Denise Fenzi's Blog, page 34

Engagement – Yes, again.

“Engagement” is the most interesting concept that I have explored in some time.  Not in the generic sense of the word (Being engaged with another) but my use of the word….a dog that works hard to get YOU to pay attention to HIM.  Interesting stuff.

I’ve written quite a bit about the topic on this blog.  If you search the word “Engagement” here, you should be able to grasp enough detail that you can create a plan for your own dog and start serious Engagement training.  But if you prefer a more structured approach, then you can join me online on August 1st for a six week class on the topic of Engagement.  Registration is now open and will cost $65 at bronze, as do all of our courses.  All sports and breeds of dogs are welcome.  Here is my promotional video for this course:

Here is the “Welcome” lecture for this class to give you a sense of what we’ll talk about for six weeks.  For those of you who have taken other Fenzi Dog Sports Academy courses such as Get Focused, Relationship Building, or Bridging the Gap – you’ll see how all of those concepts are strongly incorporated into this class.

Hope to see many of you there!

Lecture #1:  How is engagement different than focus?  What is offered focus?

 

There is no way to truly ferret out the topics of Engagement and Focus because they are so tightly intertwined.

Focus requires internal effort – same as engagement.  Focus is heavily dependent on a comfortable dog in a comfortable environment – same as engagement.  Focus can be trained and developed over time – same as engagement.  And in this class, I will often use the words focus and engagement almost (but not quite) interchangeably.  So how are they different?

One way to think about it is this:  all active engagement requires focus, but not all focus requires active engagement. For this class, I will be looking for enthusiastic and focused MOVEMENT towards the handler – I call this active engagement.  I will be looking for a full body reaction to the exercises; eye contact, ears forward, and an engaged brain won’t be enough. I want to see the dog on his feet with an actively wagging tail.  I want to see the dog actively pushing the trainer (mentally, but also somewhat physically) to begin work.

In addition, for this class, I want to see the dog facing the handler because the tasks will always be handler focused rather than task focused. It’s always about getting back to the handler; to celebrate what you are doing together!

In other words, I want the qualities of play, praise, handler interaction, classic rewards, focus, and energy to become so tightly bound together that they cannot be differentiated.

To successfully complete obstacles in agility or to do obedience exercises that do not rely on the handler, the dog must be able to switch focus from the handler to the obstacle or exercise.  This class will not address this until relatively late in this class when we introduce the idea of work.  Instead, we will look at the enthusiasm that occurs when the dog-handler interaction feeds the entire process of working together.  THAT engagement can be used to spill over into a more traditional definition of focus where the dog moves away from the handler – but for this class, the dog will be focused in the direction of the handler almost at all times.

Both focus and engagement must be internally generated!  Teaching a dog to orient his eyes in your direction is a waste of time – you need the brain, not the eyes!  Have you ever seen a dog in the obedience ring who was clearly looking in the direction of the handler but not following any cues?  The dog was looking straight ahead, but the ears were not forward, there was no tension in the body, and the entire demeanor of the dog screamed a lack of interest in the task at hand? That is disengagement!  Teaching mindless eye contact is a waste of time if the brain does not follow, and this is true for both focus and engagement.

Dogs can be successful in a variety of dog sports without engagement, but these dogs do not show the joyous, excited picture of teamwork that we strive for here at Fenzi Academy.   Dogs can certainly learn to “go through the motions”, especially if they come with a stable genetic package and a lot of pattern training. That is enough for many handlers, but if you are looking for a dog who wants to be there as much as you want to be there, then you need to approach your foundation training differently – and engagement is a part of that training.

Some dogs do not require engagement training because of their genetic temperament – those dogs teach the handlers how to engage rather than the reverse.  And other handlers inadvertently teach engagement as part of their overall training, simply as a function of how they naturally approach all of their training.  That works too!  But if you need a bit of help getting engagement, then you can address it systematically as a separate concept to be taught rather than simply picking it up as you progress through your skills training.

Here are two videos; one shows focus, and the other shows engagement and focus.

In the first video with my older dog Raika, you’ll see plenty of focus.  She is waiting to either work or to get her toy.  But she cannot interact with me directly because I didn’t train her that way. In fact, she will get agitated if I try to interact with her without a toy or work as an intermediary.   (You can see that I put my hands on her but she shows no reaction.)  Raika shows excellent focus but she lacks engagement with me – it’s all about the toy.  As a result, we struggled during periods of her show career because she figured out that there would be no toy reward in the ring.  We worked through that, but her lack of basic engagement training made it much harder than it needed to be!

