Dog Community

Lightbulb moments

Posted : 2/13/2007 9:48:01 AM

I feel like a spammer here. Will someone else please post some new threads!!! [

] Sorry this is so long, hope you'll stick it out and share your own experiences though......

OK, the topic:
I'd like to hear about your light bulb moments - those moments during shaping shaping where the dog suddenly "gets it", sometimes making a pretty imaginative leap to do it and sometimes after seemingly being "stagnant" for quite a long time with no progress being made - and how happy and pleased they are with themselves when they realise they "won".

My "lightbulb moment" experience:
Well, first, some background. He's getting on in years and he hasn't ever been clicker trained before or even learned anything new in a long time. A few of the methods he was subject to as a youngster were wincingly "traditional". So probably the worst kind of crossover dog you could get and I expected a long up hill struggle and was prepared to be very very patient and just have a "wait and see" attitude.

Some history:
Well, we'd already charged the clicker. We'd already played the box game. I'd witnessed that slightly worried "please tell me what to do gaze" and decided to lower the criteria from "doing something with the box" to doing anything - anything at all. I had no idea if it would work or be confusing or what but decided to try it - I wanted to try to tell him somehow "Just do something! Don't worry about it, just do STUFF and I'll tell you if I like it!" Several minutes later, I had a dog who was trying all sorts of things to earn his click - from moving his head, to getting up and moving around, sniffing the carpet, doing half turns, trying tricks he knows.... and I know it wasn;t random wandering about because if he didn't get the click, he stopped and looked back at me (I thought expectantly, as if to say "Wheres my click?" and thoughtfully as if "Hmmm why didn;t I get one that time? WHat if I....?";) If he did get a click he repeated the same thing straight away. So I stopped clicking for just anything and clicked only for anything box-related. He wasn't extremely adventurous or creative, but I was really pleased that he was trying things, a bit hesitant maybe but he was tentatively experimenting and he quickly figured out that the box was significant.

So fast forward to yesterday, I wanted to teach him to fetch the tv remote. There aren't many tricks I can think of that are simple and new - he does know such a lot already. Hes always taken to fetching quite well (he knows his toys by name) I've never taught him to fetch useful things because he has a tendency to "scrag" and chew whatever he has on his way back. Actual retrieving would come as naturally to him as anything, if I threw it or pointed to it he'd get it. But it might not be on one piece when he gave it back to me. So I wanted to shape a scragless, chewless retrieve.

To start with he didn't see the significance of the remote. I was just holding it my hand and thats not that much on an uncommon occurence in our house since the DH got a new computer game recently. I clicked for the slightest head movement toward it, and we gradually got the point where he bumped it with his nose... He got several treats for that. Then NOTHING. Didn't move towards it, didn't even look at it. Oh no I thought what have I done wrong? He seemed to be getting it and now nothing. I was on the verge of giving up disappointed when he surged forward and closed his mouth round it and let go again.

Massive jackpot and love-up sesh ensued! I was so proud of him. I am sure that his "pause" where he didn't do anything was him giving it some serious thought as to what the ultimate goal might be and this is a huge shock to me because he has never learned a cue from scratch from me with a clicker before, so how did he know I had an ultimate goal in mind??? There I was thinking I was labouring away trying to communicate something, and he got the "bigger picture" faster than I'd ever have given him credit for. It's true that animals are a whole lot smarter than we think.

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/13/2007 11:22:07 AM

Lightbulb moment - best one was probably when Sioux (not a natural retriever, and a dog who hated the feel, taste, and weight of the dumbbell) finally "got" that she was getting rewarded for spitting it out LOL (into my hand). We used Lonnie Olson's "Backchained Retrieve". (www.dogscouts.com)

J M

Posted : 2/13/2007 11:38:05 AM

I bought the pom the cutest bed. I spend 3 days trying to get him to go in it. Sniff c/t. Paw in c/t. 2 paws in c/t.

Yesterday, after a session, I just said to hell with it and gave up. He was too suspicious.

As soon as I turned my back, he jumps up in it and lays down.

Jackpot and major lovin ups went on. It is now his bestest place in the world to nap.

But, I don't know how to get him to go there on command though.

houndlove

Posted : 2/13/2007 11:53:08 AM

Marlowe doesn't make huge intuitive leaps, but he does keep progressing incrementally, so he doesn't have that many massive "lightbulb" moments, he just gradually "gets it". He's also very actively involved in his training, so he's up and moving around constantly trying things, which makes it sort of hard to identify any "aha" moments. My biggest relief moment with him actually didn't really involve a clicker, which was finally getting him to "down". Like many lean and tall dogs, he didn't really like to "down" unless it was full blown "I'm curling up and going to sleep". I finally got the down with the help of our trainer with the "leg bridge" method and feeding him his dinner that way for about two weeks. After that, he was a master of the down.

