Luring, shaping and capturing

I will use all three methods with my dogs, depending on what we are teaching.

I do use a lot of capturing for easy, known behaviours. I have used capturing to teach the sit and down behaviours of all my dogs. I also use capturing to simply reinforce good manners - sitting for something, laying patiently during supper, etc - things that not really develop new behaviour cues but develop good habits - I do a lot of habit-forming in my home such that in a short time these things do not need to be rewarded with anything but the life rewards the dog is seeking.

I use luring to teach some behaviours. I taught Gaci's spin (left/right) with luring, although when I lure, I work to eliminate the lure as soon as I can. As soon as the dog is getting even a baby idea, I fade the lure and finish up with shaping. I find with my guys, they are not great lureres, because we don't use that as a big training tool, and they don't "get it" as much as they "get" shaping. I also don't like a whole lot how they act with lures. You can see they clearly aren't thinking much with lures, they are just following your hand (or target) with their nose until the treat is delivered. I have found, myself, that luring is the one that gets you into the most trouble in terms of developing strong, consistent behaviours The dogs (and the people) begin to depend on the lure too much, such that the lure itself (and often the food/reward!) is required for the behaviour sequence to happenn. I like to train with food off my body, so that the dog learns the behaviour is associated with other things like a verbal or physical cue, so luring doesn't fit into a lot of what I do.

Shaping, I am a big fan of. Because I'm heavy into performance work, shaping is required to teach a lot of complex things. To teach a go out, or complete agility contacts, or weave poles in the way that I teach it, shaping is pretty much required. I do a lot of shaping with my dogs. The only difference is that I have to microshape with Shimmer, whereas I can often chunk a little larger with Gaci because of how they each learn. But they learn the same skills with the same strength, and they just love using their brains themselves! I like shaping because I know that it creates new pathways in the brain that luring does not, and it can develop confidence in ways that both capturing and luring cannot really do. It's the same thing between always showing children what to do, versus letting them figure it out but giving guidance where necessary, and even just giving them the opportunity to experiment to figure those things out - it is widely known that the brains develop differently in the creativity they have, how they solve problems, and how they deal with the frustration that comes with not knowing something.

I think all three have a valuable place in training, and it really depends on your goals and what you want out of a dog. I want a bright, thinking, engaged dog who pretty much figures out its own skills because when I'm out there on the agility field I want the same problem solving abilities to come into play, and I want to be confident those skills are rock solid and that the dog is responding to minute cues rather than having to shout out the name of every obstacle in the dog's path. I want the dog to know to follow my body without asking it to, and to take every obstacle in its direct line (called driving a line), without any need for me to say anything. I want my dog to understand that foot movements that indicate a front cross, without confusing the dog. I see people out there who pretty much guide the dog alongside with "Over, over, tunnel, over, chute!" and while it's fine as an option, I don't want to have to tell my dog each obstacle it could take in words - it knows from far subtler training skills.

I think a great thing to include in this conversation, as well, is the value of backchaining!! An amazing, yet often underutilized tool that has a huge part in teaching dogs complex behaviour sequences!

With lures, my dogs learn the voice command faster but it takes more reps to make the behavior stick. I've use lures for things like spin, leg weaving, agility, etc.

 In the past, I have done a lot of luring new behaviors. Max in particular. This of course made for very strong hand signals, because the lures became the hand signals. I had a hard time with transfers to verbal.  With Luke, I took a different approach to start, and I began teaching him using all capturing and shaping, but have lured some other things, like leg weaves that we are working on, rolling over I have done a combo, and sitting up on his back legs I am luring. I think next time around, I will also start with capturing and shaping. My hand signals are still there, but I don't know that they are as strong. I didn't have as much issue with transfers to verbal cues. However, I do think he is a better thinker, maybe because of it, but I can't really prove that. I think it's possible, when starting with luring, that the dog might become dependent on this prompting. I think Max might have been that way. If he didn't know what to do, he'd try a few things, but he was so used to getting that help. Luke was taught early on to keep trying things, and it seems like that's what he's doing.