Now here’s a video of Lyra.  Because Lyra struggles to connect in public and her drives for toys and food are quite moderate compared to other dogs, I have focused extensively on personal play and engagement.  Notice how she interacts with me easily and directly, even before I show her that I have a toy. You’ll also see that she maintains her connection with me, even after I give her the toy.

Why the emphasis on movement? Imagine for a moment how you feel when you play a card game vs. how you feel when you engage in a physical sport such as walking, running, soccer, or even fast paced dog training.  Both require focus and are highly enjoyable, but the activities that require movement bring out a completely different level of adrenaline.  Movement sharpens your reflexes and makes you highly aware of small changes that are relevant to your engagement in the game. On the other hand, while a game of chess sharpens your mental focus, it may actually dull your physical reflexes.

In this class, we want to emphasize movement because ALL dog sports require movement – that’s why we call them sports!  While some dog sports do have passive components (such as the long stay exercises in obedience), this is not the primary emphasis of any dog sport. Movement is the primary emphasis.

Of course, when you are teaching a particular exercise, you may not want a lot of movement!  You may want a calm, thinking dog who is well focused on a task, for example, learning how to do scent articles. But when you are planning to work on known exercises where you want maximum speed and enthusiasm, or if you want to train a particular exercise with maximum drive, or if you want to start reducing reinforcers (which is not discussed in this class but is very much a part of engagement training), then you want as much movement coming from the dog as possible.  A dog who goes from bouncing in front directly into heeling is going to bring a lot more speed, power, and enthusiasm to the work than a dog who sets up in a sit and then steps out calmly into the first step.

Because engagement is both acquired AND trained through the process of building a positive attitude towards work, it is a foundation skill that should be taught right along with skill building exercises for your specific sport.  So, in one session you might be working quietly on a nose touch with your young agility prospect (requiring focus, but not high levels of handler engagement), while in another session you might be working on encouraging your dog to bounce around you with enthusiasm for 30 seconds in a pure engagement training session, and in a final session, you might be working on a fast run across a board on the ground.  In this third session, you’d use your engagement training to build useful energy, and then you’d transfer that energy to the running contact training. In a case like this, you could easily have three training sessions of only a few minutes each in one day – a skill building session (nose touch), an engagement session (bouncing towards handler), and a blended engagement/work session (bouncing towards handler and then running across a board on the ground).

Engagement training has many qualities in common with toy training, and it is often used in the same places. While food tends to engage calm focus, toys or active engagement with handler training tend to engage energetic focus.  And like toy training, we always build the dog’s interest in the activity in its pure form first. You don’t train with a toy that your dog is not excited about, and you won’t use engagement to start an active training session if your dog doesn’t care about engaging with you!

In this class, engagement training will be reinforced with food and toys as much as needed, which creates an interesting question: is the engagement reinforcing in and of itself, or is the dog simply trained to do it as an activity that is rewarded?  In other words, is engagement a primary or secondary reinforcer?

The answer is… it depends.  Dogs, unlike chickens, almost always find engagement with a human reinforcing whether toys and food are involved or not. If you doubt this, then ask yourself how your dog responds when you come through the door after an absence.  Is your dog happy to see you?  Does he show energy and a happy demeanor?  This is engagement!  The dog has chosen to put out the energy to get off the couch and come to greet you!

But in the big, wide world, it’s not so simple.  When your dog engages you at the front door, there are probably no other interesting alternatives – no fresh grass to smell, no birds to watch, and furthermore, there are no strings attached.  The dog did not have to work first – you simply had a pure interaction.

The strength of this natural tendency to engage with humans matters!  Some dogs would show that same level of enthusiasm for greeting their owners regardless of the alternatives. They would much rather greet you at the door than eat a snack or play with a toy!  They would rather greet you at the door than dart out into the yard and check out the squirrels in the trees!  But other dogs have less natural engagement.  They are happy to engage – as long as there is nothing better to do, and no strings (work requirements) are attached.  If you were to ask one of these dogs to sit before you pet them, they would prefer to simply walk away rather than offer a simple sit to get your attention.  Dogs of this type are lower in natural engagement.

