May 14 01:13:58 2004 From: abindoff at ozemail.com.au (Aidan) Date: Fri May 14 01:02:07 2004 Subject: [Click-l] puppy behaviours References: <20040513163233.46423.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008e01c43972$43cbc820$bead3dcb@work01> > She seems to have an inclination to "herding" > behaviour towards small children... not really > appropriate. Any ideas on how to teach her more > appropriate ways to interact with small children? Hi Gela, at 9 weeks I wouldn't be too concerned. Are they your small children? What does the herding look like? What are the kids doing at the time and how do they respond? > She also likes to chase the cats... it's simply more > rewarding to chase the cats than, well pretty much > anything. Any suggestions? I trained the cats to stay up high, much easier There are several approaches, but I would suggest that you get them used to each other, reinforcing calm behaviour and making the experience very pleasant for both cat and dog. You want puss to be comfortable enough not to run away, thus stimulating pup's prey drive. You want pup to learn she gets more time with puss if she is calm, and other goodies might come her way too! > Lily has also got wonderful walking habits. She more > or less heals naturally. I put her on the leash and > she doesn't even notice, because she stays so close > she never reaches the end of the leash!!! I'd really > like to reinforce this behaviour before she un-learns > it? Can someone tell me how I should go about doing > that? Food. If she does pull, be a tree. > Otherwise, things are going beautifully; we're > cementing housebreaking, and working on chewing > habits... and having a lot of fun! Good work :-) Regards, Aidan From kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com Fri May 14 06:49:03 2004 From: kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com (kathleen_w-click5733@mailblocks.com) Date: Fri May 14 06:49:07 2004 Subject: [Click-l] ADMIN: Bounces Message-ID: I don't know what to do. The server is limited to 300 messaages an hour. The mailing list just hit 287 members, which means we can only send out one message an hour. I've asked if there is a way around it. I'll let everyone know. --------------------- Kathleen Weaver Marcie - Bettner's Byte O' Magic OA OAP NAP OJP Maggie - in training From kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com Fri May 14 11:01:05 2004 From: kathleen_w-click5733 at mailblocks.com (kathleen_w-click5733@mailblocks.com) Date: Fri May 14 11:01:10 2004 Subject: [Click-l] List Problems Message-ID: I have several solutions in mind for the list. The first is to move it to a different server, which I am going to initiate after I've sent this email. You should see nothing different. --------------------- Kathleen Weaver Marcie - Bettner's Byte O' Magic OA OAP NAP OJP Maggie - in training From dhafss at bellsouth.net Fri May 14 14:11:10 2004 From: dhafss at bellsouth.net (Shirle Rogers) Date: Fri May 14 14:19:49 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Interesting book In-Reply-To: <20040513040611.RNUE1757.imf04aec.mail.bellsouth.net@taylor.uurnet.net> Message-ID: I have recently bought a spiral bound soft cover book by Silvia Hartmann-Kent. It's called "Take the Class!" and is about instructing obedience class. Not really clicker oriented, but she does recommend positive methods and using food. She also recommends Karen "Prior" , Don't Shoot the Dog. Since I'm teaching traditional methods classes by default at this point :~p I found the book informative. However, the author talks about a "check collar" and a "half check collar." I've never heard those terms. Is anyone familiar with them? Shirle From the.kellie at verizon.net Fri May 14 18:10:47 2004 From: the.kellie at verizon.net (Kellie) Date: Fri May 14 18:11:25 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Interesting book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I believe check-collars and half-check collars are versions of what we Greyhound people call Martingale collars. They have a partial loop that tightens around the neck, but can't close very tight. I can't describe it very well... but if you do a search for martingale collars you'll see it. Greyhounds often wear very fancy versions, but there are basic PetSmart versions as well. Another couple of good books for trainers are by Nicole Wilde. "It's Not The Dogs, It's The People", and "So You Want To Be A Dog Trainer". Nicole is knowledgeable about wolf-dogs, and has been training for quite some time. She's a good clicker trainer. Kellie soft cover book by Silvia >Hartmann-Kent. It's called "Take the Class!" and is about instructing >obedience class. Not really clicker oriented, but she does recommend >positive methods and using food. She also recommends Karen "Prior" , Don't >Shoot the Dog. > From gelacb at yahoo.com Fri May 14 19:16:08 2004 