Are you looking forward to having your dog off-leash? Having reliable listening skills outdoors relies on THIS 65-year-old training discovery (and lots of good information;)
Trying to get your dog to focus outdoors? This will help: https://youtu.be/sG-B3g9i8KU
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Happy Training! ~Ken
#teachingyourdogtolistenoutside #dogtrainingoffleash
The year is 1957. A gallon of
gasoline only costs 24 cents. Whammo releases the very first Frisbee
toy and the television program Lassie was In its prime. And well-known
American psychologist, BF Skinner publishes his findings on
behavioral research in a book called The Schedules of Reinforcement. Now, We talk a lot about foundational
skills here on the channel, But when you understand what
I’m about to show you next, It’s going to completely change your
dog training. I’m Ken Steepe, and Welcome back to McCann dogs. A five is pretty reliable when we’re in
a controlled setting and he’s relatively Reliable when we’re out in a
distracting environment like this, But I wanna make sure that five
is reliable. 100% of the time, Regardless of the location. You’ve seen us load value on Five’s name
by saying his name and then rewarding Right away. You’ve also seen us make it a little
bit more challenging by doing that same Exercise when he’s distracted, Putting the treat on his nose and
bringing him back in towards us. But I want him to listen everywhere
and I want him to be excited about Listening. And that’s why we need to talk about
The Schedules of Reinforcement book from 1957. BF Skinner was well-known for his
research in something called operant Conditioning. If your dog does something
you like, even if it’s accidental, You should reward it. Then they’ll
be more likely to do it again. This is actually the foundation
for clicker training, Which you might be familiar with. And we actually show this in several
of our puppy training videos. But we use the word yes, Instead of a clicker because your voice
and yes is something that you’ll always Have with you. We’ll talk more
about shaping in an upcoming video, But what really applies to your training
right now is what Skinner learned next. In one of Skinner’s
experiments, he used pigeons. He used the same technique
to teach the pigeons, How to interact with a button on a box.
And when a pigeon would
peck the small disc, They would win and grain would pour
into a drawer in front of them. But when Skinner started rewarding the
pigeons on a variable ratio schedule, Meaning that a reward didn’t pop out
every time the pigeon pecked the disc, Sometimes it was one to one. Sometimes the pigeon pecked multiple
times before the reward came out. But what started to happen is the pigeons
became more intense with the behavior. They were more motivated
to peck more often. Variable rewards are a powerful
inducement to repeat an action. And in fact, What Skinner learned is
that the anticipation of
the reward is what motivates The behavior. And here’s
why that’s so important. So many people struggle with their dog
training and they mention things like my Dog only listens when I have treats or
my dog only listens when he wants to. But it’s really important to take a look
at what Skinner had discovered in his Book from 1957, Because when you reward and how you
reward is what’s going to get you past That puppy training phase. Where it’s
the entire donkey and carrot routine. Now there’s really a lot to unpack
with a variable ratio schedule. And we’ll actually take advantage
of these kinds of things, When we’re teaching
something like a nose target, And we’ll get the dog to repeat
the behavior multiple times. But I’m more interested in teaching
you about the power of anticipation For the reward, Because this is the thing that can really
change any behavior for any dog owner. We’ve started to work on his response
to name in controlled environments on Leash. We’ve started to work on his
response to name, come on bud, this way, In these more distracting environments.
With him on a six foot leash, He’s even graduated up to 25 foot long
line. And we’ve began to shorten that. But it’s because we’ve been so focused
on good timing with our rewards and Things like using our voice, using motion. The big question is today when we
make the transition from on-leash To off-leash, is he going to have the
same reliability? But before I do that, I wanna do a couple of repetitions
with him. Where I just reinforce,
Remind him that every
time he responds to me, He’s gonna get something out of it.
Okay, buddy, as he munches on the grass, Let’s go pal. Five. Good
boy. Good, nice job. So I’m going to reward him every single
time. That was a pretty quick turn, Which is really nice. I’ll let him
get distracted again. Five good boy. That’s a nice job. Now, keep in mind
that I’m gonna do this just a few times, Cuz I wanna reinforce that. Great turn.