As a result, we will “reinforce” our dog’s choices to engage with food and toys as needed – but only to the extent needed.  If your dog is simply thrilled to have your attention for the sake of your attention, then you will not need to reinforce it very much at all.  Instead, you can ask for engagement and not use classic reinforcers until you begin true work.  But other dogs (most dogs, actually) will require classic reinforcers to back up engagement once we enter the big, wide world because engagement tends to be a poor reinforcer in training when alternative possibilities exist.   Once engagement is understood, THEN we will consistently ask for engagement AND work before a classic reinforcer.

If your dog can learn to offer active engagement to earn a toy or cookie, then you can use engagement to earn work (which is then reinforced with a classic motivator). At that point, you need just one more step to give you an excellent tool in competition! This final step is where your dog engages with you, works with you, and then, rather than giving him a toy or cookie, you ask for another round of engagement!

If you enter a competition ring with a dog who is willing to engage with you without looking at a cookie or a toy, then you start off on a much better foot!  If you’re learned to engage your dog in whatever ways work best for your dog, then moving around between exercises in the competition ring will be much much easier.

The first two steps to get there, teaching your dog to choose to engage for a period of time for a classic reward (food or toy) and then getting your dog to choose to engage for a chance to work, will be covered in this class.

The next step after that would be for your dog to choose to engage, then work with you, and then request more engagement as a reward. Lather, rinse, repeat, until a final classic reward outside of the ring.  In the obedience ring you can “play” your way between exercises if your dog will willingly engage and if you have built up your dog’s enthusiasm for multiple rounds of engagement.  In agility, you would have one round of engagement to get you to the start line – work (the course), re-engage as you attach the leash – and then party with classic reinforcers outside the ring!

Can you see how valuable that cycle can be when the work starts and stops repeatedly, and ends with a final reward that is given OUTSIDE the ring? And can you see how a dog who values the engagement itself will have an enormous advantage over dogs who only engage to get the final reward?  The dogs in the first category are being rewarded in the ring!  In my mind, this is a factor of temperament (high natural levels of engagement), human training (do you play in a way that your dog finds reinforcing?), and skill building (have you trained your dog to complete several rounds of the engagement/work cycle before receiving a final classic reward?).

Upcoming lectures will introduce the stages of engagement, and all of your work will be based on these stages of engagement.  After your dog can work through these basic steps comfortably at home, then we take it on the road and add complexity in the form of proofing.  We will ask questions like, Can your dog engage in your backyard with food on your body?  Can your dog engage in the backyard with food off your body?  Can your dog engage in the backyard with food off your body and a squirrel in the tree?

This might be a good place to bring up an apparent contradiction between how Deb Jones and Judy Keller teach Focus and how I will teach Engagement here.  Deb and Judy have not allowed dogs to switch from acclimation into focus, nor have they allowed dogs to switch from focus into acclimation.  In this class I will be raising criteria – that means I will expect/allow dogs to learn how to move back and forth between these ideas with a distinct break (like a crate) between them.  So if your initial reaction is “but Deb and Judy said never to allow a dog to go back and forth”, please recognize that this class is a bigger step and we will allow it.  Your dog can learn the difference.  Just work with me and we’ll get there.

That is what we will do in this class for six weeks – engagement.  We will not make any real attempt to incorporate work, but if your dog is doing excellent work with engagement then you may certainly incorporate work appropriate for your sport. The lectures will address the various factors that will make this process easier or harder for you, so hopefully each day’s reading will help you make better decisions with each engagement training session that you set up.   Stay tuned, and welcome to class!

Choice – Part 2

Recently I wrote a blog with a video of using “choice” with Brito in training.  In effect, I rewarded all of his choices – even the “wrong” ones – in order to maintain a high level of motivation for his work and to minimize the stress of being wrong.

You can see that blog here:

This video is a follow up, taken about two weeks later.

Brito has developed a clear understanding of what I want and we’re beginning to combine skills.   Sessions are becoming much faster paced as a result of his correct choices – that’s fun for him and further reinforces the work that we are doing together.  Now being correct earns cookies, toys, praise and….flow.  Fast paced movement where time passes effortlessly and the activity is all consuming.

