On the adventures and training of Cinnamon Snapdragon, a papillon destined for greatness.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

jaw update, and different ways of training a retrieve

I don't think that Dragon's aversion to holding a plastic tube in his mouth is due to physical pain after all (or, if it is, it's only a small factor). I think that he was actually shutting down because he didn't understand the exercise. I came to this conclusion after watching him carefully during play and training and checking in multiple times with my awesome, intuitive boss. I thought back on previous times that Dragon had been reluctant or completely shut down during training. He's a "soft" dog -- if he feels overwhelmed by the environment or training set-up, or he's confused about what he should do, or if I try to push him to do something he's not comfortable with, he stops being operant and displays stress signals, or he leaves and finds something to chew on instead of training. I have to be quite careful to keep training sessions short, with lots of encouragement, and most importantly, have to raise my expectations/criteria in baby steps, and only when he has a clear understanding of his job.

The last part is what has been biting me in the butt sometimes. I think that I'm raising criteria only a tiny amount, and he should be able to succeed, but when he doesn't understand what's happening he shuts down even with a high rate of reinforcement. For example, I was trying to train him to hold onto a plastic tube by initially clicking/treating for taking hold of it, then for taking hold of it behind his canines and not farther forward or back in his mouth, and then for holding it just a fraction of a second longer. But the idea of "sit still while holding something in your mouth" is not currently in Dragon's repertoire -- he was sure that he was supposed to be doing something. He was confused and frustrated because he didn't understand why he was getting the click sometimes and not other times. The high rate of reinforcement was not enough to override it, and so he spit out the tube and left the training session.

At least, that's my analysis. I can't know what really went through his head. But based on what I know about him, and the insight of my boss (who has plenty of experience with soft, stressy dogs), it's my best guess.

Now, similar moments of confusion happen all the time when a dog is being shaped to perform a new behavior. It's important to minimize frustration and confusion by keeping sessions short and upbeat and of course raise criteria slowly. But beyond that, I think the problem was that this was just a concept that was hard for Dragon to grasp, just like some people are better able to understand spatial reasoning or language arts than mathematics.

My solution is to change the way I'm trying to teach Dragon this skill, and hopefully find a way that will make more sense to him. He already has a strong "bring to hand" behavior (in fact, I think the strong reinforcement history for moving and targeting when he takes something into his mouth was part of the problem in understanding the new criteria of "just hold it"). So now instead of holding my hand out to him as a clear target on his way to me with an object, I am sometimes keeping it up and then lowering it once he's closer. Sometimes I lower it more slowly than other times. My goal is to start lowering my hand more and more slowly until he is effectively standing still with the item in his mouth and waiting. Then I will start waiting to lower my hand at all until he has stopped in front of me and is waiting and holding.

If this doesn't work, another method I've read about is teaching a dog to place his lower jaw onto a person's palm, and teach them to grab a dumbbell/retrieve object, and then to combine the two behaviors. Dragon does not currently have a duraction contact behavior with his nose or mouth, so this method would involve more new skill sets for him, and that's why I'm not using it as my first choice. Down the line, of course, it would be nice to teach him a chin target.

Eventually, for a formal retrieve, I'll also need to teach him to sit in front while holding onto an object, but I'm not worrying about that yet.

Other aspects of retrieving that we have been working on:
- reaching underneath or into a small space to reach the retrieve object
- reaching up high to reach the object, especially pulling something down (this is quite difficult for Dragon because sudden falling motions scare him)
- pulling something out of a box or over a barrier (speaking of spatial reasoning, this is helping him to develop it!)
- retrieving larger, heavier, or awkwardly shaped objects
- retrieving objects by name (inspired by Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her work with Alex, I'm starting off by trying to teach him the names "ball" for his orange floaty ball and "sock" for his sock tug, next items will probably be "stick" and "hoof" for his pig hoof)

My eventual goal is to have both a formal retrieve for the obedience ring as well as a useful service dog-type retrieve of named objects. I can't explain why but retrieving is something that I really love training with the clicker, and all these variations on the behavior keep the training new and engaging for both of us.

3 comments:

  1. If Dragon is more comfortable moving while holding, you can also try teaching him to hold through doing other tricks. Take (or bring) and spin, take and down, take and beg, etc. Then start having him do tricks while holding, and soon you can stretch the amount of time between tricks until he's actually standing still and holding.

    There's a thousand ways to teach a hold so move on if one way isn't working :)

    Oh and I don't think I've commented before but I love reading your blog!

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  2. Edit: I meant "Then start having him do TWO tricks while holding..."

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  3. Laura, that is an excellent suggestion! I had thought of that as a good middle step between learning to hold it in front of me and coming to sit in front and hold. You have a good point that it's something we can start working on already. He will already follow me across the room if I back up while holding my hand low for him as a target. I can start having him do his solid tricks like put his paws up, spin, or walk over a jump bar while holding the object.

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