in2adventure Posted January 12, 2009 Report Share Posted January 12, 2009 I'm new to clicker trainer, but it works really well and I have a good instructor. Lucia was taught some shaping skills with the "yes" command. It worked good and she's a smart girl, picking up on things quick. The clicker works a bit better and a lot more accurate, although I still use "yes" when I see something I want and don't have a clicker handy. Tonight I started teaching Grady fetch. He will chase anything I throw, but all he does is run and touch the object and run back to me without it It took all of 10 min to teach him to pick up the ball and bring it back using the clicker. It's never taken more than one session to teach him anything He now continuosly picks up his tennis ball and thows it at me......over and over and over and over and over............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herdcentral Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 I had a similar experience with my baby ACD. I clicker train her and my BC and I was setting up the tunnel to do some agility with my BC when I noticed my baby ACD going through the tunnel for the first time so I clicked and treated. It took one click and I created a monster. She now rushes through the tunnel at break neck speed and comes to me for her reward. She will do this endlessly even as I am trying to unfold the tunnel!. I have to be carefull what I click with my lot! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 He now continuosly picks up his tennis ball and thows it at me......over and over and over and over and over............ I would probably shape him to throw the ball into a basket or something! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted January 14, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 I would probably shape him to throw the ball into a basket or something! Currently all the tennis balls are hidden but teaching him to throw them into the toy box is a good thought. I have toys EVERYWHERE and get tired of picking them up. Grady is a lot of fun to train. Quick to catch onto things and loves to learn. Lucia on the other hand can be frustrating. She learns quick, but is stubborn about it. The whole "SIGH....do I have to? Really? I guess." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 Grady is a lot of fun to train. Quick to catch onto things and loves to learn. Lucia on the other hand can be frustrating. She learns quick, but is stubborn about it. The whole "SIGH....do I have to? Really? I guess." My Maddie was like that for a long time. The more we trained, the more she got interested in it, but that literally took years. Back when I had her in her early level classes, she used to literally lie down and take a nap in the middle of class. These days she runs Agility and she is better than I ever would have expected. She's very "what's it worth to me?" when it comes to learning, but when I convinced her that it is worthwhile, she became more open to learning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.L. Posted January 14, 2009 Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 This is happening with Bailey. He follows me around going into a down. The second I pick up the clicker he goes into a down or goes to his mat. Now that the behavior is there and I have given the behavior a name (down) and a signal (arm in the air) I ignore the action unless I give the command and signal. Now Bailey is starting to wait, looking at me expectantly for the command before automatically trying everything to get the click and treat. The goal now would be to train your dog to only do the behavior if you ask. However, that might be hard with fetch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted January 14, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2009 I have started ignoring behaviors that I don't ask for. I didn't know this when I first started using a clicker. Since I'm pretty new to it, all advice is welcome. It's cute to watch him try everything under the sun to make the clicker work I also started impulse control games with both of them. Lucia has really good impulse control, unless it's related to a small animal, but even she finds the games fun. It makes her more interested in training now because it keeps her guessing. Grady is only 10 months and self control is, well, most of you know already how that works He is getting a lot better with the training. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 I have started ignoring behaviors that I don't ask for. I didn't know this when I first started using a clicker. Since I'm pretty new to it, all advice is welcome. It's cute to watch him try everything under the sun to make the clicker work Speedy is the same way. He isn't always sure whether we are doing a free shaping session or we are working on cued behaviors. He often throws different behaviors at me until he figures out that we aren't shaping at the moment. One piece of advise I've gotten for this is to click faster for response to cued behaviors and increase the rate or reinforcement at the beginning of a training session. As far as teaching the dog that fluent behaviors are only clicked/treated when cued, there's a game you can play once your dog has a few fluent behaviors - say three to start. Get ten pieces of treat and put them in a bowl or bait bag (not in your hand or pocket!!). Cue a behavior (start off making the cue very easy, hand signals or both hand and verbal cues are fine). If your dog does it correctly click and treat. If not, ignore it and put one treat in your pocket. Cue a different behavior. If the dog does it correctly, click and treat. If not, ignore it and put one treat in your pocket. Continue until you have given ten cues. Count the treats in your pocket - that's your baseline. Take a break and then play the game again. If your dog missed a good bit, don't make it harder. What you will see before long is that you end up with less and less treats in your pocket at the end. Play a total of three times with a break in between each set of ten. If you don't end up with less treats by the third round, it shows that your dog is not fluent in the behaviors yet, and you should go back and solidify those behaviors and the dog's response on cue. If you do end up with less treats in your pocket, or none, you can make the game more challenging by using more behaviors in the game, and making the cues more subtle (smaller hand signals, verbal cue only, hand signal only, etc.) This game will also show your dog that he or she must pair the correct behavior with the correct cue to get the click/treat and that wrong response (or throwing random behaviors) will not earn a click/treat. My dogs all enjoy this a lot and I find it does help get this idea across. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herdcentral Posted January 15, 2009 Report Share Posted January 15, 2009 Talking about putting things on cue, I have a BC Regan who sounds a bit like Maddie. Her interest in agility was zero and she would lie down in class and take a nap. The very sight of agility equipment gave her lead feet. She does love her ball though so I decide to free shape with her around agility gear with the ball and clicker. She wasnt sure what I wanted to begin with but she soon got the idea and was soon going over equipment to get the click. She would do an entire sequence on her own including an awesome weave halfway across the ring at full speed and then look at me as if to ask was that good? if I didnt click she would go try more things. Because lack of speed is an issue - (she walks throught the tunnel) I started to only click if she did it fast. Next minute she is going really fast through the tunnel nearly tearing it from its tie downs - I couldnt believe what I was seeing, same with the weaves. I must say it really increased her interest in agility but now I am working to put things on cue and get her working with me, which is starting to happen. It got me thinking that maybe it was my poor handling that demotivated her in the first place! although my other dogs dont seem to mind and do well. She still has the tendency to go experiment or to check out what she might do instead of concentrating on me especially if I am not quick enough with my handling but at least she is becoming interested in the whole thing.! Clicker training can be quite tricky and I still have a lot to learn but I love the way my BC has responded to it. Turning from agility dud to a possibility in the making. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Root Beer Posted January 17, 2009 Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 We had to do a lot of Premack with Maddie with a lot of food. She is not toy motivated at all, but she is very food motivated. We spent about 2 months worth of classes about a year and a half into her training just having her perform a piece of equipment, feed, feed, feed, perform the piece, feed, feed, feed, and this - slowly - loaded up each piece. From there we went on to two or three pieces in a row, feed, feed, feed, repeat, repeat. I used the clicker as a marker quite a bit along the way because it did, sometimes, help motivate her. I'll never forget the day she did a sequence - jump, jump, tunnel, jump, jump (bent in a boomerang shape) without any treats until the end! It took SO long to get to that point! Once we got to that point, the thing that helped her most was competition. When she had the chance to feel what running a full course at speed was like (of course, at first she broke away, sniffed, visited the bar setters, etc!), the idea of the fun part of running the course sunk in. Border Collie/Lab mix - quite the challenge! I lamented her slow learning style and lack of drive for a long time, but now I've found that I didn't appreciate her enough. She's a fine Agility partner. Do you have a tunnel at home? If so, I could describe an exercise that you could do with Regan that might help build tunnel drive, and FAST! It's a shaping exercise and Maddie (who also doesn't care for tunnels) loves it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
in2adventure Posted January 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2009 I forgot about the "mother load" game. A friend taught me that a long time ago, but because I never clicker trained Lucia, I forgot about it. Lucia is really starting to have fun with it. It's only taken 3 months of clicking Grady for her to figure that it's worth checking out She now gets excited about it. I hope this will help her on the agility course. It's starting to fix her contacts, so we'll see. I haven't trained much at home because it's so friggin cold and the house doesn't have room for much more than a contact board Thanks for all the great info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herdcentral Posted January 18, 2009 Report Share Posted January 18, 2009 We had to do a lot of Premack with Maddie with a lot of food. Do you have a tunnel at home? If so, I could describe an exercise that you could do with Regan that might help build tunnel drive, and FAST! It's a shaping exercise and Maddie (who also doesn't care for tunnels) loves it. Yes I have a tunnel so that would be good. At the moment getting a ball thrown is dependent on her doing the tunnel fast but that is as far as we have got. I also load her rewards, so the faster and more accurate she is she gets the ball thrown more. I also am starting working on commands for turning which I have been using with one jump, but all the time I have to work on always training her at speed or she will follow the commands beautifully but slowly. Building joy and speed along with control is quite challenging with Regan. If I show any hint of her having done something wrong she lies down or goes slowly and carefully, it really upsets her. But we have come a long way and I am just happy to see her flying over obstacles but need to build in handling without demotivating her. I am happy to take my time on this as she is only 22 months old. My other dogs I can teach them the handling skills and they already have the drive to perform at speed when required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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