When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [24]
Plenty of Pigs Fly dogs have shyness issues which complicate their already less than abundant work ethic. Free shaping can fix shyness, too. For some reason, dogs that are timid or shy seem to be made much worse by any attempt to lure, reassure, or cheerlead them on. Try some free shaping with your shy dog and you will be downright amazed at how quickly he comes out of his shell.
Economics 101
Why and When it Pays to Lure a Behavior
Luring can be a valuable training tool and I do use it on occasion in my training program. It would be really hard to train a dog without any luring at all. Some behaviors are so complicated that it would take thousands of tries to shape them, and then you still might not succeed. Furthermore, sometimes the ultimate cue for the behavior is contained within the lure, so you will not have the trouble of fading the lure.
Sometimes luring your dog to do a behavior makes sense, especially if it is a difficult behavior like “down.” Here, I am luring a dog under my knee to help get her into the “down” position.
Pig-tionary
Luring: In dog training, luring means use of food or prop to manipulate a dog into desired position or behavior. Examples would be: holding a hot dog just in front of the dog’s nose so he is drawn into heel position, holding a cookie over his head so he sits down, or throwing a treat into the dog’s crate so he will run in after it. I do use luring to train my dogs, but there are limited instances where I will introduce it. Especially in the beginning stages, it is more important that your dog learn how to think and offer behaviors than how to do any particular behavior, and luring is not the best way to those goals. We will discuss the proper place for lures later in the book.
These are places where it is good training economy to think about using a lure. Dog trainers will debate hotly over whether free shaping or luring is the better method of training any particular behavior. To me, the real issue is what luring vs. free shaping is doing to my dog’s mental underpinnings. I train dogs that have no particular interest in working with me to start with. I find that this free shaping exercise gives the best possible chance of them becoming operant. Dogs who are eager to train and offer behaviors is like money in the bank for me to buy new behaviors down the line.
Luring is appropriate, however, when the following conditions are met:
1. The dog has played a lot of free shaping games and is very operant and fluent at offering behaviors.
2. It is just darn hard to train that particular behavior without luring.
You will know when the first condition is met and your dog is operant—he will be attending you like a bellhop at a posh resort, trying to get your attention by offering behaviors.
As for the second condition, an example of a behavior that is just darn hard to train without luring would be a “down.” You can free shape a down by micro-shaping very tiny approximations, but it takes an excellent eye and finely tuned clicker skills. Most people will be better off using food or a toy to lure their dog into a down.
The thing I want you to take away from this section is that you have to make a distinction between training behaviors and training attitude and work ethic. Luring is sometimes the best training economy for getting a particular behavior, but you also have to train attitude and work ethic, and free shaping is the way to do that. There is no harm in luring a behavior if you just can’t seem to get it any other way, so long as you have put in the foundation work of free shaping lots of behaviors, first. Remember, dog training, especially for a Pigs Fly kinda dog, is about getting into the dog’s mind, not just controlling his body!
The Strongest House is Built With Small Bricks
Why it Pays to Break Down a Behavior into Many Approximations
I have found that, the smaller the approximations you use to shape a behavior, the more durable they will be. What do I mean by durable? Under stress or