Modeling to Get Behaviors

Modeling (or molding) involves physical manipulation of the dog into a position or place. It can be effective for simple behaviors with some dogs.  It is especially useful to gently teach the dog to accept touch on all parts of their body.

One drawback is that many dogs seem to resent being physically manipulated into position or are uncomfortable with being touched or held in certain ways. There is also a natural occurrence of resistance against pressure (called thigmotaxis) that happens with all mammals. Other dogs never seem to get the concept of doing a behavior independently, having learned to simply let you "do stuff" to them. If the behavior you want involves something the dog is unsure of, modeling may increase their anxiety since it has a component of compulsion (force).

You start by gently guiding the dog into position and as they accept the position click/treat. Then gradually decrease the pressure required to a very light touch. Over time you will fade the touch to a hand signal which you will have incorporated consistently before the touch, so that the dog recognizes that it comes before and sees that as a cue to do the behavior.

I don't find modeling to be very useful for teaching tricks (though you could use an element of modeling to fine tune a portion of a trick), therefore, I've never developed a list of trick possibilities for modeling.

For an example of modeling, lets say you want to teach your dog to let you handle her feet (in preparation for doing her nails).  The process is simple and progresses carefully with a click/treat for several repetitions of each of the following increments:

          ·  reach hand toward foot
          ·  touch toe gently with finger tip
          ·  touch toe with slight hold of touch
          ·  touch toe with more pressure
          ·  touch side of toe
          ·  touch back of foot
          ·  touch back of foot with gentle pressure
          ·  lift foot ever so gently so its "light" on the ground
          ·  lift foot more
          ·  lift foot and pause before clicking
          ·  lift foot and add duration to the hold
          ·  lift/hold foot and gently touch a toe with the other hand
          ·  lift/hold foot and gently manipulate a toe with the other hand
          ·  lift/hold foot and manipulate toe as if to clip the nail

You would need to repeat this process in its entirety, while holding the clippers in the other hand.  You will need to insert these steps after "lift foot and add duration to the hold".

          ·  reach toward foot with hand holding the clippers
          ·  reach toward foot and touch clippers to nail
          ·  tap clippers on the nail
          ·  hold foot and gently manipulate a toe while touching nail with clippers
          ·  hold foot and mock clipping the nail

 

Gimme here:  Even though I had my nails done often when I was a tiny puppy, when I first got my person, I didn't think she should do them.  I didn't know if she knew what she was doing and that worried me.  She waited until she had time for us to go through this whole process.  When I was sure she was well trained in trimming nails, then I didn't have to worry anymore.  Besides there were at least a hundred yummy treats to eat while she was learning, so that made it like a special spa treatment.  What more could a pretty spottie girl deserve...

 

Its important to build in a bit of delay between the mock clipping of the nail and the clicking.  Remember, click ends the behavior, so you don't want your dog to think the behavior is over and jerk his foot away, getting ouched in the process.  Usually by the time I get to this point, I can no longer hold the clicker and the clippers and go through the motions.  So I set the clicker down on a stable surface.  Then after I do the behavior and while still holding the foot, I use a finger to click the clicker.  This pretty clearly reinforces for the dog the idea of letting me continue to hold the paw after the manipulation/clipping.

Targeting to Get Behaviors

Targeting works well to get your dog to move somewhere away from you or when a behavior involves a specific place. Your dog can be taught to target a margarine lid, target stick, your hand, his leash or his bed (or anything for that matter).

Targeting is often a component of other methods to get the behavior (and vice versa) and in a sense is what is happening (hand targeting) when you move away from food luring. Keep in mind that transitioning the human to a standing/upright position can be difficult with some lured behaviors, so using a target stick can be helpful. Almost any trick taught by luring can be taught by targeting – once you create a target fiend in your dog.

Gimme here:  My person and I invented something special using targeting and then free shaping.  I have a piece of wood that I learned to target with my front feet.  Then my person used my favorite free shaping to teach me to spin in a circle while keeping my feet on the wood target.  She calls it a forehand pivot.  I'm very good at it and people say I have a sophisticated awareness of my back feet.  That may be true, but I just like doing it because its fun.

