When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [19]
4. If your dog runs wildly around and seems not to notice the box at all, just click him for being in the same room as the box, then in the same half of the room as the box, then in the same 5 foot square as the box, and so forth, until he is interacting with the box. If your clicker has been powered up sufficiently, your dog will catch on to the game very quickly.
Continue to click and treat for any interaction with the box for the entire session—a glance, a sniff, a lick, a paw in or on the box, a mouth on the box, anything at all!
Some dogs are just gifted at this game and will be merrily interacting with the box in only three or four clicks. Some dogs will take five minutes before they even try to move out of one spot. Don’t get discouraged. Accept what your dog gives you and work with it. Don’t worry if your dog seems to be a slow learner. Every dog catches on, eventually.
A little dog like this might find it intimidating to interact with a box, so you could try using a rope toy, instead. Here, I am clicking her for looking at the rope toy and then for touching it with her nose.
As a rule, your free shaping sessions should be quite short. Five to ten minutes is a nice amount of time to spend in a training session of this sort. The most ideal training schedule would be three five minute sessions spread out over the course of a day, but one session per day is just fine, too.
When you can bet $100 that your dog will immediately start offering behaviors when you put the box down, you can add a cue, such as, “What can you do”, or, “Gimme something” to signal the start of your free-shaping session. It might take one session or ten sessions to get to this point. Don’t rush and don’t be frustrated. Enjoy the process and let your dog learn at his own pace.
Pig-tionary
Cue: A stimulus which sets the occasion for a particular response. A cue, sometimes called a command, is a verbal signal that you give your dog to do a particular behavior, like “sit,” “down,” or “come.”
When your dog begins hustling around and offering behaviors as soon as you put the box down and say “What can you do?” move on to the next exercise. Do not be in a hurry; we want your dog really happy about and crazy over this box before you move on.
Pig Tale
My dog Ursa was introduced to the clicker as an adult and it took her a very long time to start offering behaviors. We could not play the “box” games, because she would just stand there, completely inert, and stare at me. When she tired of this, she would walk away. I would end the session at that point, thinking she was uninterested and did not get it. Sometime around the third session, I clicked her just as she turned her head to walk away, but before she actually took a step. She got her treat, and then stood there and stared at me for another few minutes. When she turned away again, I clicked. That first session was mighty painful and long, but that was a turning point for her. After that, Ursa started offering a head turn during our shaping sessions. We built on that in tiny increments, and it was not long before she was playing the box game with enthusiasm. The moral of the story is, even if the only thing your dog will do is walk away from you—click it!
The Journey Begins With One Footstep
How to Shape a Behavior
Did you and your dog have fun with the “box” training game? Great! Now you are ready to take the next step and actually train something. Before, you were clicking any interaction at all with the box. Now I want you to pick out a behavior for your dog to do with the box. Some suggestions are—put a front foot in the box, touch the box with his nose,pick up the box with his teeth—anything at all as long as you determine exactly what you want him to do so you know in advance what to