From the Ground Up Quotes

“Where and how you deliver your reward significantly speeds up or slows down your training session.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Work in many locations, keeping the criteria realistic and the distractions limited. Initially, keep the rate of reinforcement very high in each new location. If the rate of reinforcement drops due to the dog being too distracted, find a different location that is not so distracting or lower the criteria.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“We never want to name a behaviour we don’t want to see in the end, such as hesitation on the board.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Once the dog is doing the exercise exactly the way you want to see it done forever — meaning that it’s perfectly accurate and fast — add the command. Give the command word as the dog is doing the behaviour, or slightly before he offers it. Don’t be in a hurry to name a behaviour unless it is a default behaviour (the one your dog offers first and most often). Name that one quickly and don’t reward the dog for that behaviour unless you specifically ask for it. Don’t name partially trained equipment.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Once the dog is happily offering the new behaviour, bit by bit start to raise your criteria for speed. Click only the fast pounce down or the quicker look back at you when you stop moving or the faster sit or the more forceful nose touch. The dog needs to learn to discriminate between the mediocre behaviours and the really great behaviours. This is the stage where you will develop drive and intensity for each behaviour. Do not progress from this stage until you have the drive and intensity you like.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“If you drill your dog for longer than two or three minutes he will actually stop learning.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Shaping a behaviour takes a bit more time and skill but ultimately dogs learn behaviours more reliably because they have to figure it out on their own. It is like a game of 20 questions. The dog does something and the handler uses some kind of marker (a sound, light or word) to say “yes that is (or close to) what I want!” The dog then learns to offer more behaviours in an attempt to get a reward. Dogs quickly learn that they can speed up the rate of rewards by repeating the last thing they did when they got rewarded. Shaping eliminates the need to first show the dog the reward because the dog has to initiate something to make the reward appear. This method gives you remarkable results in a short period of time but does require some experience with, and knowledge of, operant conditioning.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Prompting is similar to luring in that we use our bodies to encourage the dog to offer the behaviour by moving ourselves around.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“A good rule of thumb when luring is to only use your lure three times and then try to get the behaviour without the lure.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“Finally, keep in mind that behaviour is always changing; therefore it can always be changed. Never give up on your dog and your training. If you don’t like something you have trained, either inadvertently or on purpose, then re-teach it, re-name it, and reward the new behaviour a lot.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs

“To learn, dogs need time, patience, change of location, reinforcement, opportunity to make choices, and repetition.”
― Kim Collins, From The Ground Up - Agility Foundation Training for Puppies and Beginner Dogs