Does your dog enjoy free shaping? Or does he/she do better with another type of training?
And as an extension, of course, are you good at free shaping? Of course a big part of free shaping success depends on the trainer.
Watson and I are not good at free shaping. At all. He has a low frustration tolerance, and he is very persistent when he thinks he is right. Show him a box and he will do one thing to it, probably put his paws on it, over and over and over until he starts shrieking at me because I'm an idiot for not noticing how awesome he was at putting his paws on the box. If I click any minor deviation, he goes right back to paws on box, because that must have been what I meant when I clicked.
Obviously a big part is that I'm not a very good free shaping trainer. I try, but I'm just not good at getting him unstuck if he's only offering one thing. So we stick to kind of lured shaping, whether I'm using a cookie to lure, or just using my own body positioning to get him to do what I want, and then rewarding small steps towards the finished behavior. I'm a bit jealous of those who are very good at free shaping! It looks like a lot of fun and I love creative dogs. Though I'll admit his persistence is nice when he actually is right, because nothing stops him from following through.
And as an extension, of course, are you good at free shaping? Of course a big part of free shaping success depends on the trainer.
Watson and I are not good at free shaping. At all. He has a low frustration tolerance, and he is very persistent when he thinks he is right. Show him a box and he will do one thing to it, probably put his paws on it, over and over and over until he starts shrieking at me because I'm an idiot for not noticing how awesome he was at putting his paws on the box. If I click any minor deviation, he goes right back to paws on box, because that must have been what I meant when I clicked.
Obviously a big part is that I'm not a very good free shaping trainer. I try, but I'm just not good at getting him unstuck if he's only offering one thing. So we stick to kind of lured shaping, whether I'm using a cookie to lure, or just using my own body positioning to get him to do what I want, and then rewarding small steps towards the finished behavior. I'm a bit jealous of those who are very good at free shaping! It looks like a lot of fun and I love creative dogs. Though I'll admit his persistence is nice when he actually is right, because nothing stops him from following through.