Because our entire training sessions have been enjoyable, Brito has experienced little or no stress in learning, and I’m able to freely use the proofs as either distractions or reinforcers.  He shows no avoidance behaviors of the toys or unsureness in the work.

As a side benefit, he is also much clearer on the idea that balls are only awesome if I’m somehow attached to them.  A win/win!

 

 

Guest Video: Julie Flanery

Fenzi Dog Sports Academy instructor Julie Flanery has generously provided me with an unedited training video to share with readers of this blog.  In my opinion, showing these raw videos allows for growth in people who are truly interested in doing better with their own dogs.

This video is long – 15 minutes.  But if you want to develop a better understanding of flow, shaping, reward placement, and choices that trainers make “on the fly,” then I’m going to suggest that you watch all of it and read her comments within the video.  Note that even professional trainers make errors, or wish they had made different decisions after the fact.  They simply keep going!

Julie is training for freestyle.  You’ll learn from it.  I did.

Thank you Julie.

 

Training Vs. Testing

Training and testing are two very different things.  What are they, and what does each do for you?

When you are “training”, you should be responding to your dog’s choices – instant by instant – so that your dog can learn exactly what you want at all times.  Behaviors are either broken down into small (foundation) pieces or your handling should be giving your dog whatever support is needed to be correct as much as possible. You may choose to ignore errors, but that is a choice driven by the desire to maintain flow in the session, not because you are being pushed into a sequence demanded by a test run.

Here is  short video of Brito “training”.  Note that I use curves to force him to drive forwards and  use incompatible movements (left turn followed by about turns) to prevent problematic patterns.   I keep an eye on his “tendencies”  and I’m ready to address them in an instant.  I also reward directly out of work in an unpredictable matter:

When you are “testing”, you should be running through a formal program – what that program looks like will depend on your sport and how much you are trying to test, but in agility it might be a sequence, in rally it might be a partial or full set of signs, and in obedience it might be a formal heeling pattern or even a full run through.

Here is a short video of Brito “testing” his heeling.  I need to know!   What happens if I do a series of straight lines, with more formality?  What if I add a formal start and a formal halt?  What if I do not reward at the end but move into engagement instead?  This is my chance to identify weaknesses!

To be an effective competitor, you’ll need both.  The question is, in what proportions?

If I think about it in terms of minutes working, I’d say that I test about 1% of the time.  99% of the time I train.  When I test, I’m looking for holes; things I don’t know about!   Maybe Brito sits crooked if I do a long, straight line!  Maybe Brito doesn’t keep his rear end in on straight lines!  Maybe he does wide about turns when I’m not talking to him! Ideally I’d know all of this stuff from training but hey…we’re human.  Testing highlights our weaknesses and allows us to address them in training.

Give some thought to your percentages.  Testing actually erodes training because in testing we ignore errors so we can see what we have.  You’ll find that most of the better trainers do relatively little testing, and throw it out at the first sign that we’ve over faced our dogs.

On the plus side, testing allows us to focus more intensely on our weaknesses.  Maybe you didn’t know that your up transition in your fast pace was pokey because you never paid attention to it!  Now you know.  And once you know – you can train.

Here I’ve tested Brito’s heeling in a new place.  Now I know what I have.  Next I’ll test his figure eight.   His stand for exam and recall?  Still in process – no reason to test yet.  His stays?  still in process – no reason to test.  His ring entrances, endurance, and basic ring confidence skills?  Still in process – no reason to test.

To trial, he’ll need to show me that he can test without reinforcement, under formality, and performing the necessary exercises the way I want to see them.  We have a ways to go.  Indeed, it is quite likely when he can give me what I want for the Novice obedience pattern that he’ll be polishing up Open at the same time – testing pieces of it.

Eventually it will all come together.

So…how about your dog?  How much time, in minutes, do you spend in each training session working on individual behaviors and how much time do you spend testing and looking for holes?  If you test as a matter of routine, without pulling out the problem areas for specific training, then what is your goal with testing?  Is it possible that you’re just boring your dog and cementing bad habits?

 

 

 

 

Choice

I recently read a blog about “choice” that got me thinking.  If you’re interested you can see it here:  http://eileenanddogs.com/2015/06/19/giving-dogs-choices/

If I’m shaping something with a simple yes/no system, then a correct choice earns a cookie and an incorrect choice gets nothing – being wrong is “neutral”. The dog may not actually perceive nothing as “neutral” but that is a story for another day.

