Trick Challenge #1-March to the Music

[SheltieChe]

I saw that you decided to use "good girl", but had a question still.

Is she clicker trained? If so, don't forget that the treat does NOT need to come a split second after the click. The click is to mark the correct behavior, then you treat. I have had times were I have to move the food far enough away so Koji could concentrated. I'd just click, walk to food, treat and continue. It didn't lower his rate of learning, it just slowed me down since I had to walk to the food and back.

Figured I'd post that in case there are others thinking the same thing.

I would caution against doing that. Per Bob Bailey "click for action reward for position"- so you are rewarding for ANYTHING that happened between click and reward. I.e. if you clicked lets say for 2o2o position on contact but then went to the table to get your food and returned back to give that food during this time your dog broke 2o2o and is running around you are rewarding for everything, including breaking postion and running. Second- you turning away from dog to find the treat, you are inadvertedly giving your dog time out/ by turning away/. Confusing message for the dog.
My mechanics are still pretty sloppy too so this is " been there, done that" advice.

 

[corbinam]

I would caution against doing that. Per Bob Bailey "click for action reward for position"- so you are rewarding for ANYTHING that happened between click and reward. I.e. if you clicked lets say for 2o2o position on contact but then went to the table to get your food and returned back to give that food during this time your dog broke 2o2o and is running around you are rewarding for everything, including breaking postion and running. Second- you turning away from dog to find the treat, you are inadvertedly giving your dog time out/ by turning away/. Confusing message for the dog.
My mechanics are still pretty sloppy too so this is " been there, done that" advice.

I've never heard that before. I always thought that a click was the bridge between the behavior and a reward.

I feel like that would make it almost impossible to capture a behavior, for instance, with a dog like Lexi. Clicker in one hand, one hand out to get her to paw at it. She paws at it, and I click but as I'm clicking she is offering tons of other things. The point of the clicker is to mark the actual desired behavior, I thought. Lexi would never learn anything if I had to treat at the same time as the click and not allow anything in between.

 

[Sharon]

Tricks

I need some help with specifics. So, Koji can shake, but he doesn't have separate cues for left/right paw shakes. Should I first teach that cue? He usually will use the correct paw accordingly to which hand I have up. Usually, but not always.

So, let's say I don't need a cue, but put my hands out, as I move away. It seems like if "shake" is followed by a literal shake, wouldn't that confuse him now, because I'm not shaking? Or do you think that's not part of the actual command, and the command is really for him to raise his paw?

Lastly, if I use the shake command, wouldn't that reinforce shake to eventually become march? at what point do I need to stop using shake?

thanks!

Thats why I like the word "Touch".My dogs do not know shake.I tell people to use the word Touch and I do not know about anyone else my guys dont get confused with it.

 

[SheltieChe]

I've never heard that before. I always thought that a click was the bridge between the behavior and a reward.

I feel like that would make it almost impossible to capture a behavior, for instance, with a dog like Lexi. Clicker in one hand, one hand out to get her to paw at it. She paws at it, and I click but as I'm clicking she is offering tons of other things. The point of the clicker is to mark the actual desired behavior, I thought. Lexi would never learn anything if I had to treat at the same time as the click and not allow anything in between.

click is a laser point, isolating behavior you want. You need to give treat shortly after, within 1-2 sec from click. That is part why I don't do linear clicker when you click for successful approximations, like dog turning ear, or nose, or blinking in that direction. Most dogs do develop this frantic throwing at you all kinds of behaviors.
I believe you need to slow down behaviors. I wonder if you just wait out a bit and see if speed of thrown behaviors will decrease?
I do not have experience with frantic behaviors and have to look up into my notes to see the solution.

 

[mellie]

We are making good progress,Sally already knows high five and will high five our feet too, so I am working on getting her to stand and do this. You guys are really technical . Maybe I should rethink my teaching methods although Sally seems to be getting it and having fun too.

