How do we increase response time to our cues and requests? Say we ask our dog to sit. The dog sits, but she takes her time and waits several seconds before sitting. We can reduce the time interval between when the cue is given and when the animal responds by using what is called a limited hold. Basically, this means that once an animal knows a behavior, we shape the response time to be smaller by only reinforcing response times that are less than a certain value.
Karen Pryor explains this well in Lads Before the Wind:
Ron’s manual showed us one more refinement: the limited hold. This was a method for producing instant rather than dilatory response. At first, when we turned on the spin cue, some animals didn’t get around to spinning until the cue had been on for ten or fifteen seconds and the other animals had spun and were eating their fish already. So we started with the average time–about fifteen seconds–that it took for all the animals to spin on cue, and we turned the cue on for just that long. If Moki, say, was pokey, and didn’t spin in fifteen seconds, the cue went off and he was out of luck.
A stopwatch helped the trainer stay honest; it was always tempting to leave the cue on just a little longer when you saw that your dilatory animal was about to jump. If you succumbed to that temptation, however, you could end up with the animals training you to leave the cue on longer and longer.
Animals have a good sense of time. Soon every animal began to hustle a little. Some jumped before the fifteen seconds were up. Then we shortened the cue-on time to twelve seconds. Again, the laggards were out of luck. Again they had to learn to hustle. We found that we could tighten up this “limited hold” to the smallest length of time in which the animals could physically accomplish the behavior. When our shows opened, the spinning in Whaler’s Cove was on a three-second limited hold. The trainer punched the button, and bingo! six animals dove out of sight and then flew into the air all over the place. It was dramatic.
How long do your animals take to respond when you give cues? The behavior we get is the behavior we’ve trained. So, if our animals are slow and sluggish to respond, we are either not providing enough reinforcement to make the job worthwhile or we are being lax in our standards and reinforcing slow responses (or both). By tightening up the response time, training sessions move at a faster pace and have a better flow. The animal is more responsive and learns to perform the behavior promptly when cued. Even if you don’t want to pull out the stopwatch to measure response time, it’s good to consider how quickly we expect the animal to respond to known cues and whether or not this interval can be improved.
Read more here about how to teach and use cues.
I use a time interval and selective reinforcement to shape a behavior such as sit. At first you reinforce the action, then increase the criterion of the behavior.
If you take small steps and reinforce early then you can shape the behavior without using a timer.
I use treats to train them to sit. Some dogs are not interested in treats. I encounter one dog who does not like treats. Cases like this, we have to use firm tone and must always be the same tone. So the dog will know this is instruction tone
cutecute28—
I encourage you to keep reading my blog and look more into clicker training and positive reinforcement training.
Some dogs don’t like treats. Very well. But there is something the dog does like, and if we can figure out what it is, we can use it as a reinforcer. Maybe it’s getting to play with a favorite toy, or a belly rub, or a stale cheerio! My dog Ginger is more than happy to work for ice cubes.