I've only taught Conrad two new behaviors with the clicker ("touch" and "wipe") and his big aha moment with "wipe" was when I took away the target. I had been teaching it with targeting one of his toys on the floor and only c/t for the times when he missed the toy and hit the floor. Then I took the toy away and lo and behold he kept on wiping at the floor, as if the the toy was still there but invisible. I was super-impressed. When I did this same exercise with Marlowe, I had to shrink the object on the floor down slowly because if I took it away completely he couldn't make that leap that Conrad had made. Just a difference in their learning styles I guess.

Chuffy

Posted : 2/13/2007 12:01:31 PM

With our youngest, she is experimenting and creative and learns steadily by increments, like you describe with Marlowe. With the old man, he is more cautious.... I think he is trying to work out what I want because he's worried he will get a reprimand if he tries something and it's wrong. Which is why he made the "leap". I really think he hesitated and thought about it for a bit and came to a considered decision. The younger one just keeps throwing stuff out there.... there are a few obvious "thinking" moments but I think she is less inhibited about "thinking aloud" than the older one because the training style with her has been more liberal from the get-go.

Kim_MacMillan

Posted : 2/13/2007 12:04:44 PM

A lightbulb moment I remember very well was when I was teaching Gaci to open and shut the door of her kennel with her paw (by grabbing the door with her foot and pulling it.....part of a sequence in the "go to bed" trick). At first she was just randomly pawing the door with her foot, but you could literally SEE when she just GOT IT. After that there was NO question as to what she was supposed to do with that door, and that door slams shut so quickly I almost peed myself laughing when she did it.

Another recent "got it" moment is with happened with my 9 week old Mini Schnauzer Shimmer who is learning "down". She just throws herself to the floor with such passion and MAKES you know that she did what you wanted her to...lol.

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/13/2007 2:13:35 PM

ORIGINAL: Kim_MacMillan

A lightbulb moment I remember very well was when I was teaching Gaci to open and shut the door of her kennel with her paw (by grabbing the door with her foot and pulling it.....part of a sequence in the "go to bed" trick). At first she was just randomly pawing the door with her foot, but you could literally SEE when she just GOT IT. After that there was NO question as to what she was supposed to do with that door, and that door slams shut so quickly I almost peed myself laughing when she did it.

Another recent "got it" moment is with happened with my 9 week old Mini Schnauzer Shimmer who is learning "down". She just throws herself to the floor with such passion and MAKES you know that she did what you wanted her to...lol.

OMG, I laughed when I read about the body-slam downs. That's just what Fergie does. She's old (17), and already knew down, but I taught her the "long down" hand signal with the clicker, and she does the slam dunk dog routine for that one. I guess she wanted me to know that an old dog can learn new tricks. [

]

corvus

Posted : 2/14/2007 1:49:37 AM

I loved the light bulb moment I had from my rescue bun, Bonnie, when I first introduced her to the clicker. I was teaching her to come towards me for a click because she was quite hand shy. There was this really nice moment where she got a treat, retreated, sat, looked at me thoughtfully for a looooong moment, then very slowly and deliberately hopped towards me. C/T. She turns away, her back to me, then very slowly turns towards me and reaches her nose to my hand again. C/T. She just had this "Hold on, I think I know what's going on here." look about her that had me smiling.

Catherine

Posted : 2/14/2007 8:59:46 PM

Yay!!!!! I (well, Caesar) had a lightbulb moment!!! I've posted before how C just would sit and whine at me or leave the room during previous sessions.

So today I just wanted him to touch my hand. As soon as I placed it out to my side, he touched it with his nose and I clicked/treat. He did it about 2 more times and then he did his usual sit-in-front-of-me-stare longingly-and-whine. I was about to give up but I just hung out while he mosied around for awhile, then like a bat he whipped around, ran towards my hand, and touched it - so I jackpotted him and we did it about 10-15 more times, and he was so fast about it! I quit while we were ahead and so the session was only about 5-10 minutes long.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for everyone's input, especially about "crossover dogs". I know that this is a pretty small feat but I'm really, really encouraged!