Anti-target is teaching the dog to move away (or move a body part away) from the anti-target end of the target stick and gives you a whole range of movements you can teach your dog.  Its especially useful for freestyle and many tricks.  The anti-target end is usually painted a different color (white) than the target end (blue or yellow).  [note: these colors are easiest for dogs of all breeds to see.]

I start by teaching each of the targeting base behaviors so I have them in place when I need one.  You will notice right away that some dogs are nose dogs and some are paw dogs.  That means they prefer to touch with either their nose or foot.  It is a useful exercise to make sure your dog has both nose touch and foot touch behaviors among his targeting basics.  For instance: foot touch a margarine lid, nose touch a target stick, nose touch your hand, nose touch his leash, foot and then bumm touch to his bed.

Your dog can target and follow your hand (medium to large dogs) or a target stick (smaller dogs) to learn to walk alongside you. You can teach your dog to rest his head in your hand during a veterinary exam (starts as a luring exercise). Targeting, or going to lay on his bed, is a good behavior to teach in place of rude door behavior or begging during dinner.  You may want to keep the target as part of the behavior, so plan ahead.  You may need to take that bed with you when you travel (or you could teach the same behavior to different bedding that you indicate by a cue).  Usually you will need to fade the target during moving behaviors.

To teach your dog to nose target your hand or target stick, click/treat every time your dog turns to look at your outstretched hand or the target stick. Then gradually increase the behavior until he follows your hand or the target stick.

When you start working on the dog walking alongside you, first your hand will be at nose level, then you will fade your target hand to a position near your waist as if you were holding the leash.  In the case of a target stick you fade it by sliding it up your arm so that less and less of the stick is visible in your hand.  If you use a target stick a lot, it can be helpful to make several in different lengths (36", 24" and 12" are helpful sizes).  Make sure your target stick has a rounded end so your dog isn't put off by nose touching an abrupt edge.

For the bed example, you might click/treat every time your dog turns to look toward the bed. Then gradually increase the behavior until he goes to and lays down on the bed.  Did you notice the free-shaping element there?  Be sure to use small increments as you shape to the end behavior. In the end you must decide what cues to use. You can put it on that verbal cue "go to bed", as well as teaching that the sound of the doorbell is the cue to go to bed.

Plan ahead to decide what cue you want to end up with, so that you are taking a direct route fading-wise and don’t create more work for yourself and your dog.

Teaching Anti-target

Teach your dog the anti-target concept in advance as another targeting basic.  First teach your dog that touching the anti-target end does not "count" as a clickable behavior. Hold the stick parallel to the ground by the middle with both the target and anti-target ends available. The dog must target the correct end to get a click/treat.  Then holding the stick by the target end (blue or yellow bulb) gently touch your dog in the flank area and click for any movement away. This is a gentle tickle – not a poke in the side.

If your dog attempts to target the anti-target end, you have multiple options:

• lift the stick away and use a shorter leash to control the head while reaching around to tickle the side
• repeatedly allow the dog to touch the target end without reward and wait for the unrewarded behavior to extinguish
• go back and repeat the exercise that teaches the dog to target only the bulb end of the stick

Teach the dog with gentle touches to the front feet to move the feet away at the approach of the anti-target end. Add touches to other body parts, always click/treating when the dog moves away.  From time to time, go back to targeting the target end to make sure the dog doesn’t lose that behavior and to solidify the difference in the two ends.

Target a Trick
I recommend using targeting to teach your dog a trick.  That is a good way to practice a training method so you can relax and enjoy the process, before you use targeting for something important.  Remember, "important" is a human point of view; its all tricks to your dog.  Speaking of tricks, here's a list of possible tricks for targeting:

spin
around you
over or under an obstacle
onto an obstacle
weave under the legs - stationary
weave through legs walking
low crawl (butt stays down)
high crawl (butt up like bow)
ballerina (stand up)
sit up and beg
left and right
chin in your hands – a freestyle ending

Here's a list of possible tricks for anti-targeting:

side passes in front of you
side passes beside you and with you
side passes beside you and away
pivot on forehand
pivot on hindquarters
backing up
move straight toward you while you back up
backwards (pivoting) leg weaves
trot in place

Remember:  You are limited only by your own creativity.

