The Ultimate Guide to Dog Training. Teoti Anderson

for a dog that may be too fearful to get near you for luring. You could have a delicious meatball in your hand to lure your dog to perform a behavior, but if the dog is terrified of you, that meatball may not be enough. Shaping allows you to work with a dog that doesn’t feel comfortable being near you. In turn, this will help build a strong relationship, as he will get many rewards during your training sessions. Your training sessions will be positive experiences for him.

      Shaping is also an excellent training method to teach behaviors that a dog would not normally do. A dog may readily pick up a tennis ball, but what about your car keys? You could shape your dog to bring you your keys, the remote control, laundry items, or other objects.

      Shaping is a great technique for teaching service-dog behaviors, such as turning on and off lights, opening and closing doors, and even helping make the bed.

      You can use shaping to teach your dog the Settle cue.

      Capturing

      Capturing is a method of marking and reinforcing behavior that a dog performs on his own, without lures. For example, when your dog lies down, he sometimes crosses his front paws, and you think that it’s adorable and want to put it on cue. You would mark and reward the behavior every time he did it on his own. Behavior that is reinforced increases, so your dog will begin lying down and crossing his paws more frequently. Once the behavior is reliable, you can then put it on cue so that he does it when you cue him. Capturing is a great method for getting unusual, specific behaviors that your dog does and that would be difficult to lure. For example, you could capture a dog shaking himself off after a bath, or tilting his head, or stretching.

      Modeling

      Modeling is a method that uses physical manipulation to get a dog to perform a behavior. This is a method that we don’t normally use. It isn’t necessary because you can get behaviors using other, easier methods. Why push your dog’s rear down to sit when you can easily get him to do it himself?

      Modeling can also be difficult for many people. Imagine a petite woman getting a fully grown Mastiff to sit by pushing his rear down! It also doesn’t engage the dog—you are doing all of the work for him. It is not an ideal training method for shy or fearful dogs because they can be further frightened by your physically manipulating their bodies into position.

      Step 2: Mark the Behavior and Reward It

      Marker training is an extremely effective method of positive training. You mark the instant that the dog performs the behavior you want, usually with a clicker. A clicker is a box-shaped tool that emits a “click” sound when you press it on one side. The brief sound is distinct and therefore easy for a dog to hear and recognize. You follow every mark with a reward, so a click is a promise of a reward. When your dog learns that every time he hears a marker he gets a reward, he learns to work to “earn” the marker noise.

      You can also use a verbal marker, but it has to be a very short word to be precise. It should be a word that you don’t use often in casual conversation, so you don’t confuse your dog.

      Something like “good dog” is too long to be an effective marker. Think of all of the behaviors your dog could do by the time you start the “Good” and end with “dog.” A lot!

      Also, praise is not the same as a marker. You use a marker to indicate to a dog that he did something that you like. You use praise as a reward after the dog performs the behavior.

      There are many good reasons to use a marker.

      •The communication is very clear and precise. It marks the exact instant the dog performs the behavior you want.

      •Clickers are distinct. They don’t sound the same as other noises, so your dog can easily distinguish when you click.

      •It’s consistent. Especially if you use a clicker, the sound is the same every time.

      •It’s non-judgmental. It’s a neutral sound.

      •It’s transferrable. Once the dog learns the sound of the marker means he did something you like, anyone can use it to tell the dog the same thing. This is extremely convenient if you have more than one person in your family who wants the dog to work for him or her.

      In order to effectively use a marker, you need good timing. If you’ve never trained a dog before, or if this is the first time that you’ve used this type of training, be patient with yourself! You are learning a new skill. As with any other new skill, it will take time to learn to do well. Your timing may be too slow at first, or even too fast, but you will get better with practice.

      A clicker is a box-shaped tool that emits a “click” when pressed.

      Another wonderful thing about marker training is that even if you are a rookie, you won’t make mistakes that will set back your training very much or hurt your dog. With punishment-based training, punishing your dog at the wrong moment can have unintended consequences. Not the case with marker training! You may mark a bit early or late and not get the exact behavior that you wanted, but you will be able to fix that easily in a few more clicks. No harm done.

      Here are some tips on using a clicker correctly.

      •Don’t point it at your dog. It’s not a remote control!

      •Click only once per behavior. It’s a marker, so you are marking a specific behavior only once. If your dog does something really well, you still click only once, but you can give him a better reward or several rewards if you like.

      •Use the clicker only to mark behavior, not for other things. After a dog learns that a click means that a reward is coming, he can get very excited at the sound of the click. It can be tempting, then, to use the clicker to get your dog’s attention or to use the sound to have him come running to you if you don’t know where he is in the house or yard. If you do this, you’ve just damaged the power of the click as a marker.

      •Always give a treat after clicking. Even if you make a mistake and click at the wrong time, you need to give your dog a reward. It’s not your dog’s fault that you made a mistake. If you skip the reward because you clicked in error, you will lessen the power of the click. Do it often enough, and your dog could stop paying attention to the click altogether.

      •Because the click marks the behavior, it ends the behavior. For example, when working on the Down cue, if your dog lies down, you click, and your dog then gets up, it’s OK. You already marked the Down, so it’s OK if he gets up to get his treat.

      The Ten Rules of Shaping

      Karen Pryor, one of the founders of clicker training, offers ten rules of shaping in her book Don’t Shoot the Dog.

      1.Raise criteria in increments small enough so that the subject always has a realistic chance of reinforcement.

      2.Train one aspect of any particular behavior at a time. Don’t try to shape for two criteria simultaneously.

      3.During shaping, put the current level of response on a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement (meaning that you don’t offer a reward every time) before adding to or raising the criteria.

      4.When introducing a new criterion or aspect of the behavioral skill, temporarily relax the old ones.

      5.Stay ahead of your subject: plan your shaping program completely so that if the subject makes sudden progress, you are aware of what to reinforce next.

      6.Don’t change trainers in midstream. You can have several trainers per trainee, but stick to one shaper per behavior.

      7.If one shaping procedure is not eliciting progress, find another. There are as many ways to get behavior as there are trainers to think them up.

      8.Don’t interrupt a training session gratuitously; that constitutes a punishment.

      9.If behavior deteriorates, “go back to kindergarten.”