That nice behavior this way, buddy. Come on over here, But I’m gonna keep rewarding him
until I remove the line five. Yes. Good job buddy. So you saw, You see how enthusiastic he is about
this that’s because we’ve front loaded so Much value on him turning
every time I say his name. Now the true test. I’m going
to remove the line. Okay, pal, Because I know this is a pretty safe
environment and I know that I’m getting Some great responses. Now
when we talk about good boy, I I’m actually going to reward that. Remember when we talked about
some of that operant conditioning, He chooses to come back to
me, I’m just gonna reward it. I’m gonna reinforce that behavior.
I’m more likely to get it again. But what I’m not doing is I’m not
calling with my hand in my bait pouch. I’m not bringing that food out until I
have real commitment because I want the Anticipation of reward to be the
big, exciting part. Okay pal, Let’s move around. The other thing,
I’m going to do Five. Yes. Good boy. You can see when I start to get some
commitment, then I can go to my treat. The other thing I’m going to do is I’m
going to vary vary the rewards that I’m Giving him in my treat. In my bait pouch,
I have a couple of different things. This has to stay interesting. In that variable ratio schedule good boy. In that variable ratio schedule
that Skinner talks about. He would vary the amount of times that
the dog would do the behavior before he’d Reward. But I’m not gonna do that
at this point in his training. I don’t want him to ever think that
it might not be worth it to turn. That comes a little bit later. That’s
something that we’re gonna work on in the, Not too distant future with great
responses like this. So right now,
The way I’m gonna change up the response
is I’m going to pull out different Kinds of treats five. Yeah, good boy.
When I get that nice commitment on me. Good job, buddy. Maybe I’ll give him
some liver if I get a great response. But one of the most exciting things. Okay. One of the most powerful toys for
this dog and maybe for your dog too, Is changing things up
to a toy reward. This, This kind of skill when I
don’t need absolute precision,
I just want motivation. Sometimes a toy. I’m gonna
toss this thing up there. You might get distracted by it. Sometimes
a toy is the best way to reward that. Five. Yeah, good boy. I get that commitment on me and I
start to reward him with that toy. But remember I’m not
shaking the toy first. I’m not telegraphing that I have something
great because I want him to turn. Yes, I, yes, that moment. And I want him to be so excited about
what might be coming at the end of this. This is the power of what Skinner learned. You’ll get the animal to repeat the
behavior with greater motivation by Taking advantage of that anticipation.
Good job buddy, way to go. Here this way five here. Good boy. He’s really distracted by something
over there. This is really good. I wanna talk about this at
this point in our training, I’m gonna take a step back
to our response to name Five. Good boy. Now I can start to discriminate between
some of the behaviors that wasn’t a very Good response. So I’m just
gonna pet and praise him. But now I’m gonna move him in a way
that he’s likely to be more successful. And this is why that anticipation or
being really mindful of when you reward Five. Yes, that’s better. Good
boy. It was a little bit better. Certainly wasn’t as
motivated as the other ones. I can maybe give him one
treat that variable ratio
now becomes one treat for an Okay response. Five. Yeah. Good boy. But I can give him a toy or I can give
him get it two or three or four treats. When I get a nice,
motivated, enthusiastic, Energetic response from my dog. When
you’re training outside with your dog,
There are a million different things
competing for their attention. So it’s very important that you teach
them that the anticipation of finding out Which great thing they’re going to get
when they get to you is better than the Possibility of some kind of engagement
with that stock video squirrel over There. We’ve talked a lot about treat training
today and a lot of people make some Really big mistakes when using treats
in their training so that you don’t make Those same mistakes. Check
out that video right here. And if you’d like some personalized
coaching on teaching your dog to listen in Distracting environments, check
out our online Life Skills program, Where you can work with
some of our McCann Dogs, Instructors at a pace that suits you. The link for that is in the description
below on that note, I’m Ken, This is Five. Happy Training.