Free Shaping to Get Behaviors

Free shaping is almost an advanced form of "capturing" and works well for behaviors the dog does not offer or do naturally as a complete behavior. It develops your dog's creativity and confidence and makes learning into a cool game for the dog.  It also develops very sophisticated body awareness. The drawback is that it requires more patience on the part of the trainer. Also, some crossover dogs (dogs that were initially trained by compulsion methods) may not offer behaviors or may be slow to learn to initiate during the training process.

Gimme here:  I especially love free shaping.  I'm very clever and its a fun game to figure out what my person wants.  She recently taught me 5 different tricks this way.  I can step backwards putting my back feet into a box, get up on a plastic tub and sit, lay on my back with my feet in the air, put my head under a chair, and push a cube across the floor with my nose.  My person says we are going to work these tricks through all six stages of learning and then I'll be even smarter than I am now.  I'm really smart already, so I'll be awesomely brilliant after we are done.  I'm just saying.

You start by clicking/treating the barest hint of the behavior you want to end up with, and then concentrate on taking small steps closer to your goal.  I find it helpful to imagine the whole form as a video tape and then watching the tape frame-by-frame. Each frame of the video tape represents one possible increment of the shaping process.

For example, you might free shape a left spin.  The process could be to click/treat when:

          ·  your dog just looks to the left
          ·  when he turns his head to the left
          ·  when he turns his head further left
          ·  when he turns it far enough to shift his weight leftward
          ·  when he turns enough to take a step to the left
          ·  a head turn and two steps
          ·  a head turn and three steps
          ·  gradually a turn in a complete circle
          ·  two circles
          ·  faster circles

Years ago I taught my nearly blind dog Lucy to ride her skateboard.  Because of her visual handicap, if she was going to be comfortable doing this trick, I had to be very careful.  It turned out to be a useful exercise to teach me to increment the process in fine detail.   Here is the process I used.

Because I wanted her to be very confident of the skateboard in preparation for its later movement, I first started with a board on the ground (without wheels). I clicked/treated for the following steps (for a dog less confident in offering, I would have used even smaller steps):

          ·  looking toward the board
          ·  stepping toward the board
          ·  nose touch or sniffing the board (since I eventually wanted her 
              feet on the board I didn’t accept too many of these nose bops,
              just enough to confirm for her that the board was in fact the deal)
          ·  stepping around and over the board
          ·  accidentally stepping on the board
          ·  pawing at the board
          ·  standing on the board with one foot
          ·  standing on the board with both feet (in hindsight, when the board
              was up on wheels it was wobbly when she stepped on either end,
              so I wished I’d shaped standing in a specific place on the board)

Once the wheels were added the free shaping continues to encourage standing on a board that is no longer flat on the ground and I’d be prepared to "start over" if need be. I set the board up on bricks so it wouldn’t move under her feet. I clicked and treated as follows:

          ·  looking toward the board
          ·  stepping over the board
          ·  pawing at the board
          ·  standing on the board with one foot
          ·  standing on the board with both feet – to encourage her to stay
              on, I stayed nearby & quickly delivered treats while her feet
              were still on it

To get started with the board moving, I wrapped lots of rags around the wheels (held in place with rubber bands) so that it would only move a tiny bit. I clicked and treated as needed to get her back to confidently standing on the board. Then the steps were:

          ·  standing on the board for longer periods of time
          ·  pushing the board with her feet and hopping off – initially I clicked
              even if she hopped off when it moved so she didn’t feel pressured
              to do something that was uncomfortable, then upped the ante
          ·  pushing on the board and staying with both feet on as it moves

The next step was to free shape her interaction until she put her two front feet on the board and pushed it across the room without getting off. To get her confidently to that sort of control, I set up the training to increment movement is small bites that weren’t scary. The plan was:

          ·  to do the skateboard on a lumpy comforter that didn’t let it move
              much or too quickly
          ·  skateboard on carpet between rolled towels that formed wheel
              chocks so it only moved six inches, then eight inches, then one
              foot, two feet, several feet, across the room
          ·  skateboard on towels over linoleum – again between rolled towels
              that formed wheel chocks to restrict forward movement
          ·  then skateboard on plain linoleum with rolled towel chocks

The critical part of this learning process is that the increments be so fine that the dog gets LOTS of reinforcement and has plenty of motivation to stay in the game. In the case of the skateboard, or anything that has the potential to be scary... it is crucial to set things up so that the steps are so small that you never risk frightening the dog.

Although this sounds like a really involved process, it goes much faster than you might think. Lucy, a very savvy free shaping dog, got through all the board flat on the floor part of the process in one 8 minute session. The next session the wheels were added and we had two 6 minute sessions with rags around the wheels – partly because of trying to get her to get to the center of the board for less wobbly riding. Then one session for each of the remaining four steps.  So just 7 short session and this with a visually handicapped dog.

Although I wrote this out for your benefit, I usually don’t do that much pre-planning for most of my free shaping sessions, although I have a mental picture of how I expect the process to go. As a training exercise for yourself, you could write out a plan for a trick and see how close reality follows your plan.

The other part of free shaping that is important is to consider those times when using bits and pieces of other ways to get the behavior might be useful. For instance, since I initially let Lucy step anywhere on the board, to help her get the idea of stepping on the middle of the board, I used a yellow post-it note to attract her attention.  In hindsight (or if I hit a snag in her skateboard training and decided to back up) it could have been a valuable approach to teach her to target a post-it note on the floor, then move it to the board. Never be afraid to experiment or combine methods.  In reality most training is some combination of the five methods anyway.

Remember, if marine mammal specialists can free shape a multi-ton walrus (with the capability of easily maiming or killing its handlers) to present its flipper through safety bars for a blood draws, then you can free shape just about anything your dog is physically capable of doing.

Because the trick possibilities with free shaping are practically limitless, I'm not giving you a list of trick ideas. Keep it fun, keep it safe...

Remember: You are limited only by your own creativity.

Luring to Get Behaviors

Luring is great for getting the dog to move or assume a position, such as luring into a sit or down, or luring them to walk alongside you.

The drawback to luring is that it is easy to get stuck with luring so that the dog only does the behavior when you have food held in front of their nose or in your hand. Sometimes dogs don't learn what we are trying to teach, for instance instead of learning to walk alongside you the dog learns to follow your fingers. You may not realize this until you test the learning when trying to walk your dog while carrying a bag of groceries.

Gimme here:  When I was a very young puppy, my person used food on the end of my nose to help me find my way over the dogwalk in our front yard.  She was careful to start out very low so I didn't get scared.  Before long I was running alongside my person over the dogwalk.  She's been making it taller and I still have a lot of fun with it.  She always gives me treats for running over it.  Sometimes when she is mowing the lawn I try to get her attention so she will see when I run over my dogwalk.  Sometimes I get treats and sometimes she tosses a stick for me.  I love my dogwalk.

Try to think of "Lure a little", so that you only lure with food in your hand a few times (five times maximum). To lure a behavior, hold a treat in front of your dog's nose and without letting him eat it, use it as a "nose magnet," since she'll probably follow it everywhere. After that lure with an empty hand (still smelly from holding the previous treat).  I deliver a treat to the luring hand from the other hand and then use the luring hand to deliver the treat to my dog (this way the luring hand stays in front of the dog the whole time).  After doing it that way about five times, then I start using the luring hand to get the treat out of my treat bag and deliver it to the dog.  Initially you might have to meet the luring hand halfway with the other hand until the dog understands that she still needs to stay there and wait for the treat to come to her.  Then you will need to "fade" your luring hand (make it less obvious until it isn't needed) in a gradual process, until it is simply a hand signal.