But most of my training is not shaping simple behaviors – it’s building those behaviors into solid chains that can hold up under challenging conditions.  That is why I put so much energy into building relationship and love of work; because over the long run teaching behaviors is the easy part.  Getting those behaviors to hold up in the ring is where the challenge lies.

Many dogs fail in competition because they are disengaged; they do not enjoy working, and being with you isn’t all that valuable to them without a classic reward.  Of course, backchaining to a jackpot reward outside the ring is an option, but dogs with lower interest levels in food and toys aren’t very good backchaining candidates because of the length of the chains required for competition.

Since “choice” makes training more fun for my dog and since “fun”  is my ultimate weapon in developing ring engagement, I want my dogs to have as many choices as possible in training, and I want the options to be attractive; greater than neutral.  I need training time to be consistently fun to offset whatever stress I inadvertently build into my program.  To do this I pick and choose from my available reinforcers and reinforcement packages so that I can “get my way” over time.

Here’s a video with Brito.  Note that everything that he does with me is reinforcing; I simply reward some of his choices at a higher level.  He can choose to self reinforce with his ball if he wants to; it is freely available to him.  He can also wander off, which he does here a couple of times.   (Wandering is the only choice that receives no reinforcement from me but it does have a value of its own)

Here are his options with approximate values as motivators on this day:

1.  Wandering around: 2-3

1.  Personal praise:  3 – 5

2.  Chewing his ball:  3 – 7 (Depends how long we’ve been working)

3. Fetching his ball:  5 – 8 (The fresher he is the more value he finds in fetch.)

4.  Cookies:  4 – 7 (thrown cookies have higher value – or at least bring out a better picture . Cookies are never freely available because he would simply sit down and eat with no thought for me or training.)

Here are the ways that he can get reinforced:

1.  Looking at me/wagging his tail/staying close: I will ALWAYS reward the choice to engage with me because it is so fundamental to our basic relationship, even if he’s not actually doing any work.  I want interaction with me to be a default. He earns personal praise and occasionally a cookie.

2.  Picking up his ball:  That is his choice; he can do it at anytime and I won’t stop him.  In this case he is self rewarding with chewing.

3.  “Outing” his ball on cue:  I’ll give him a food reward or a ball toss.  I have worked hard to get a clean release off a ball so I value this highly and will reinforce it even if it is not the focus of a session.

4.  Placing his ball in my hand on cue:  usually this earns a cookie. I reward this to offset his innate desire to sit by himself and chew his ball; he is interacting with me and I reward that.  Which brings me to my next point:

5.  Chewing his ball near me rather than alone:  Usually personal praise; scratching his head and talking nicely to him, while he chews.  As a result I find that he rarely chews by himself; he prefers to stay close to me.  What the heck – he has his cake and eats it too.

6.  Picking up his dumbbell; on cue or otherwise:  This is my highest value option and what I am working towards, so this choice gets the highest value package; I give toys, food and praise.  I try to time my cues to when I believe he will comply – with greater and lesser success.  Next time I’ll probably leave off the cue and let him work it out for himself.  

Can you see how his entire training session is rewarded?  Over time, he’ll pick up his dumbbell more often and with a very positive attitude so that he can get the best package of rewards.  I have structured this session so that the packages that include me are always the most desirable.  I don’t have to punish him at all or provide unpleasant options for “failure.”  Over time he will choose me.

If you want to try it, think carefully about what reinforcers you have access to and what their values might be to your dog.  Think about what work you choose – more intrinsically motivating work is easier than less desirable work.  Think about your package of rewards; what is it?  Is it well developed?  If your dog sees praise as a conditioned punisher because you only use it when you’re not handing over a cookie – you have bigger issues than the ones I’m talking about here.  Fix that first.  And if you pair a dumbbell retrieve against squirrels in the trees, well…. you’re probably doomed for a first attempt.

Give your dog some positive choices in training.  As long as there is a difference between the choice that you want your dog to make and the alternatives, you will win over the long run.  I would assume that it takes longer to train this way and I don’t normally do it when training simple behaviors, but when I’m moving on to more relationship based training then it has a place, especially with more fragile dogs or with dogs that have relatively little interest in classic reinforcement options.  Pay attention to what options you have available and structure yourself to win, but at the same time give some choices.  Real ones.  Not a forced choice between what you want and an undesirable alternative.

