Sunday, February 16, 2014

More Shaping

I videoed our training this morning, this video is quite long & will not be of interest to most of you so that is my warning lol!
I actually made the video for Amanda,  I want her to see how Lync is doing so she can advise me what else I can do.....
I think I have made the right observations, so Amanda, once you watch it please give me some more pointers :)


Lync, Shaping Work from Jolene McCuaig on Vimeo.

6 comments:

Dianne SS said...

Interesting! I had watched the video of Rundle and his shaping with boxes.

Kim said...

Lync is so cute and he is trying soooo hard :)

Just some observations, and this is based purely on what I do, not necessarily what other clicker trainers do.

I would set a timer. Two minutes is lots of time for a puppy to be working on one behaviour.

High rate of reinforcement - at this stage I would really be rewarding lots for any interaction with the box and holding out less for what the final behavior will be. Once he gets the idea that the box is earning him cookies, he will start to interject with it more and more and them you can start to reward only for certain things.

I try not to let my dogs get stuck for two long. If they are just stealing at me or offering other things, I will throw a treat or move somewhere else to break that. I especially do not want my dog to be staring at me and ignoring that, so I try not to let that happen. I also am not a "pure" shaper as I will help the dog my toss in/at the object I am shaping or I will call attention to it my moving it around or making it seem exciting. Not everyone agrees with that approach, but it work for me :)

onecollie said...

thank you Kim!!!! I did throw a treat a couple of times when he got stuck but others I waited him out, Amanda did say it is ok for him to get frustrated but perhaps that is way too soon as i have not done nearly enough shaping !I tried again a bit ago & he put his feet in the box but then he just grabbed the box & started to gnaw on the corner, I picked up the box & put it away, game over, hope that was right!!

manymuddypaws said...

Ditto to what Kim said.

Definitely set a timer- or I often count out treats. 20-30 is lots.

If you go more than a few seconds between clicks it means that you've skipped ahead too much. He isn't understanding.

Frustration is okay- but what he did wasn't frustration. It was more like giving up. Frustration is where he is offering consistently a set behavior- for example sticking his head in the box. And you've rewarded for it 10 or so times in a row and then change it suddenly. That's where they will often get frustrated enough and try something different. I have some videos of Brit I will send you.

And yes- if he does get stuck break it off. Do something else. And remember that reward placement is really important- even with shaping. So although Kim calls that cheating- the pro (Sue Ailsby) said that was perfectly fine. ;)

onecollie said...

thanks Amanda!!!!! I am loving training Lync!!!

Squishy said...

I love clicker training!! I agree with Kim and think making the sessions short and sweet is great. I am not a purest either and whatever I do, my dogs have learned very quickly, so I may help them more and like Kim says, to move around too to keep the energy up. Funna funna!! I'm going to have to set the phone up to clicker train Kai. Good idea!