When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [21]
Knowing when to stop reinforcing one approximation of a behavior and hold out for more is more of an art than a science. As a general rule of thumb, if your dog looks like he is losing interest or giving up when you start holding out for an “improvement,” you have probably tried to raise the bar too quickly. Go back and reinforce the behavior he was last offering a few more times. Once that behavior is strengthened by a few more reinforcements, you can try again to hold out for the next approximation.
Here I am shaping Ruby to put her front feet in the box. Each photo represents an approximation—a place where you should click. Notice that I hold my hands behind my back. If you hold a clicker and/or treats in front of you when you free shape, a novice dog may find it hard to think about anything except the stuff in your hands.
Even if your dog has not given up, but is repeatedly offering a behavior you are not looking for, you need to find a way to reinforce him, or he will lose interest and give up. Again, knowing how long to hold out will depend on your dog’s personality and training, but here is a rule of thumb to get you started. If your dog has offered three behaviors and they have not been what you want, drop back on your criteria and take a little less so that, ideally, the dog gets a reward on the fourth try. For example, if you are holding out for a head turn and you only get the same old eyeball roll three times in a row, just click the eyeball roll a few more times. If you continue to hold out for more, you run the risk of the dog just giving up. Once the original (the eyeball roll in this case) behavior has been strengthened by a few more repetitions, your dog may feel confident enough to keep trying “improved” behaviors. The “rule of three” is only a very conservative generalization to get you started—you will be amazed at how quickly you will begin to read your dog and know when to raise the training criteria and how long you should hold out.
As you work with your dog, you will get to know how persistent he is and how quickly you can raise the bar and hold out for more. Many terriers have incredible persistence and will feverishly keep offering behaviors for a very long time. If you think about the single-minded determination needed for a dog to hunt down and dig up small prey animals, it makes sense that terriers will keep trying virtually until they drop. On the other hand, a cuddly Cavalier King Charles Spaniel might be absolutely horrified when you try to raise the training criteria. They are clever dogs that will do anything you ask, but they might not be eager to mentally strike out on their own. You should be more conservative about raising the criteria with a Cavalier than with a terrier.
When your dog does finally do the ultimate behavior that you are looking for, you should rejoice, yell, “Whooohooo” (or whisper it, if your dog is shy) and dole out about 20 small treats. This is known as a jackpot and we use it to mark a particularly great behavior. You should also use a jackpot if your dog has been thinking hard for a long time about a problem, and then solves it, even if it is not the “ultimate” behavior you are building.
Piggy Pointer
When you are jackpotting, it is much more effective to dole out 20 small treats in rapid succession than to give one large chunk of bait. Dogs will gobble just about anything that will fit into their mouth in one bite. Oddly enough, dogs have no sense of proportion, but they can count—50 tiny pieces of food is much more valuable to a dog than one softball-sized treat that they can consume in one bite.
Did you succeed in getting your dog to do the behavior you selected? If you did, congratulations! You now know how to train your dog to do anything. All you have to do now is put the behavior on cue so your dog will perform it when you ask (you will learn how to do that later in the book) and you are all set. Teaching your dog to sit, lie down, stay, and walk on a loose leash are all taught exactly the same way using the same free shaping game.
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