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/15/2007 9:32:18 AM

That's great! Once a dog can target your hand, or a stick, there are all kinds of other behaviors he can learn. I use targeting to teach my dogs to "spin". Maybe that's Caesar's next trick! [

]
Doesn't the "lightbulb moment" feel good and make you want to train more? [8D]

Chuffy

Posted : 2/15/2007 11:25:53 AM

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

Doesn't the "lightbulb moment" feel good and make you want to train more? [8D]

Definately!

Another LBM, my old man again. I let him out of his crate and then headed thru to the lounge with a pot of food in one hand and the clicker in the other. His ears perked up, tail started wagging, eyes sparking and he trotted thru ahead of me, looked round the room, headed straight for the coffee table, grabbed the remote and came back and literally threw it at my feet. Well f*** me! So we spent the session starting to put it on cue, which he's struggling with a bit - he's so keen and so certain that that is what I want he just keeps "throwing it at me" - literally. I did consider refining it first before putting a cue on it, so that he gives it to me instead of throwing it at my feet but that really isn't such an issue and honestly I like the enthusiasm, and he looks so proud of himself.... the finer points of "giving" it to me aren't important next to that.

Catherine

Posted : 2/15/2007 8:07:49 PM

ORIGINAL: spiritdogs

That's great! Once a dog can target your hand, or a stick, there are all kinds of other behaviors he can learn. I use targeting to teach my dogs to "spin". Maybe that's Caesar's next trick! []
Doesn't the "lightbulb moment" feel good and make you want to train more? [8D]

Definitely!! I already did two short sessions today!

ron2

Posted : 2/15/2007 8:34:27 PM

I haven't exactly had a lightbulb moment but I'm sure it's coming.

Allow me to reference a previous thread from a few months ago on a peer-reviewed article and how I think it relates to this topic. The article involved a string-pulling experiment. One of the strings in a set would have a treat at the end of it. The most successful at observation and problem solving to pull the correct string at the first time was a chimpanzee. Bear in mind that this problem-solving is using humans as the bench mark. The wolf didn't do as well. Neither did the dog. The dog would keep pulling strings, starting with the one nearest to him. What the dog did different than the other two was look to a human for a cue as to what string to pull, so the humans had to be doubly careful not to give a hint or move their eyes or give an expression, or anything. The tentative results were that the dog couldn't do this type of problem solving.

I would think that clicker training can offer somewhat of a rebuttal. The lightbulb moment you refer to is a case of the dog actively solving a problem. At first, the dog runs through all the obedience moves it knows, almost like pulling the nearest string and continuing on down the line. Then, at some point, the dog weighs options, thinks, comes up with a solution. So, I think dogs can be inventive problem solvers. It just so happens, surprise, surprise, that they don't think like humans.

Of course, any one who has owned a dog that is an escape artist knows they are problem solvers.

spiritdogs

Posted : 2/15/2007 9:12:17 PM

And, anyone who owns herding dogs knows that they can solve problems, too.

I wonder if any of the researchers thought to ask what type of previous training those dogs in the experiment had. If they had been trained by coercion or by lure/reward, chances are that they would certainly have looked to a human for guidance, not because they would not have been able to at least try to solve the problem, but because their previous training told them not to offer behavior on their own - the desired response, in their experience, might have been "do what the human wants". It would be interesting to find out if the dogs' prior training influenced the results.

luvmyswissy

Posted : 2/15/2007 10:52:02 PM

I think River is getting close to a light bulb moment too. I have some questions too. He is rarely geta excited, like the dogs in the videos I have watched, and his breed is know for getting bored quickly so I think this is part of it. I started with one of his rope bones and held it in the air, when he touched it with his nose I would CT, I did this a couple of times as a warm up. Then I threw it on the floor and every time he looked towards it or walked near it I would CT, this exercise when on for a while because it took him a while to realize I would reward him for looking in that direction – then he would come and sit in front of me and wait. Then I started tossing the treats on the floor to try and keep him from coming right back to me. So he finally started to touch it with his foot, and I would CT. He keeps coming back in front of me and sitting and staring. While I ignore him he will finally go to the rope toy and touch it with his foot. Now after two nights he is touching with his foot more often, but not quickly or excitingly but he is getting that that#%92s what him will win him his reward. But still, no excitement just bewilderment kind of. Then I waited tonight for his nose to touch it and he picked up on that quicker that the foot touching – so I know he is getting it. My goal is for him to pick it up eventually. Will he just realize that or should I show him by putting it in his mouth a couple of times and CT to show him what I want or should I just throw it on the floor from the start and go through the touching figures it out on his own?
Also, sometimes I click to prematurely or to late, do I still reward? Or pretend I didn#%92t happen?