From: gelacb at yahoo.com (Angela Cook) Date: Fri May 14 19:16:08 2004 Subject: [Click-l] re: puppy behaviours Message-ID: <20040514231608.84325.qmail@web14008.mail.yahoo.com> Thanks for the quick responses and food for thought! Good ideas in terms of evaluating and breaking down what I would like her behaviour to look like. I'm happy with how she greets children, and I'm teaching Lily to greet all people the same way: with a sit at my feet, person approaches her (preferably at my signal)and she can sniff their hand and recieve a treat at the "say hello" prompt (no, we're not there yet!). As a working animal, with a goal of public access, Lily is going to have to learn to ignore people most of the time, but "play time" with children may be rewarding for her during her "time off", if she can learn how to handle it. Anyways, she's greeting children appropriately, but at some point, when she gets excited and playful, when a small child (not mine, but I am expecting in early November!)moves to another area of the house or yard, Lily will bark, run back and forth behind them, and move to "nip" (but doesn't make contact) at their heels until the child moves back to the previous area. (I think she's trying to keep the children near their mother!) Children's reaction varies: laughter, confusion, one little girl is firghtened. Fortunately, parents have a good attitude about training the children alongside the dog, so we can work on both. She seems to get really excited... I don't know how concerned to be about this behaviour. If I remove her at the excitable stage until she settles down, she'll then interact more calmly and appropriately again. It's like she's playing and overstimulated, and gets carried away. I'm hesitant to assume she'll just grow out of it though... Hope that describes the behaviour abit better. Thanks for the tips... please feel free to offer more feedback/ ideas! Thanks again! -Angela __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! - Internet access at a great low price. http://promo.yahoo.com/sbc/ From grizbob at ev1.net Fri May 14 20:37:00 2004 From: grizbob at ev1.net (mary carson) Date: Fri May 14 20:37:39 2004 Subject: [Click-l] your numbers are wrong when i check in. Message-ID: <002101c43a14$bccfabe0$abd63fd1@cx485883c> Mary Carson SEE DEEPTHATCH NEW PUPS BORN 3/24/04 DUAL POTENTIAL. ENGLISH IMPORTS www.FlintknapperKennel.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://taylor.uurnet.net/pipermail/click-l_click-l.com/attachments/20040514/930185f1/attachment.htm From cindi at puppyraiser.com Fri May 14 20:10:55 2004 From: cindi at puppyraiser.com (Cindi Lashinsky) Date: Fri May 14 20:58:32 2004 Subject: [Click-l] RE: Interesting book In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <025a01c43a11$17c1d310$6500a8c0@cow> A check collar is also known as a "training collar" or "choke chain" - it is the metal collar with two rings (live ring and dead ring), that is used for punishment-based training. If you do a search for "check chain" you'll find more results than "check collar" - though both are the same thing. A half-check is also known as a martingale collar. It is a collar which will only tighten to a certain extent. See http://www.sitstay.com/store/equip/collars3.shtml for examples. It is also sold with the tightening piece made of metal, as can be seen at http://www.smithscountrypursuits.co.uk/pages/halfcheckcollars.htm >From what I have seen and heard, I believe the term "check collar" is used more in Australia and Great Britain than the US. I have used martingales (cloth only) on dogs who back out of their collars, not as a tool for punishment administration. I don't think the use of choke/check chains has much of a place in a truly positively-oriented training class or theory. How old is the book that mentions these? Is this a book from the 80s or so, or is it simply modern without modern theory? Cindi -----Original Message----- From: Click-l-bounces@click-l.com [mailto:Click-l-bounces@click-l.com] On Behalf Of Shirle Rogers Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 2:11 PM To: Click-l@click-l.com Subject: [Click-l] RE: Interesting book I have recently bought a spiral bound soft cover book by Silvia Hartmann-Kent. It's called "Take the Class!" and is about instructing obedience class. Not really clicker oriented, but she does recommend positive methods and using food. She also recommends Karen "Prior" , Don't Shoot the Dog. Since I'm teaching traditional methods classes by default at this point :~p I found the book informative. However, the author talks about a "check collar" and a "half check collar." I've never heard those terms. Is anyone familiar with them? Shirle _______________________________________________ Click-l mailing list Click-l@click-l.com http://mail.click-l.com/mailman/listinfo/click-l_click-l.com Companion Website at http://www.click-l.com