If you want to read more about reinforcers, Deb Jones and I wrote an entire book on this topic.  It will give you plenty to think about:

http://www.thedogathlete.com/collections/books

Here’s the video, unedited:

 

 

Munching the dumbbell

Problems with dumbbells are common and there are A LOT of reasons why issues develop.  Some are a result of the training methods selected and others are related to the temperament of the dog.  Regardless, if you’ve developed an issue you’ll want it solved.

One of the most common handler complaints is chewing on the dumbbell. This can happen on the way back or in “front” position.  This blog will only consider dogs that chew in front but otherwise have a quiet hold while they are in motion.

Dogs often mouth the dumbbell in front position because they know you are going to take it.  This is logical – they clamp down in movement (coming in) to avoid dropping it.  But in the same way that you relax your hand when you are about to give something to someone, your dog will do the same thing.  Dogs that mouth in front position are usually anticipating the release.

A simple answer that works for most dogs is to stop taking the dumbbell in front position.  If the dog knows that a front will be followed by more movement, they are much less likely to munch.

Brito shows this here.  On the first retrieve, I allow him to come to front and sit – and then he is sent between my legs to heel position.  I take the dumbbell at heel position.  It is possible that he would begin to munch there but that is not concern to me since that does not come up in the ring.  Over time he has developed a habit of a quiet hold in front.

The second retrieve does not include a front at all – he goes straight through my legs to heel position.

If you try this, vary the amount of time that you hold your dog in front position before your finish (you can do a regular finish but between the legs will reinforce a straight sit in front).  I ignore any munching in front and let it go away on it’s own.  I slowly increase how long my dog is in front until they can sit quietly for about five seconds – that covers pretty much any ring situation that I can think up.

This is how I end my retrieves the majority of the time.

 

One Piece of Advice

I was recently asked an interesting question.  “If you could give a beginner to dog sports one piece of advice, what would that be?”

I had to think about this for a bit, because interesting questions deserve well thought out answers.

So…here’s my one piece of advice:

Keep your dog in the game.

That must be your number one priority, regardless of your dog sport or what you might be working on.

As you start each training session you may want to ask yourself, “Am I having fun?  Is my dog having fun?” “Are we enjoying this sport that we are doing together?” Continue to ask yourself these questions throughout your training session, until it becomes second nature to check in on your mutual enthusiasm for the training process.  

All experienced trainers will tell you that working with an excited and engaged partner makes training incredibly easy, whereas working with an unwilling, distracted or sullen partner is bound for failure.  Creating a wonderful training atmosphere is the handler’s responsibility; find that joy and take on that responsibility!  Make it a personal goal never to work with your dog when you’re not BOTH equally excited about the tasks in front of you.  As you try out each new training technique, check in with your dog.  If his eyes are bright and his tail is wagging then you’re on the right track;  keep going!  

If you ever have a doubt about your dog’s desire to work with you, stop what you are doing and re-group.  Some days that might mean ending training before you’ve barely begun, which can be quite frustrating for the handler.  Take that lost time to try and understand what might have happened to cause your dog to opt out of the training game.  Once you have some possible causes, it’s time to explore solutions.  

Other days your dog will be dragging you out of the car and onto the field; wonderful!  What caused that reaction?   How can you take advantage of that in the future?

At the end of the day, there are no “right” training techniques or “right” ways to do things.  There is only what works for you and your dog to create mutual happiness and whatever team you can create with each other.  Find what works for both of you by asking those same questions over and over, because one thing that should be non-negotiable in your training with your dog is mutual joy.  

Remember:

Am I having fun?  Is my dog having fun?  Are we enjoying this sport that we are doing together?

Each time you answer “yes”, you will leave that session with a better friend than before you started, and you will begin to truly understand what dog trainers mean when they say they have a relationship with their dog.  

The scores and ribbons will follow.  Just remember that they are icing on the cake, not the cake itself.  If you follow my advice, you already had your cake even if you never step foot inside a competition ring.

 

Brito’s Mixed Article Pile

Until about a week ago I worked Brito’s metal and leather articles separately.  Now I’m introducing the idea that the piles might be mixed together.

