Just 2 days into our Advanced Training and Behavior Study Academy and I am already happily exhausted (as are my students, no doubt).
Here’s what we have done so far:
TRAINING
Yesterday...
Nose Games: This is one of my favorite activities – I often share it with clients as an enrichment activity that is fun for canines and humans alike. It is less formal than the Nose Work competition training and utilizes the “Smell this smell, find this smell” (STSFTS) approach rather than “specific scent” (SS) training. STSFTS is used in training search and rescue dogs, while SS is used for narcotics detection, etc.
Here is my Nose Games protocol:
Step 1:
1. Have your dog sit and stay. (If he doesn’t know sit/stay, have someone hold his leash).
2. Walk six feet away, show him a treat, remind him to stay, and place the treat on the ground.
3. Return to his side (don’t let him get up yet!), turn and face the treat, then tell him “Search!” (If he won’t get up until you release him from the say “Search!” and then give your release cue.) He should run right out and eat the treat.
4. Repeat a half-dozen times.
Step 2:
1. Have your dog sit and stay.
2. Let him watch you “hide” a treat in plain view (next to a chair leg, by a waste basket, etc.).
3. Return to his side (don’t let him get up!), turn and face the treat, then tell him “Search!” He should run right out and eat the treat.
4. Repeat a half-dozen times.
Step 3:
1. Have your dog sit and stay.
2. Let him watch you hide several treats in plain view.
3. Return to his side (don’t let him get up!), turn and face the treats, rub one of the treats you’re using on a paper towel, hold the towel in front of his nose (don’t let him eat it!) and tell him “Sniff!” (Don’t worry if he doesn’t appear to sniff it.)
4. Then tell him “Search!” He should run right out and eat the treats.
5. Repeat a half-dozen times, having him “Sniff” before each set.
Step 4:
1. Have your dog sit and stay
2. Let him watch you hide a treat in a harder place (behind a chair leg, etc.)
3. Return to his side (don’t let him get up!), turn and face the treat, do “Sniff!”, then tell him “Search!” He may have more difficulty finding this treat. Don’t help him! This is where he starts learning to use his nose. If you help him, he won’t use his nose. If he truly can’t find it, reset, and hide it in an easier spot. Make sure he watches you!
4. Repeat a half-dozen times.
5. Gradually hide the treat in harder places, having “Sniff” before each set.
Step 5:
1. Have your dog sit and stay
2. Let him watch you hide 2-3 treats in somewhat easy places (behind a chair leg, etc.)
3. Return to his side (don’t let him get up!), turn and face the treats, then tell him “Search!” He may have more difficulty finding multiple treats. If necessary, indicate an area by spreading your arms and saying “Search here!” Don’t point to the treat! This is where he starts learning to use his nose. If you help him, he won’t use his nose. If he truly can’t find it, reset, and hide it in a slightly easier spot. Make sure he is watching you!
4. Repeat a half-dozen times.
5. Gradually hide treats in harder spots, having “Sniff” each time before you send him.
Step 6:
1. Put your dog in another room.
2. Hide 2-3 treats in somewhat easy places.
3. Bring him back to the room, have him “Sniff!” then tell him “Search!” He may have more difficulty finding multiple treats. If necessary, indicate an area by spreading your arms and saying “Search here!” Don’t point to the treat! This is where he starts learning to use his nose. If you help him, he won’t use his nose. If he truly can’t find it, reset, and hide it in a slightly easier spot. Make sure he is watching you!
4. Repeat a half-dozen times, doing “Sniff” each time.
5. Gradually hide treats in harder spots.
Step 7:
1. Generalize his “Search” behavior to other objects as you desire, starting with a favorite toy. Rub the toy on the paper towel, and proceed as your dog needs. Start back at Step 1, placing the toy in plain view and move quickly through to Step 6.
2. Then use less favorite or neutral objects. For humans, rub the human’s scent on the by having them rub it on their neck, and then have them hide – easy at first (let the dog find them in plain view, then watch them hide behind a barrier, or around a corner, then through Step 6.)
HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have taught this as a 6-week class – and we had a woman who took the class twice with her 8-year-old son and their little Terrier mix dog. At the end of the second set of classes their dog could find the boy when he went and hid in the woods.
Shaping: We started with Karen Pryor’s well-known “101 Things to Do With a Box” game yesterday (great for building a large and varied repertoire of offered behaviors) – and today some students progressed to shaping deliberate behaviors – i.e. pushing a ball.
Today we added
Premack: Using a more desirable behavior (from the dog’s perspective) to reinforce a less desirable behavior – also known as “Grandma’s Law” (you have to eat your vegetables before you can eat your dessert). I like to teach this concept by having the dog stay at one side of the room (with someone holding the leash if the dog doesn’t have a solid stay) while his human walks to the other side of the room. Halfway across the room another person stands holding high value treats. Human calls her dog, and when the dog comes to her together they run to the person in the middle to get the treats. Dog learns that the quickest way to get the treats is to bypass the tempting person in the middle, run to his human who is calling them so that together they run back to get the treats.
Behavior Chains: Linking several behaviors together (for this class it’s 3 behaviors) such that each behavior becomes the cue for the next, and each subsequent behavior reinforces the previous one, until the end of the chain when the dog receives a primary reinforcer (yummy treat) or very high-value secondary reinforcer (i.e. opportunity to catch a ball or Frisbee)
BOOKS AND ARTICLES
We have reviewed two books so far: Straw Man by Linda Case (LOVE Linda Case) and Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are by Frans de Waal.
And… here are links to some of the 13 articles we have already discussed in our first 2 days – with many more to come.
https://awesomedogs.blog/2015/12/01/reading-research-does-size-matter/
https://www.companionanimalpsychology.com/2018/05/clicker-plus-food-and-food-only-are.html
https://www.clickertraining.com/behavior-chains-untangling-the-confusion
No wonder we are all exhausted! I’m aiming to get a good night’s sleep tonight (after we get home from our local volunteer fire department monthly meeting) and start tomorrow all refreshed. On the training agenda for tomorrow: Bucket Game/Chin Rest and Reading, discussion of several more articles, and 2 more books: "Inside of a Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz, and "Dog is Love" by Clive Wynne. Fun!
