Recently, Chewie and I have been doing some training with a new platform. I’m hoping we can use this platform as a location for some veterinary training. It also will come in handy for horse agility and groundwork exercises.
Chewie is awfully cute when she stands on the platform and looks at me with her ears pricked forward!
When I’m training, I want to create a training plan and design a training location that makes the correct behavior very likely.
I’ve kept this big idea in mind during our training sessions with the platform.
In particular, here are three ways I have arranged things to make our training sessions easier for Chewie:
Reinforcement location: Chewie gets her treats (hay pellets) in a bucket in the back corner of the barn, approximately 15 feet behind the platform.
The bucket gives her a destination as she leaves the platform. Having the bucket at a distance also gives her space to maneuver as she heads for the bucket and then approaches the platform again.
As well, feeding treats in the bucket makes it easier for me to see what she is learning. Does she come promptly back to the platform or does she hesitate?
Barriers: Chewie is likely to come toward me and stop in front of me. I used this tendency to capture the behavior of stepping onto the platform and stopping. But, at the beginning, I knew Chewie might walk around the platform.
So, to start, we used a handful of buckets and tubs on either side of the platform. These objects made getting on the platform much more likely.
Now that Chewie will readily get on the platform, we are gradually reducing these extra objects.
A platform upgrade: I love our big plastic platform because it is sturdy but also lightweight. If you are wondering, it’s a pad for an outdoor air conditioning unit.
However, during several of our early sessions, Chewie was sometimes slipping a little when she was getting on and off the platform. So, I decorated the platform with strips of anti-slip tape. Now, Chewie seems much more stable when she is getting on and off the platform.
I can’t ask her how she feels, but her movement looks more comfortable to me!
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