I’ve also increased the quantity of articles.

Next I will introduce even more challenges.  I will change locations to generalize his behavior, add the concept of a formal return, vary the number of articles that I put out, add distractions and novel requests, and change the objects that I use to have him search. I will also send him to a room to find his article where I cannot see what he is doing, so that I can be sure that I am not influencing his decisions.  Ideally these changes are introduced one at a time.

This unedited video shows a few of these changes.

I have significantly increased the number of articles that he had to choose from, so I placed  TWO scented articles in the pile to ensure that he could find the correct choice more quickly.  It is important that you not place those articles close to each other – your dog should not be able to smell one while he is fetching another, so I place them far apart.  After he picks up one correct option, I have the choice to either return it to the pile or to send him again so he can find the second one.

If I am sitting on the floor, I ignore it if he doesn’t get the article all the way into my hand.  That is not important right now as long as he is using his nose and selecting the correct option.  To demonstrate that point, I added in two “formal” sends to the pile at the end of the exercise.  He has never seen this before, so you’ll see his confusion.  I helped him work through it.  His knowledge of dumbbell and glove retrieves make the return and front fairly easy once he begins to understand what I want.

When he left he brought a toy from the bedroom off to the side.  No worries – I just took it, gave him a cookie, and sent him back to the pile.  I was pretty sure there were no more toys for him to find, and he’s never been asked to ignore toys while working articles.

Notice that his tail never stops wagging and he stays in the game continuously.  That is the most important quality that you can nurture in your dog, so make that your number one priority!  I would rather have him guess and get it wrong “with confidence” than shut down and refuse to play my game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheerful Interrupter or Engagement?

One of the great challenges of communicating dog training techniques to others is clarity.  It’s easy to tell another person what I “might do” in a specific situation.  Its a lot harder to ensure that they are hearing the relevant parts of the conversation, or that they have given me the pieces of information that I need to know in order to help them.

There appears to be some confusion between Cheerful Interrupters (CI’s) and Engagement.  In short, people are using CI’s to CREATE engagement, as opposed to maintaining engagement once it is already there, in the face of an error.

A Cheerful Interrupter is how I handle some errors in training.  In scientific terms, it is a “least reinforcing stimulus”.  I maintain verbal praise and interaction, but that is not as good as a cookie.  So it’s not a negative punishment but not the whole package either.  It is how I communicate to the dog – I still love you!  I will help you!  You are not alone!  And….I can’t give you a cookie just yet!  It is not a conditioned punisher because I use praise and verbal reinforcement both in cheerful interrupters and when all is well in the work, so that washes out. (Search this blog for the word “Cheerful Interrupters” to learn more.)

Engagement training is the process of moving responsibility for enthusiasm, focus and desire for work from the handler to the dog.  Because CI’s are always handler driven, they are a Level 1 form of engagement. (Please search the word “Engagement” on this blog to get information on that topic).

I do not use silence or turning away to communicate errors for two reasons.  One, I go to some trouble to ensure that my dogs LOVE silence and that it predicts rewards.  That is because in the sport of competition obedience, silence must mean that you are correct.  The worst thing that could happen is that I train my dog  to perceive my silence or withdrawing interaction as “wrong.”

The second reason I do not use silence to communicate that an error has been made is that for many dogs, silence is much more than withdrawing a classic reward (-P).  It is withdrawing personal approval and affection – a huge punisher for sensitive dogs who care if we are pleased with their efforts.  Imagine if you were working at a new job and you made an error.  Instead of saying, “No worries!  Let’s try again; learning is hard – you’ll get it soon”.  The person just….stared or turned away….from you.  And then, after a second of silence, they re-engaged.  Can you see how punishing that is?  If it happened very often you’d be afraid to make errors and you would avoid learning or, if the need for a paycheck made opting out not a viable option, you would develop a lot of stress around the learning process.  The worst thing that can happen is that my dog opt out of the learning game or stay in the game strictly for the classic reward – carefully avoiding mistakes to ensure it’s eventually delivery.

I’d rather have a dog make errors than worry about being wrong.  Being wrong is ok.  It is a normal part of the learning process.  My job is to help the dog become fluent in their work and to provide attainable challenges in order to build up the dog’s confidence under pressure.   The occasion No Reward Marker (NRM) for a highly engaged, confident and possibly overly enthusiastic (careless) dog?  No worries.  A regular diet of NRM’s or CI’s?  Big worries.

