Fun With Free Shaping

Shadow taught himself one. To bring and drop the kong in my lap. I used that to strengthen "drop it." It really was his idea, after all.

What a cool video!  The dog also has inadvertantly been shaped to circle the box, counterclockwise. :)  That's the fun and interesting thing about free shaping.  Sometimes you start out to shape one thing and shape a different or additional behavior that you can build on or extinguish.

 

 Thanks for posting, Anne.

 You should know by now Anne that I'll have to nitpick on her definition of operant conditioning. I'll just leave it there though.

I sat there just wanting him to pick up the second foot so bad. I also wondered there for a bit why she didn't reinforce one foot in and lifting the second foot. I guess it's just a different of opinion, but I felt like sometimes, she held out where I wouldn't have, and vice versa. 

I love doing free shaping with Bailey too. Nice video, I love how the dog was shaped to circle the box too

Ive never seen any of Dr. Yin's videos before, so I looked thru the rest of them on the youtube channel.

I must say, the use of the head collar in this one bothered me- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUCl6ndLN7Q

griffinej5

 You should know by now Anne that I'll have to nitpick on her definition of operant conditioning. I'll just leave it there though.

I sat there just wanting him to pick up the second foot so bad. I also wondered there for a bit why she didn't reinforce one foot in and lifting the second foot. I guess it's just a different of opinion, but I felt like sometimes, she held out where I wouldn't have, and vice versa. 

 

Thanks for your restraint lol.  I know what you mean about the reinforcement.  But, not everyone has the same observational skill or timing.  I just think it's good that some people realize that the real significance is creating a dog that knows how to learn - once you have that, you can teach anything.  So much better than what Seligman discussed.

spiritdogs

Thanks for your restraint lol.  I know what you mean about the reinforcement.  But, not everyone has the same observational skill or timing.  I just think it's good that some people realize that the real significance is creating a dog that knows how to learn - once you have that, you can teach anything.  So much better than what Seligman discussed.

 

 

Part of it too is knowing your learner. After some time doing it, you get to know some things about the organism in particular you're working with. You get as to whether the animal can tolerate your holding out a little bit more in attempt to get them to offer a bit more, or if your animal won't tolerate that. Don't know if I'd be able to get it on tape, but Luke is very funny about this. After doing the correct terminal approximation a few times, he barks like a fool, and sometimes, if available, he walks into a crate for a few seconds. He's not like other dogs who will test their whole repertoire to see if anything works. 

 So true.  I find that many of the herders react with an attitude that almost says, "OK, stupid human, I *DID* that already!!!!  Didn't you notice? 'K, I'm done."  So, for the ones that do, I use shorter sessions and throw in alternate activities.  When you go back to the session, it's so much easier for them to make the jump to the next behavior. 

Knowing your learner also extends to the human end of the leash.    Students can be as challenging as dogs, if not more so...

Yeah, Kivi throws in the towel at the slightest hint of things not going as he expects them to. I've been ever so slowly working on getting him to target with his left hip. Sometimes if I hold out for an extra step he's on the ground in a blink, whining at me for making it too hard. His persistence fluctuates wildly. Erik is more of the "throw out everything you can think of in the space of 5 seconds and then bark at the stupid human who missed all of it because she was getting the treats ready" view. I don't know what it is about him, but he just gets that a click for a little movement probably means a click for the same movement only bigger, and if he gets that, he's away and it's hard to keep up with him. Sometimes I wish Kivi were half as cluey, but then I'd have to deal with two dogs that notice everything in the world and react to them in the endless search for information. Erik also likes to throw in extra things if he's not being active enough. The other day he spontaneously put his paw on Kivi's butt because the Look At That game didn't feel like it had enough for him to do in it. He tried that a few times. It sure makes "click for calm" a tricky one.

I'd love to see if there is something about a dogs that determines how they react here. Is it something in early training experiences, a breed thing, a little of both? Why does Luke bark like a fool, and walk off for a break and come back, other dogs will stick around and try everything, and another dog might totally blow you off.

Jumping into this late... I would be inclined to say it'd be a combination of early training experiences and (breed related) personality/motivation/drive . I think a dog would first have to be predisposed to hanging in there and trying new things for the click and treat (e.g. if they found experimenting and training reinforcing in itself, or was just dang stubborn). Then, if that were reinforced on a regular basis then you'd have a dog that'd be more likely to keep trying than not.

Pocket initially was a "if you don't tell me what I need to do then I'm just going to lie here and look at you disdainfully". Interestingly, I think a 'down' was one of the first things I clicker trained.  She's a very soft greyhound X - pressure and ambiguity was quite punishing for her and she'd shut down fairly quick if she didn't get enough feedback. I managed to get her to do longer freeshaping sessions by building up the time we'd train and of course, keeping reinforcement rate high, and talking to her while we were shaping, but at the end of the day she'd never be anything like Dr. Yin's cattledog.

Maybe Luke's reaction is his way of dealing with the stress? Then maybe he realises he ain't gettin any treats sulking in the corner so comes back for more? Regardless, I think it's pretty cute !