The two lectures she gave in the morning were pretty interesting. In the afternoon, we had a handful of presentations so that some of my fellow graduate students could share their current research projects. This was great fun because it resulted in a lot of good discussion and conversation.

One fun thing about graduate school is that I get to interact with and learn from people who are involved in areas of behavior analysis that are pretty different from what I do. It’s fascinating to get to see different perspectives and approaches to teaching and training. At the end of the day, though, what I’m often left realizing is that good training is good training, no matter what species you work with or what task you are trying to train.

One thing that the speaker mentioned in one of her morning lectures was that when teaching a particular behavior, we should focus on training only one thing at a time. During a training session, only work on improving one aspect or feature of a behavior at a time.

Animal trainers often get in to trouble here! For instance, when teaching an animal to stay, work on increasing the duration of the behavior separately from increasing the distance between you and the animal. Don’t try to train both of these at once! This can be confusing to the animal and can slow down our training. When training, try to do what animal trainers refer to as a splitting, rather than lumping. (What is splitting?)

Taking lots of short breaks during a training session can make it a lot easier to be a good splitter. This is one thing I’ve learned from horse clicker trainer Alexandra Kurland. I often train in short sessions, 10-20 treats. At the beginning of the session, I decide what we’re going to work on during that session. Then, when I run out of treats, I take a short break before the next session. During the break I decide whether to work again on the same thing or whether we’re ready to move on. If the last session didn’t go so well, I might decide to move to something easier or different, so that the animal can be successful and understand what I want.

I think the take home message from all of this is that it helps to have a well thought out plan before you begin each training session. When we are trying to train too much at once, it is often because we haven’t thoroughly assessed where the animal is currently and what exactly, specifically, we want to work on in the current training session.

Want a few suggestions?  

Learning Games: by Kay Laurence. I love this book. Kay Laurence is one of my favorite dog trainers. This book has a ton of great ideas for behaviors to train, from the very simple to the extremely complex. The book is written with dogs in mind. However, I’ve also used this book to come up with ideas for behaviors to train to other species. There are many shaping exercises in the book that will really improve your training skills!

Reaching the Animal Mind: This is Karen Pryor’s newest book, published in 2010. The book includes stories and information about how our knowledge of animal training continues to grow and evolve. One reason why I like this book is that it includes a lot about recent science and research related to animal training, including some of the studies that have been done by my advisor, Jesus Rosales Ruiz, and his students at the University of North Texas.

Horse Books and DVDs: The clicker training store has a great collection of books and DVDs related to clicker training horses, including all of Alexandra Kurland’s books and DVDs.

Many of their best sellers are also currently on sale. As well, there are some special year end sales products that are still available at a discounted price.

So, be sure to check out the clicker training store, either by clicking on this LINK or by clicking on the banner image above. I am not sure how long the coupons will be good, but I’ve e-mailed the store to ask. I will let you know what I find out!

Also, if you purchase something, I’d LOVE to hear what you buy as well as your review, once you get a chance to read, view or use the product. I’m always looking for suggestions for new books, DVDs, and products to try.

Check out the video–even this whale thinks pet adoption is the right choice!

Even a Whale Thinks Pet Adoption is the Right Choice! from The Dog Saving Network on Vimeo.

This video is from my friend Chris of the Dog Saving Network. I’ve written a bit about the DSN previously on my blog. It’s an awesome organization that is on a mission to help shelter dogs by educating pet owners and promoting positive training methods.

One way they do this is through a show called Life’s Ruff. Life’s Ruff is an entertaining and very creative stage show that features regular dogs and their owners performing cool tricks. The show raises awareness about shelter dogs, encourages pet owners to spay and neuter, and promotes positive training methods and the benefits of training. If you’re not familiar with the Dog Saving Network, I encourage you to check out their website. And if you’re ever in Chicago, be sure to check out a performance of Life’s Ruff!

What is Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT)?

I’ve written a bit in the past about using CAT with fearful horses. Fearful behaviors and aggressive behaviors are often very similar–the animal behaves in some way to increase the distance between his self and the unwanted animal or object. So, an aggressive dog lunges or bites to increase the distance between it and something else, just as a fearful animal runs away to increase the distance between it and something else.

