A Shaping Project – Ring It

Posted on August 29, 2012August 29, 2012 by lauraperkinsanimalbehavior@gmail.com

Since we got Dan, I have been wanting to try this little project but hadn’t been able to find the bells. We picked some up from a toy store last weekend and on Monday I decided to set it up. The idea is that when he needs to go outside, he’ll ring the bells and we can take him out to potty. But, before he can learn that, he has to know how to ring the bell!

I decided to shape this behavior with a clicker and some treats to help him practice the shaping game in the process. Shaping is the training technique of asking your dog to get a little bit closer to the final behavior in order to earn a click/treat. This might be after each step or sometimes you might need to stay on the same step for a few trials. A trial is each behavior and the click/treat that go with it during shaping. For mastered behaviors, a trial is each time you ask your dog to do the behavior. Breaking behavior into trials helps us to measure the behavior and graph it.

So, before we get to the video, here is the data – get excited!

Before you can take data for a shaping project, you have to outline each shaping step. I challenge you to read these shaping steps before watching the video to see if you can identify them during the training session.

Here is the data for the training session. Cumulative # of trials means that I added the number of trials during the current shaping step to the total number of trials so far. This allows us to see the progression towards the last shaping step.

After the learning part of the shaping lesson, I did a few trials to check how well Dan knew the behavior. He did pretty well, but if he had not done as well this would be a hint for us to go back a step or two and do some more training.

Once the dog knows the behavior, you can start checking for generalization. This is the idea that he can do the behavior in many other situations or scenarios. If he did it right the first time, we moved on to something else. If he didn’t, I tried a few more times and then if he still didn’t perform the behavior, I made it a little easier for him (ex. leaning towards the door). Then we tried the first check again. There are many more scenarios we could have done, but we started with these ones.

And now, here’s the video of the whole session, from the first doorbell touch to the last generalization check. The final step would be to check for maintenance. Maintenance checks ask the question “Will he still do it later?” I don’t have the video for that part, but he’s done great, ringing the bell every time I ask.

Dan Rings Doorbell

Happy Training!

Laura

Dan’s Introduction to Agility

Posted on August 28, 2012August 28, 2012 by lauraperkinsanimalbehavior@gmail.com

Dan has now had two formal agility lessons one was in early June and the other was two weeks ago. He loves it and I think he’s gonna be great fun to play agility with.

During his first lesson Justin and I introduced him to a “jump”. Since he was such a young puppy, we had the bars set very low and kept the session short to prevent any injury, but our goal was to teach him the concept of going between the jump standards and over the bar. We first had one jump, with no bar and called him through that. We added a second jump with no bar, just a straight line, and called him through that. Then we added the low bars and did one jump then two. We added the third jump with the bar. Each step probably had 2-3 repetitions and the whole session was only about 20 minutes.

Here is the video of the final product from that day. We were looking for him to complete all three jumps and drive forward to get his toy. The goal was to keep it upbeat, fun, and easy.

http://youtu.be/p4iQ0WVUI3Q

You can already see him getting excited about the game and driving to the toy. I goofed on spacing the jumps and the distance between the second and third jump was slightly shorter than the distance between the first and second, but this didn’t stop Dan! You can see him taking one less stride before this jump.

Two weeks ago was the second lesson. We worked on front crosses at a low jump height and tried a couple of jumps at 16″ to work on the concept of “go over not under!”

We’ve been practicing at my in-law’s house because they have so much more space than us. They are working on their roof so excuse the piles of scrap wood in the background but here are some of the photos from that day. My father-in-law took the video and I forgot to get it from him before we left so I’ll have to add that later.

There were some successful “over not under” attempts, but also several goof-ups. Here is a near collision.

Around?

Around again…yes that is much easier!

Got the “over” part, but now we need the “look ahead” part. Sorry about my socks…

Over and straight ahead! Now he’s got it!

Late take off – But look how determined that face is!

Perfect mid-air shot

Driving to the toy after a close landing.

Much better landing.

Needed a rest with the ball after all that agility! Very happy puppy.

Welcome and Introduction

Posted on August 9, 2012August 9, 2012 by lauraperkinsanimalbehavior@gmail.com

Welcome! I am very excited to step into the world of blogging and hope that you enjoy reading my posts. My hope is that this blog will give you an “inside look” at the life an animal trainer. I plan to share my newest ideas, successes, difficulties, and day-to-day stories, but first a little bit about who I am and what I do:

I have loved animals all my life – I know many people say this, but really, it’s true! I drove my parents so nuts asking for a dog that they actually moved to a new house where we could have one when I was 8. This is where my training career began. We got a border collie, Libby, and I’ve been in love with the breed ever since. I began to train and show her in 4-H obedience and was there introduced to the sport of agility. I competed with Libby and my second border collie, Sammy, all through high school in AKC agility and obedience. Libby passed just last summer at the sweet age of 17. I’m sure I will have many Libby stories for you later, but here’s a link to one of the last training sessions I had with her. She was deaf, couldn’t see well, and couldn’t sit or stand for more than a few minutes so I had to sit close with her laying in front of me, but she was still so so happy to work! Libby Target

After high school, I went to the University of Illinois and majored in Animal Science. I had always been interested in becoming a vet, but the agility bug got me very interested in animal training and how animals learn. I got very good at many training techniques while competing in agility, but I always wanted to learn more about the theory and why these techniques worked. I took every behavior related class I could in college and though I loved my animal science program, I felt as though I was still missing something about the science of learning. After emailing many professors across the country and talking to every animal professional I knew, I was directed to the field of Applied Behavior Analysis.

I applied to the only applied behavior analysis graduate program with an applied animal training research lab at the University of North Texas with Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz. The lab there was called the Organization for Reinforcement Contingencies with Animals, or ORCA. You can find out more about ORCA by going to their website (here). Also, I highly recommend their annual spring conference, the Art and Science of Animal Training. It is great for all levels of animal enthusiasts and you will never find a better panel of animal training professionals!

It was at UNT where I finally found the answers to my burning questions about how and why animals learn the way they do. The concepts of reinforcement and punishment are behind all learning, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Every aspect of the environment around you has the potential to influence your learning. The great thing about understanding this is that an animal’s environment is usually easy to change – much easier than trying to change something inside the animal, physiologically.

Throughout my animal training career and education, I have worked mostly with domestic dogs but have also had wonderful experiences training many species including: cats, horses, kea parrots, macaws, white nosed coatimundi, river otters, several different species of lemurs, marmosets, wallaroos (similar to wallabies), mongeese, capybaras, and Patagonian cavies. The training programs have included crate training, target training, games for enrichment, husbandry behaviors, manners, and even working on reducing fear of humans. Every single program has its own challenges, but that is what makes this profession so much fun! Each time a goal is met, the animal is not the only one who has learned something new; I have too!

I hope that you come back to visit my blog to share this new adventure with me and check out new videos, stories, and training concepts.

Happy training,

Laura

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