The more I learn and experience, the more I appreciate shaping and capturing. But, I've had dogs before that even with waiting and waiting with extreme patience, never really offer anything that I could shape or capture, so I do sometimes use lures. One dog I own was trained almost exclusively with lures (I got him long before I knew about shaping and capturing or clicker training), and he's got a pretty great response. One thing I do notice though is that he has a harder time transferring a behavior that was taught with lures to a simple verbal command, he is too focused on what my hands are doing. He 'gets' luring though, and understands what is going on. I have shaped behaviors with the help of lures with him, though.

One problem I have with lures and behaviors like sit, and down, particularly for small dogs, is that some people (myself included!) find the dog is so keyed into your body language, it's hard to get them to do the behavior when you aren't crouched down like you would be when luring. It took quite a long time of sloooowly getting myself away from the floor before my dog understood "down" meant "down" even if my hand was not on the floor. ;) Had I understood capturing/shaping back then, I would have used it for those behaviors!

Another dog I work with, an Australian Shepherd, is hard to lure to do anything. She simply refuses to be lured most of the time, and if too much 'pressure' is applied with luring, she jumps to her feet and dances around, almost saying "I don't get it!" I've done great work capturing and shaping behaviors for her, and she definitely "gets" it, and when she knows training is happening she starts throwing behaviors at me wildly in a hope to do something I want. It's hilarious to watch!

I try to limit my use of lures nowadays, as I'm not spectacular at fading it. I will use them when I've found it obvious the dog isn't going to offer me a behavior I can shape or capture, though, and a lure makes sense. I have been learning more about targeting, and find it a better option than luring if feasible for the situation.

I use all three, but luring the least often/almost never. Really, the only time I lure is when starting a sit or down work with a brand new dog (sit or down for example). Lure it a few times and then shape from there.

Luna doesn't do well with luring because I've done so much shaping with her. If I lure with her it's with a target stick and I find she isn't paying as much attention to what she is doing as she is with targeting the stick.

Lexi on the other hand loves the target stick and does pick up on the behavior with it.

Rosco doesn't get lured because he's a food monster, and I'd rather have his default be a leave it.

I also use shaping for/in the breed ring.

 ETA: Not sure if the target stick counts as luring when I stop to think about this...
 

Of the three, I think shaping is the most ideal.  I think free shaping makes for the most "operant", proactive kind of dog.  The dog excudes confidence and a joy for doing the work or training and not just because of the reward.  Right now I am shaping and backchaining a retrieve.

I personally use capturing the least.  Honestly the only circumstances I can think of where I genuinely "capture" something (meaning it happens without *any* sort of luring, and not during a training session) would be when I catch Nikon in a very good natural stack, I say "yes good stack!"  I don't know if this helps at all since it doesn't happen very frequently (maybe once every few days).  But he used to be more difficult to stack so I figured it couldn't hurt to at least try marking and naming his free stacks.  I would love to use capturing more but the behaviors that occur on their own are already named and freely given on command (sit, down, stay, heel, look/watch...)

I use luring a lot even though I don't like it as much as free shaping.  I always make sure I do enough free shaping if I'm doing luring because I don't want a reactive dog that just sits there waiting for cues.  Actually I do have such a dog, she lacks confidence and despite how she was trained (for 3.5 years she lived with someone who abhors luring and does a lot of freeshaping) she is just not a very operant or proactive dog.  I've freeshaped a few simple things with her but I think it's her lack of confidence and being too effected by the environment which prevents her from enjoying freeshaping and makes luring sometimes necessary.  My all-breed positive trainer/behaviorist does mostly luring in our classes.  She is great a freeshaping and her dogs offer lots of stuff freely but most of the dogs coming to class do not so I think for the sake of actually making progress, we do a lot of luring.

tenna

The more I learn and experience, the more I appreciate shaping and capturing. But, I've had dogs before that even with waiting and waiting with extreme patience, never really offer anything that I could shape or capture, so I do sometimes use lures.

I think i am like you. I have had three relatively high energy dogs. 