You can lure a sit by slowly moving the treat from the nose back towards the top of the head. Keep it low, so the dog doesn't jump up. As soon as he sits, click and treat. If the dog is trying everything but sitting, at first click/treat for lowering back legs and butt. Then see if you can gradually shape for a full sit.  Be sure not to lure too fast so that you lose the dog.  Be careful to fade the luring gradually so that it becomes the hand signal for your dog’s trick.

You can lure the dog to walk alongside you and gradually fade your hand up out of nose range and closer to your waist as if holding a leash.

Lure a Trick
I recommend luring a trick for your dog.  That is a good way to practice a training method so you can relax and enjoy the process, before you use luring for something important.  Remember, "important" is a human point of view; its all tricks to your dog.  Speaking of tricks, here's a list of possible tricks to lure:

spin
around you
over or under an obstacle
onto an obstacle
weave under the legs - stationary
weave through legs walking
zig-zag dance (turn away)
low crawl (butt stays down)
high crawl (butt up like bow)
ballerina (stand up)
sit up and beg
keep away... (a great heeling game, just try to get away from your dog once s/he knows the game)
dig on the floor (food under tape)
roll-over
dead bug (on back feet in air)
cha-cha (dog walks behind you with feet on your bum or back)
left and right
zoob-zoob-zoom

Remember: You are limited only by your own creativity.

Capturing to Get Behaviors

Use capturing for behaviors that your dog already does in a more or less complete form. Such as: sit, sit up and beg and down. Each dog has its own repertoire of things it does frequently. Capturing is not effective for teaching the dog to do something that he is unlikely to do naturally.

Capturing can be used in conjunction with classical conditioning to put some behaviors on cue that you might not normally think of - such as pottying.  Its very handy when traveling or during bad weather.  You can do it just like Pavlov did when he put the involuntary drooling response on cue by pairing drooling with the ringing of a bell.  Remember Pavlov presented meat powder to the dog to make it drool and then rang the bell.  You can do the same thing with pottying.  If you say your potty cue every time the dog is squatting to pee, over time the word will be come classically conditioned with the urge to go.  Then you start picking times when you can see the dog is about to go (so already feeling the urge), maybe because of a certain sniffing behavior that they do beforehand, and say the cue then.  Over time you can take your dog out on lead, say the cue word and if they have any need to go, they will feel the feeling and bim bada boom - peeing on cue.  Do not use the clicker when attaching a cue to this kind of behavior, since you don't want to end the behavior.

I do recommend that you use care when selecting the cue.  It should not be a word you would use in casual conversation.  Years ago a puppy buyer of mine taught her dog to perform to the word "potty".  Her son came home from school and mom said, "Get the leash and take Mindy out to potty" and the dog immediately squatted to pee, with great relief.  Fortunately the owner had the good sense to instantly realize the dog was not wrong for peeing - also fortunately it was in the kitchen on linoleum.  I use, "bizness", as in, "do your business". 

You must simply be prepared with clicker and treats to catch your dog doing the action you want to capture. Sometimes this is done while watching TV, but this will vary according to when your dog is most likely to do it. When you see it, click the clicker during the behavior and give the dog the treat. Timing is important. Think of the clicker as a camera marking the instant the dog is doing the right thing.

Your dog will probably leap up and come running to you for that treat and it may be awhile before he does it again. Be patient and wait.

If you are trying to capture something you want the dog to continue without stopping then you may not want to use the clicker, since click ends the behavior. An example might be capturing calm behavior. In that case just quietly reward the dog for the desired behavior without clicking and continue to reward it as the behavior is continued. For instance, you may reward calmly laying down when you first see it, then again in a minute and every minute for awhile, then gradually increase the time between rewards. You would also want to gradually change the type of reward, such as going from a treat to gentle stroking.

Gimme here:  My person gives me "pennies from heaven" for being a good quiet girl.  I'd much rather play 100% of the time, but she says I need my rest too.  So in the beginning I got treats for laying down and quietly chewing my bone.  Now I get petting for the same thing.  She often turns off the overhead light to encourage me to settle down and that helps.  As much as I like to play, which is a LOT, I also love our cuddles on the couch. 

