Ways to Get Behaviors
When we think about teaching a new cue, I think about three ways for this to happen: capturing, luring, or shaping and which of these might make the learning process go more efficiently. You may already be using each method; I’ll share examples to reflect on how you’ve been helping your learner associate cues to behaviors.
See Kao loved to roll over and hang for a moment with her tummy exposed then continue her roll. There seemed to be certain times when she did this so I strategized on one of the occasions and said “Yes” as she started her roll on to her back and tried to time feeding her a treat while she was still on her back. I kept my eye out for other occasions when she’d roll to mark the onset and feed while she was on her back. It didn't take long before she started offering up a roll and pause to see if I would give the magic word “Yes” which meant the contract was in place, ie give the marker means a treat is coming (more on this here). As this behavior became more reliable, I added a cue “Be lazy” as she was about to roll, marked her behavior (being on her back) then followed through with the contract and treat. As I cued “Be lazy” and See Kao rolled on to her back, I slowly upped the criteria of having her chill laying on her back until I cued her to get up. ie the behaviors were roll then hang and wait until released.Hence capturing was the method I used ie I took advantage of a behavior that See Kao would perform on her own and gave it a cue and eventually duration. Think of it kind of like capturing the moment of naturally occurring behavior. She was pretty dang cute with her pink belly.
People often teach a dog a cue to roll over through holding a treat by a dog’s head, getting them to turn and stretch in such a way that they end up rolling. This is an example of luring which technically could have been used to get See Kao positioned on her back. The thing is with See Kao is she had a lot of postural and structural adaptations with her body. I met her after a villager dumped her at the sanctuary saying she longer can use her rear legs. I was reluctant to lure her into a twisting position as I wasn't sure if it was safe for her or would possibly cause pain. She seemed to be relaxed and comfortable when she chose to roll so using capturing seemed like a safer way to go even though it probably took a tad bit longer for See Kao the learner to associate the cue with the behavior. I’ve used luring for lots of other cues like backing up, spin, or go to homebase to name a few.
The last method is shaping where we incrementally change the criteria of what behavior gets rewarded until the learner performs the desired end goal. I love for all dogs (cats, and other species) to learn a hand to nose target or a boop. Initially you put your hand pretty close to the learner’s nose so that they practically can't avoid booping it. Then you start shaping the behavior by modifying the criteria on which the reward is given.The hand starts to be a tad farther away, higher or lower, or if you’re wanting a boop, hold then keep the nose in contact with your hand for longer. You name it but the principle of the teaching here is to incrementally alter the criteria towards what you are wanting as an end goal behavior. At Chicken Camp (yes, that’s a thing!), I taught my partner chicken to only peck the red poker chip and ignore the other colors, to toss a dice off the table and to pull out the mini fish from a bowl through the process of shaping. So much fun and the skies the limit.
A final comment about ways of teaching behaviors and why I'm not including molding. I'm old enough to have gone to a dog training class when I adopted my first dog where the class instructor suggested we mildly push down our dog’s rear end to get them to sit, aka molding. As I mentioned, See Kao’s rear end was a mess so I couldn't imagine pushing it down and what possible pain that might incur. Many dogs I work with have rear end or back issues where this would just not be a good thing. Besides who likes getting manhandled into a position, I sure don't so why would I use it as an instructional method when there are other options like capturing, luring, or shaping?
Cheers, Tracy