Cadbury my lab was a xover dog. Luring was a waste of time with him as he was so driven that the reason for the lure sort of got lost. But he in time loved to be shaped. Would cry for the oppurtunity. Had his awesome drop that was a playbow that was captured and then shaped. So fast and very happily offered anywhere!

Luci loves her targets and often needs to be micro shaped. She offers a fairly wide range of behaviours including heeling.. She is very literal, very exact.Nearly everytime we have a training failure it is about communication from her point of view. She is right into shaping, loves the game. Targeting to some extent is a kind of lure .

Sam , well when i got Sam he pretty much ignored human voice and wasn't that keen on humans. He did none of the basics and was very very wild. He jumped my height in excitement and at 16 months pooped and weed everywhere.

I went the opposite way to the CMs of this world and was very gentle very calm around him. I introduced the clicker to him and keyed him to warmed black pudding (look up the web, the ingredients are disgusting).  I captured his sit first , i got it after an hour or two  when he decided to sit next to me after clicking for proximity to me. It is a fast fast sit now!

I captured his drop to from a play bow with a toy, and again it is fast and voluntered........ Luci is often a bit reluctant in the drop. I am working on that . 

I am shaping his retrieve and go   out at the same time and will combine the two soon. I do shaping and capturing with him.

He is now veyr much a dog that is totally willing to "work" totally willing to do what you ask. He has no idea of compulsion.

BTW i have never seen warmed black pudding fail on a dog ever.

 I have done some stuff with a target stick instead of a lure. Luke likes to bite the target stick though, but I do find this helps him not to be totally focused on the food in my hand.

 I clicker trained my cat to follow a target wand, lol.

I have said a few times recently that Kivi is not a dog that seems to particularly enjoy free shaping. He's kind of really contacty. He likes to be touched and guided. I have had very little success capturing with him. He always seems to be looking intently at me for some kind of communication of what he's doing right rather than focusing on the sound of the clicker. So I started teaching him to follow my body. If I put my weight on one foot and lean in that direction, he follows. I did that for a while and he liked it a lot, but it's hard to get him to do anything that doesn't involve moving his whole body. So then I decided to target train him. I read Kayce Cover's training manual about bridge and target training. She said target training was better than clicker training because it was faster. I found that to be really missing the point. Who cares if it's faster? I care more about whether the dog is capable of thinking for themselves. Kivi tries really hard to think for himself, and he can do it, but he struggles and so I think it's fair on him to just provide him with more information when it's something a bit hard for him. I'm still using marker words to capture and shape easy things, but as soon as I figure out how to teach him to target with different parts of his body we'll be doing a lot more targeting.

For Erik I love free shaping and so does he. Capturing also works beautifully for him. I taught him spin by capturing it. I have done very minimal luring with him. He's so damn good at free shaping I just don't need to. I have been thinking of teaching him to target as well, though, for that time that hasn't happened yet when he struggles with something.

Now targeting is awesome for my rabbit and my hare, and I doubt I'd be able to do it any other way. I shaped Bonnie for allowing handling, and it worked really well, but they aren't smart in the way dogs are and it's all a bit haphazard with them. But targets are nice and clear and they get that concept without any trouble. My hare is starting to follow the target stick to walk away from me. I think that's pretty cool.
 

A brag from me here, but related to the topic. I finally got rid of the hand targets in Luke's leg weaves. I've been training that one on and off for a while. I never do a ton of trials on anything, particularly really tough stuff. I also have a tendency to not add a verbal cue until I basically have almost exactly what I want, so I didn't add the cue until yesterday. Like with most things, he was getting it correct. Then he'd do the first leg, i'd step, he'd act like he had no clue and bark. The first few times, I gave him the target for that middle step. The first and last he was doing. Then I decided I'd just go back to the first one. Twice then he played the I have no idea thing, then he did it beautifully. I stopped after I got it twice. Usually, I have also noticed that when he figures stuff out like that, he really does get mentally tired. At training, there are crates, and he tends to retreat to one of those for a few minutes. We don't usually work in the room with a crate, so he'll walk away and lay on the couch. He comes back after a few minutes, but I like to give him a break before that.