Just thought I'd get some thoughts on this. These are some of the most important foundation skills in my mom and I's view of training.
I think, given some of the exciting subjects we've been touching on
in other threads, that a discussion concerning the "why" of some of
the foundation skills that I (and many others) teach would be a great
thread.
I'll start with eye contact, which is always the first skill I teach a
pup or dog that I train.
When I teach eye contact, I never hold the food (or toy) near my face
or eyes, I hold the food/toy in my hand that is extended away from my
face. This gives the dog the opportunity to chose to ignore the
reinforcement and look at me. I build on this choice when proofing and
continuously look for stronger commitment from the dog before
reinforcing. This lays the foundation for ignoring reinforcement
opportunities and focusing on the task at hand. When a dog voluntarily
ignores the reinforcement and knows that you will provide greater
opportunity for reinforcement the potential is astronomical! You are
no longer faced with the impossible task of competing with the
environment and you no longer face the dilemma of having a dog that
will only work in the presence of reinforcement.
Walk Away. Many times people teach a relinquish and merely stop once
the dog is reliable in response to the verbal cue. Walk away should go
further than that and the way we make it go further is by upping
criteria and reinforcing the choice to relinquish self reinforcing
behaviors without a verbal cue. Similar to eye contact what you are
teaching is that not participating in seeking self reinforcement makes
wonderful things happen! You psyche the dog into believing that
ignoring self reinforcing temptations is the thing to do, that making
the choice to walk away is the most rewarding behavior! In the
process, if you manage the dog and prevent the dog from being
reinforced by the environment etc. you are successfully
removing/reducing the reinforcement value of undesired behavior and
making that choice oh so much more reinforcing!
An example of this would be Knox's choice to ignore food left on the
floor for the other animals. When he was a puppy and learning the walk
away skill, he was on leash and I was always present when food was on
the floor. If he showed interest in the food, I would put gentle
pressure on the leash and reinforce heavily when he turned away from
the food. Preventing him from ever getting to the food was very
important as I knew if he got to that food one time I would be
competing with a dog who knew that "gambling" could be extremely
reinforcing -- he would have always had it in the back of his mind
that sometimes going after the food was VERY worth while. Once he was
responding to leash pressure reliable I upped the criteria and waited
for commitment before reinforcing. Commitment at that point was Knox's
choice to turn away from the food himself -- I began to heavily
reinforce his choice and commitment but was still always present to
prevent him from getting to the food if he made the wrong choice. I
didn't correct him, I prevented him from divulging in self reinforcing
behavior. I then moved on to reinforcing avoidance of food left on the
floor. The result is that Knox has been psyched into believing that
food on the floor is not available and it is extremely reinforcing to
avoid seeking that food. At this point I introduce a verbal.
Walk away is then taught in many other contexts. Social situations
(other dogs), prey drive behaviors, play ...all the while working WITH
the dogs drives instead of battling them, reducing the reinforcement
value and eliminating the desire to seek out self reinforcement.
When we psych the dog into believing that there are endless
opportunities for reinforcement and that they always come from you and
never the environment, we then own dogs who love to work and are very
committed to ignoring distraction.
Focus is amazing with these techniques and we can eliminate harsh corrections!