With Constructional Aggression Treatment, we give the animal what he wants (distance from something) whenever the animal displays any signs of friendly, relaxed, or calm behavior. We start small, accepting any small signs of better behavior and later on build up more and more friendly behavior.

Treating Resource Guarding using CAT

So, for Rocky, the trainer and another dog would approach Rocky while he was chewing on a tennis ball. As soon as Rocky showed any signs of more relaxed or friendly behavior, the trainer and other dog would leave, which is exactly what Rocky wanted. Before beginning the training, Rocky could use aggression (snapping, biting, etc.) to get the other dog to go away. Now, only friendly or relaxed behaviors would make the other dog go away.

Not only did Rocky figure out the new conditions, but he started trying to interact with the other dog and actually started to play with the other dog and share his toys!! This is what CAT calls “switch over,” where the animal switches from wanting something to go away to wanting interaction.

With a bit more training, Rocky’s new behavior quickly generalized to other dogs as well. Last I heard, Rocky is living with a new dog, who just joined the household. He will pick up a toy, take it to the new dog and ask him to play. Now that’s successful training, if you ask me! Check out the video below, which shows clips from the training process.

On Youtube: Constructional Aggression Treatment (CAT) for Resource Guarding

**Side note: Please be extremely careful when working with aggressive or fearful animals! Work at a level where the animal does not feel stressed or frustrated. Also, take precautions to insure that people and animals do not get injured. For instance, with an aggressive dog, keep the dog on a leash. Or, with a very fearful or aggressive horse, start by working with a fence between you and the horse. **

• To raise awareness about shelter dogs and promote adoptions,
• To encourage pet owners to spay and neuter their pets, and
• To promote positive training methods and the benefits of training

Shelter Dogs in the Spotlight

Last year, Chris wrote, produced and directed “Life’s Ruff.” Now, this wasn’t any sort of ordinary play with professional actors. The cast was eight (untrained) pet dogs and their owners. After three months learning how to perform fun tricks on cue, the dogs and owners were ready for the big stage. The show they put on in an 80-seat Chicago theater had a simple, but important goal–to spread information about homeless animals and demonstrate the power of positive training. Click here now and you can see a video clip with some footage from the show.

How You Can Help (2 ways!)

Chris and his team are gearing up for a second season of Life’s Ruff. They are currently fundraising and have a little over a week left to raise about $5,000. The money helps pay to rent the theater, purchase props and tech equipment, and marketing. You can check out their fundraising campaign here on kickstarter for more information about the show. You can help in two ways:

1. Donating. Every little bit helps! (Click Here Now)
This is one of the coolest, most creative ways that I’ve ever seen to promote positive training and shelter dog adoptions. If you think so as well, I hope you’ll donate a small amount to their fundraising campaign. (Donate $25 and they’ll even give you a free T-shirt!)

2. Spreading the word about Life’s Ruff.
Mention Life’s Ruff and their kickstarter campaign on your blog, e-mail your friends, or post the link on facebook. Surely you have a few friends who would want to help shelter dogs and promote positive training methods!

Have you checked out the video link yet? If not, click here to watch it!

P.S. If they don’t get enough pledges to meet their fundraising goal–they get ZERO money because of the way the fundraising campaign is set up. So please help spread the word!

How hard should it be to teach a dog to fetch? Right now, Ginger thinks dog toys are for chewing, tugging or chasing. We’ve never bothered to teach her to bring them back. Of course, Ginger is perfectly capable of fetching, the issue is communicating to her that this is what I want her to do!

Ginger believes chase is a much more fun game to play than fetch! She is also not willing to pick up or interact with her toys while we are clicker training, because clicker training is more fun than chewing on toys. But, what if I use clicker training to teach her to fetch? Maybe she will think that this is double the fun. That’s the current plan and we have been making some good progress so far.

I started with simple stuff, rewarding her for touching her toys with her nose and then for putting her mouth around the toy. Later I moved to holding the toy and getting her to take it from my hand. Both of these were hard to get any duration on, she just wanted to shake her head and toss or drop the toy. However, she figured out that the goal was to interact with the toy.