 

[corbinam]

click is a laser point, isolating behavior you want. You need to give treat shortly after, within 1-2 sec from click. That is part why I don't do linear clicker when you click for successful approximations, like dog turning ear, or nose, or blinking in that direction. Most dogs do develop this frantic throwing at you all kinds of behaviors.
I believe you need to slow down behaviors. I wonder if you just wait out a bit and see if speed of thrown behaviors will decrease?
I do not have experience with frantic behaviors and have to look up into my notes to see the solution.

What do you mean by linear clicker? I have never clicked and not treated immediately (within a second or two), if that's what you mean.

If I wait Lexi out, she gives up and sniffs the ground (stressed) and walks away.

 

[corbinam]

What do you mean by linear clicker? I have never clicked and not treated immediately (within a second or two), if that's what you mean.

If I wait Lexi out, she gives up and sniffs the ground (stressed) and walks away.

I should note that this behavior diminishes as she starts to understand the criteria. It's usually just in the beginning she throws out any and everything she can think of.

 

[Lahree]

We are making good progress,Sally already knows high five and will high five our feet too, so I am working on getting her to stand and do this. You guys are really technical . Maybe I should rethink my teaching methods although Sally seems to be getting it and having fun too.

"If it aint broke, don't fix it." If Sally is getting it and having fun it is a total win-win! No need to change anything!

 

[Justicemom]

click is a laser point, isolating behavior you want. You need to give treat shortly after, within 1-2 sec from click. That is part why I don't do linear clicker when you click for successful approximations, like dog turning ear, or nose, or blinking in that direction. Most dogs do develop this frantic throwing at you all kinds of behaviors.
I believe you need to slow down behaviors. I wonder if you just wait out a bit and see if speed of thrown behaviors will decrease?
I do not have experience with frantic behaviors and have to look up into my notes to see the solution.

I don't understand this. How do you slow down behavior? What is linear clicker?

One of the reasons I got frustrated in the past with clicker training with Diva is she would throw those frantic behaviors at me. one after another after another. Thats how Diva is, she is wired. I used to call her water bug as she was so quick . I am still having issues with her rolling though behaviors as I am teaching utility signals.

 

[SheltieChe]

Clicker training as such has evolved in the past 20 years. Traditional clicker training thought out to be very linear. I.E. you want to teach dog to pick up a dumbell so you take dog to the obedience ring and put that dumbell in the middle of the room and click for successful approximations , i.e. dog looked at the area, dog turned head, dog blinked , ear turned in right direction so you would click like 30 times a minute for any smallest thing you can reward that will lead you to right behavior until you eventually have that dog sniffing and licking and touching and eventually taking that dumbell into mouth. It is more like complicated game of "hot and cold" that kids play.
What I do is different that entire behavior split into many parts which shaped separately and often "speed up". For example I want my dog to jump onto the table. I have a behavior of dog going to the dog bed. So I will put dog bed onto the table and shape "going on the table" this way then remove dog bed and ask for same behavior and because dog is likely to do latest behavior he was reinforced for I will get same jump on the table without dog bed on it. So insted of linear shaping step by step you start thinking outside of box looking for solutions by manipulating environment as well as reward system. That requires more thoughtful dog.
I do not think linear shaping is Corbinam problem though, although it would be great to see visual, you are so good with camera! It more sounds like overarousal in anticipation of reward to me.
What I mean by slowing behavior down is manipulation of environment- take dog into bathroom with nothing else happening there, put dog on the leash to prevent from running off sniffing, shape while dog in crate i.e. remove distractions as much as you can. You might need to move that bowl with food further or put it on higher table so dog has calmer/ more thoughtful offers. Sometimes you just wait a little and once this frantic stuff slowed down reward for closest criteria you see and start there. Sometimes you get couple behaviors but you only want one- lets say I want nose touch but not paw touch so I put dog into box because response cost of lifting paw out of box is much higher than lifting it on flat surface so dog is likely to offer nose touch first.