If I were 100% perfect at my job, there would be no need for CI’s or NRM’s, because I would only set the dog up for scenarios where they could succeed and my dog would always be fully engaged.  But I’m just not that good, so I will over-face (ask too much) my dog on occasion. I will select the wrong training environments, or changes will take place within that carefully selected environment that I cannot control.  I will push too hard and ask for too many repetitions. I will underestimate the dog’s level of fear or anxiety.  I will train when they aren’t really ready to work. I will assume a level of generalization or fluency that does not exist.

In short – I’m human.  Errors will happen.  LOTS of them.  Not because I don’t care or am not trying but because we are all learning together.  The dog is trying and I am trying.  We will both make mistakes and we both deserve some slack.

If you find that you are using CI’s to create the energy for training or the reason for the work, then you are doing it wrong.  Don’t ask a dog to work who is not in the game at the start because trying to pull a dog back from the environment by applying your human energy is counterproductive.  Stop working so hard!

If your dog is not bright eyed, happy and engaged BEFORE you start work it’s not going to get better by asking for behaviors and then using a CI to get the dog into the game – the dog was never there in the first place!  That is a case of confusing a need for Engagement with CI’s.

CI’s are not meant to be cheerleading for a dog that only works for rewards.  They are interrupters that allow a generally engaged dog to try again quickly and with minimal loss of enthusiasm.

Here is an example of confusing engagement with CI’s:

You start training your dog.  To get energy, you play with your dog with a toy.  You then flip into heeling.  Your dog leaves you to visit another person after a short period of time so you get super exciting to get the dog back, showing (but not giving) food or toys (CI) and then go back to work.

Your dog didn’t need a CI.  Your dog needed to learn to offer and sustain attention and engagement before you even started work.   Go back and work through the stages of engagement.  Using a CI on a dog that isn’t engaged in the first place is begging and eventually – since you are not giving a classic reward – your dog will tune you out and the CI’s will no longer be effective.  Then your CI will become a conditioned punisher rather than a least reinforcing stimulus.

Once you have solid engagement you can add work.  Then you can use CI’s to handle honest errors.  Do not use CI’s to create energy and engagement that was not there in the first place, because CI’s used in that manner are effectively Stage 1 engagement.

Stage 1 engagement is fine for a short period of time,  but SHORT is the operative word here.  If your dog is working at more advanced skills and you are still taking responsibility for getting/keeping your dog through a combination of classic rewards and CI’s then you’re doing it wrong.  Get the cookies out of your hands and teach your dog to take responsibility.   CI’s are not a substitute for focus and engagement; they address minor errors without harming your underlying relationship with your dog.

In summary.  Do not work with a dog that is not engaged.  When engagement is established and your dog makes an error, CI’s can be used judiciously to break the flow of training and to maintain attitude while you re-set and quickly try again.  If you use CI’s on a dog that is not engaged in the first place, you are using your CI to create engagement – that is level 1 engagement because the handler is causing it to happen.  Long term use of Stage 1 engagement will make ring preparation training extremely difficult because your dog will not function well without the handler driving the work. Further, you risk losing the positive value of the CI as a useful training tool.

 

 

 

 

Learning to Listen

Like all animals, dogs are creatures of habit and routines.  If you show your dog the same training picture over and over, they will stop listening to your cues and simply perform the patterns that you have trained them to do.

If you want your dog to pay attention then give your dog a reason to bother!  As a nice bonus, you will solve a few problems:

First, dogs stop anticipating exercises.  Your dog cannot anticipate what they don’t know.

Second, dogs pay closer attention because they have no choice if they want to succeed.  If you train this way regularly you’ll find that your dog’s attention to you increases as a nice side effect.

Third, dogs LIKE to use their brains, just like people!  When you make work more interesting by varying your requests, they enjoy their work more because you have reduced or eliminated the boredom that is inherent in pattern training. And dogs that are having fun work better in the ring.

Here’s an unedited video of Brito working on a combination of broad jump, signals and recalls.   He makes mistakes!  That’s ok.  I simply help him out by offering additional cues (pointing, combining signals with verbals, etc.) to allow him to succeed.  As long as he’s trying, I’m happy to help him out.  We’re a team.