Shaping Q&A: Non-Reward Markers, Reinforcement Strategies, And Making Training Work For Every Dog

In this mini Shaping Q&A, I’m diving into your top questions about non-reward markers, reinforcement strategies, how to make training work for every dog, and more! You’ll discover how to set your sessions up for success, keep motivation high, and make shaping easier and more enjoyable for both you and your dog.

Transcript:
Here we go with the first one. Your questions answered all about shaping. And wow, did we get a lot of really, really great questions.

I'm getting to your questions. So, question number one. “Should I be using a non reward marker when I'm shaping?” No. Your antecedent arrangements are arranged in a way that the response you're looking for is the obvious response. So, no help from you. It is all on your planning, your setting up of the dog and the dog's offered previously reinforced responses.

“What is a good exercise to help a dog to learn to be okay with offering responses?” Well, something as simple as the location specific reinforcement marker of search and the blanket as I spoke about in episode number 259. That exercise will get every dog motivated to offer paw targeting. And if it doesn't, chances are your reinforcement isn't high enough value to the dog.

“I've heard the comment, click for action and reward for position. Do you agree?” You know, that is a great little rule of thumb to help differentiate between, are you shaping a stationary behavior or are you reinforcing a behavior of motion?

So, so often people want their dogs to run away from them and then they click and reward them back at them. But I would click and reward the dog by throwing something and I wouldn't even click, honestly, I would just use a verbal marker like ‘good’ and throw their reinforcement out there to them. Now ‘click for action, reward for position’ isn't always 100 percent what we do. By saying “search”, we aren't really reinforcing for position, but we're intentionally reinforcing to icreate a reset that allows a dog to do what we're looking for.

“I try to shape, but my mechanics suck and my dog and I get very frustrated. So, I've heard shaping isn't for novices. Is this true?” So, shaping is for everybody in my opinion because the more you do it, the better you get at it. If you and your dog are getting frustrated, that comes back to your antecedent arrangements. And I would go back to the paw targeting, start with something simple and then grow from that. Again, successive approximations are probably going to frustrate you and your dog more than shaping with behavioral blocks. And as I mentioned earlier, that when the dog gets frustrated, you'll get cheap behaviors like barking, whining, pawing at you, things you don't want are going to get built into that behavior. And that's going to be even more frustrating for you.

“Susan, do you cue shaping sessions?” No, because to me, they're just dog training sessions. And so, you know, how I've arranged the antecedents, or my environment is a pretty big cue to my dogs that we're about to learn something new or work on something that we've been working on in the past.

“What do you do if the dog keeps getting it wrong?” I would end the session. Have them jump in the Hot Zone, give them a reinforcement for that. And then I would go to my video and evaluate what part of the antecedent arrangements were in opposition to what I really wanted my dog to do.

Now, if you have a dog that's been shaped a certain trick, and they just keep offering that trick over and over and over again, you can interrupt it by maybe doing a collar grab and moving them. But again, I really like the dog to figure things out for themselves, but in a way that doesn't frustrate anybody. And so, if I can rearrange the antecedents and create an environment where the correct is super obvious, that would be my first choice.

“Does shaping work with all behaviors and tricks that can be taught or shaping only for specific things?” I use shaping for everything. So, I can't think of something that it can't be taught with. “Some things I just can't fathom how to shape.” Okay. Leave me a comment. Let me know what it was.

“Does this work with all breeds, even unintelligent breeds?” Yikes. I personally don't think there are unintelligent breeds. I believe that there are breeds that are better suited for some skills than others.

And yes, shaping works for all, not just dogs, but parrots and hamsters and rats and your backyard crows and squirrels. I mean, there's so many things. I don't want to encourage you to feed wildlife, but all animals learn by shaping even yes, us people.

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