To expand on this – keep in mind that you are capturing behaviors all the time, whether you intend to or not. All behavior is "under the control of its consequences". If a dog tries a behavior and something good happens for the dog, then it is likely to be repeated.  From a survival point of view this makes perfect sense; it wouldn’t promote survival for a dog to waste energy doing something that didn’t get it "good stuff".

Capture a Trick
I recommend capturing a trick for your dog.  That is a good way to practice a training method so you can relax and enjoy the process, before you use capturing for something important.  Remember, "important" is a human point of view; its all tricks to your dog.  Speaking of tricks, here's a list of possible tricks to capture:

spin or chase the tail
sneeze "do you like my perfume?"
yawn "are you tired"
scratching "do you have fleas?"
carry leash in mouth "go take yourself for a walk"
chin on your knee "do you love me"
pawing at ears "how was that joke?"
laying down with a specific paw pose to become "say your prayers"
rolling on the back "be a cockroach"

stretching "take a bow"

shaking (like when wet)

carrying anything that could be stylized as a trick, such as a light plastic lunchbox with dog treats in it for "lets go to work"

shaking head yes or no

barking "whadya think?"

quiet ruff for whispering "shssssh"

quiet growl "be a mean dog"

moaning

Remember:  You are limited only by your own creativity.

Overall Training Plan

Stages of Learning
Effective training follows a pattern of "stages".  There are six stages of learning for you to work through if your dog is going to be well trained and reliable.  People who are training with canine performance goals in mind, should aim to train through all six stages.  Those who simply want an great companion who is a joy to live with, may not need to go that far.  Do realize, some behaviors don't even have all three of the last stages as components.

Once you teach your dog several behaviors and go through the 6 Stages of Learning for each, you notice your dog understands the pattern and knows what comes next.  With reward based training, your dog becomes a willing partner who is eager to learn.  So, the more you train the faster and easier it gets.  Be careful though - reward based training is so much fun that it can be really addictive.

The 6 Stages of Learning are:

1. Get the behavior
2. Add the verbal cue
3. Wait for the cue
4. Add distraction
5. Add duration
6. Add distance

Get the Behavior
In order to reinforce a behavior, you must first "get the behavior". You cannot reinforce what is not happening. There are five general methods to get a behavior: Capturing, Luring, Free Shaping, Targeting and Modeling.  Each will be discussed in detail in a separate blog entry.  They each have advantages and disadvantages.
 
People tend to have preferences about which they use the most. I have noticed many dogs seem to have preferences or at least differences in their learning style that make one or another more effective for them.
 
Your goal should be to have a working understanding of all five methods and know when to best use each.

In this blog you will notice that I speak of "shaping" a behavior and also "free shaping" as a method to get a behavior.

• Shaping refers to the process of gradually changing the behavior you are getting to get closer to a final version of the behavior.
• Free shaping as a method to get behavior refers to using shaping only with what the dog offers to you (i.e. not using capturing, luring, modeling or targeting to prompt the behavior).

Capturing is most effective for behaviors your dog already does in a more or less complete form. Such as: sit, sit up and beg, down and potty. Each dog has its own repertoire of things it does frequently. Capturing is not effective for teaching the dog to do something that he is unlikely to do naturally.

Luring is best used for getting the dog to move or assume a position, such as luring into a sit or down, or luring them to walk alongside you.

Free Shaping is sort of an advanced form of "capturing" and is used well for behaviors the dog does not offer or do naturally as a complete thing. It develops your dog's creativity and confidence and makes learning into a cool game for the dog.

Gimme here:  I especially love free shaping games.  I'm very clever and creative and I have oodles of confidence, so I can really shine when we play this game.  I'm not bragging, it's the truth.


Targeting is best used to get your dog to move somewhere or when a behavior involves a specific place. Your dog can be taught to target a margarine lid, target stick, your hand, his leash or his bed (or any thing for that matter).

Modeling/Molding involves physical manipulation of the dog into a position or place. It can be effective for simple behaviors with some dogs. Many dogs seem to resent being physically manipulated into position or are uncomfortable with being touched or held in certain ways.