We’ve moved on to a different approach. This is working better, especially now that she will pick up with the toy and hold it for at least several seconds. The toy starts on the floor. She picks it up and holds it. I lean down and put my hand under her chin. If she lets me do this, click and treat. (At which point she drops the toy to get the treat.) Eventually, I want her to hand me the toy. However, right now if I try to touch it, she thinks I want to play tug.

At the beginning, she would either move away, because she thought I was trying to steal her toy, or drop the toy, because she thought I was going to give her a treat. However, after a few sessions, if I reached my hand down, she was leaning her head forward to place the toy and her chin in my palm. We were getting somewhere!

We are gradually increasing the distance she has to travel to place the toy in my hand. Eventually, she’ll be able to bring me the toy from across the room. Right now, we are at 5-6 feet. So, we have the major components of the behavior–going to the toy, picking it up and bringing it to me.

The last big step is getting her to drop it in my hand or let me take it from her mouth. I would like to actually shape or capture this–I don’t want to forcefully take it from her. Any suggestions from other dog lovers would be appreciated, as we’ll probably start working on this soon.

On Friday we got about 6-8 inches of snow. This is probably the second largest amount of snow that Ginger has ever seen. In any case, she was thrilled to go running and jumping and digging through it. Here’s a short video clip, it’s about two minutes long.

Watch Ginger Playing in the Snow on YouTube

And here are some pictures of her having a great time! I know the weather’s been nasty throughout most of the states, I hope that where ever you are, that you and your animals are staying safe and warm.

Here’s two reasons why I really like this video:

1. Clever use of cues. Miki first snaps with the target hand so that the dog knows the exact position of her hand.

2. Targeting is taught through shaping. Trainers are often sloppy when they teach targeting and wait for the animal to find the target before clicking. With a blind animal, the trainer must shape the response. In the video, she begins by reinforcing head turns toward her hand.

Enjoy the video and let me know what you think! The video has left me thinking about the many different ways we can use cues to ask for behaviors and direct our animals.

As well, check out the Blind Dog Training Blog. I’m impressed by the amount of work Miki puts into each post. Each article is posted twice–first in Japanese and then a second time, translated into English.

Watch on Youtube: How To Teach Blind Dog Hand Targeting – Blind Dog Training Tips

However, like many other complicated animal training tasks, we can teach a dog to match similar objects using clicker training. This video is a great example of matching because the trainer does an excellent job of breaking the task down into smaller component skills that will be needed for the final task. For instance, she first teaches the dog first to stay on the mat, pick up the objects and look at the object she is holding. Sometimes, we have trouble during training because we’ve forgotten to teach an important component or foundation skill that the animal needs to understand first.

So, check out the video below and let me know what you think. I would love to try this with one of the horses, as I’m sure that the horses could also do it!

Also, my latest post with shaping Ginger generated some interesting discussion on facebook and in the comments. I copied some of the discussion from facebook into the comments section of that post. I’m really interested to continue this task now, to see what happens with the licking!

Watch this video on Youtube.

We’ve had several short sessions so far. Here’s where we are now:

Watch me clicker training head lowering on youtube

I started by asking for her to lie down and then waiting for any small movements of her head. When her head went down even a fraction, I clicked! We repeated this until she started to get the idea that head movements were earning her the clicks.

Then I started withholding my clicks and waiting for a bit more movement. Clicker training is great because it teaches our animals to be problem solvers. They learn that when they offer behavior and try different things, they get rewarded.

However, shaping can be difficult because we have to make sure we still set the animal up for success. When clicker training and shaping, it’s good to be generous at the beginning. Click for any small approximations to your final goal and the dog or horse will be willing to offer more. If we are too stingy and withhold our clicks for too long while waiting for a closer approximation to the final behavior, it’s easy to make the animal frustrated.

Clicker training the heads down has been interesting so far. I’m getting very discrete movements of the head. She drops her head an inch, waits a second (probably looking for a click) and then drops her head another inch. It ends up looking a little choppy. I assume that the choppiness will fade out as we go along, but it will be interesting to see!