Seven works on "Out" - Part 9 of Training Time - Part 1

We've been very busy...

The line...

So what's this all about? 

Well, we have our guest room and Catty has two favorite spots in this room and Seven also would like to hang out in these spots.  This is an issue since Catty isn't into sharing space. 

Spot #1 is under the bed

Spot #2 is on top in her bed

So what did we do to work through this issue?  We of course used positive based training methods and we made a game of it!  

It's important for me (the trainer) to know what I was going to be asking of Seven (the learner). Then I needed to be a clear teacher in delivering my behavior requests to Seven.  It was time for me to work out a plan of action with my focus on splitting not lumping our training!

What is lumping you may ask? Here  Eileenanddogs describes Lumping in her 8 common dog training errors: 


Taken from Eileenanddogs above post:

Lumping: Lumping means failing to break the behavior you are trying to teach into small enough steps. For instance, you are teaching your dog to get on a mat and lie down. Your dog is beginning to understand your cue. You stand right next to the mat and give the cue. Dog lies down. You stand two feet away from the mat and give the cue. The dog goes to the mat and lies down. You put the mat in the corner of the room, go back to the center of the room with your dog, and give the cue. Your dog says, “Huh?” Lots of misunderstandings between humans and dogs could be ameliorated if we just took enough baby steps when teaching a behavior. 


If you want to learn more about the concept of splitting vs. lumping check out this amazing post by eileenanddogs: Lumping It: A Public Service Announcement

Here's the work we've been busy perfecting and Seven has been an amazing training partner.

We started with managing the environment by putting up a baby gate so that Seven could not go in the room since we didn't want him to practice the behavior we were trying to remove.

Then we would stand in the room and reinforce Seven for staying back away from the gate.

We use two different reinforcers - food & the green ball

Food to reinforcing his behavior of staying back from the gate

And reinforcing Seven with using his green ball.

We practiced this for a number of days, until we felt that Seven knew what behavior he was being reinforced for.

We then started working on him moving back with me using my finger to cue him and then I reinforce Seven for the behavior I'm looking for. This was an entirely different training session than our gate work.

We start off with a bouncy Seven and that's fine - I knew we could get rid of that quick enough.  

Notice when I mark the behavior I want - the moving back.  Timing is important as it gives a clear communication of what behavior I'm asking of Seven.

 

And the bounce is just about gone and we keep working on the cue.

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Here's a great post: Want Reliable Behavior? Create Reliable Cues 

As I watched the above videos, I did find some places where I could have been clearer in my communication to Seven.  This is why video taping is so helpful to me, I catch things I didn't even realize I was doing.  Lucky for me Seven is forgiving and was able to sort out my behavior requests.

Stay tuned for part 2!