clicker training questions

[loren Kristunas]

I've started Sage on clicker training and she is now responding normally to it after some initial hesitation and guardedness(I think when I was sending her to the target she thought I was sending her away from me as a punishment, maybe her previous owners would do that or something, I changed to staying by her as she moved and she relaxed, now she is fine and happily trots to the target away from me. I have to remember with this dog how much she interprets as punishment or correction because of her previous life). Have gotten her to do 10 foot go outs to a target willingly, and am trying to get her to identify toys by name so she can pcik them out, find hidden ones, etc. My question is this. I am saying touch and she trots over to touch the target, I click and treat. To get her to identify the ring and the frisbee I am using as toys, I first got her to touch it and then changed the word to the toy name. I say the toy name and she touches it with her nose, I click and treat. She can distinguish the identified toys from other objects on the floor but not from eachother yet. But will this confuse her, she doing the same action for all three tasks, touching it with her nose, but with the targeting I am asking for an action, with the other two I am trying for identification of an object by name. Will she be able to get the difference or should I teach it in a different way?

She has been doing so well with leash aggression, I have been regularly walking by dogs on the sidewalk, 6 feet away, she looks bored or looks at me for a treat, no aggression. Then today we are doing the same thing and without warning she lunged and snarled and was back to her old stuff. Sigh, I'm sure the dog triggered her or I wasn't in the right mindset, or something, and she's still doing well, but gosh darn it! Well, it's once a month now, not once a day, that's still okay, I guess.

 

[Gempress]

Good job! I don't think your dog will be confused at all. It's kind of like the use of "sit"...."sit" means sit where you are, "heel" means sit by my left side, and "come" means sit in front of me. Same difference. Your dog will learn without a problem.

 

[Mordy]

here's how i teach object discrimination:

first you take one object and get the dog to touch it/bring it or whatever other cue you want to use. this is your "hot object" A. when the dog touches it consistently, add the name, e.g. "ring". next, after the behavior is consistent, add one "cold" object B, meaning one you haven't introduced yet. have the dog identify the hot object of the two ("touch the ring"). as soon as the dog consistently identifies the hot object, add a second cold object C. again, practice until the dog consistently picks A and not B or C. for all this you want a success rate of at least 8 out of 10 attempts in 4-5 sets of 10 before you move to the next step. make sure you switch the positions of the hot and cold objects often, i.e. don't make the hot object the middle one all the time and so on. it's also helpful if you start out by picking cold items that are completely different in shape, size and texture from the hot object you are working on.

do the sme procedure for another hot object (would be D). introduce it, then add one and later two cold objects.

once you think your dog is consistent enough picking out the two objects individually, start working with both hot objects and let her identify them, alternating randomly. again, once you have a good success rate, start introducing cold objects.

adjust the introduction of hot and cold items depending on how well your dog catches on. just make sure your dog actually picks the item and not the location it is in, or picks up on any kind of clue in your body language. stand/sit still, keep your hands behind your back, don't lean towards the hot object and so on.

once you have introduced a few items (start out with a new one by itself and add cold objects), you will notice that the dog catches on much quicker. this learning process is called "fast mapping" and is a consistent learning pattern.

there's an intreresting article on the topic of object discrimination here:
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0610rico.shtml

 

[loren Kristunas]

Thanks, those are really great suggestions. I've already tried putting other objects down with the identified toy and she pretty consistently picks the right toy, even when I move them around. Haven't tried it with 2 "hot" toys yet. Sounds like we are on the right track. Thanks. Any thoughts on how to move from touching with her nose to picking it up? She doesn't like to retrieve much despite her retriever blood.

 

[bridey_01]

When I'm teaching service dogs to pick something up, they are clicked and rewarded for touching it a couple of times, then the criteria is upped to mouthing it, licking it or putting their teeth on it. You just use free shaping to click the best approximations of the behaviour you are looking for.

 

[Mordy]

to pick up/retrieve things, you need to teach a take it/hold it.

this is best done by back-chaining, meaning you teach the last step of the sequence first.

i don't have much time for long posts right now, but the following article is great and it explains the full sequence. i used this to train my own dog to retrieve.

http://dogscouts.com/retrieve.shtml

i hope you will find it as useful as i did!

 

[loren Kristunas]

Great article! I can't wait to try it. Thanks.