Here, you see me work on step 2 from yesterday’s post:
Practice your verbal cue with an easy version of your distraction in an easy location (at home, in your house). Make sure to cue the behavior after the dog has seen or accessed the distraction (new cue – old cue, in this situation, means first comes the distraction, then the verbal cue). We want the distraction to predict the verbal cue.
Fun with marker cues!
You’ll also see me use 3 marker cues in this session: tongue click (food from hand), “Get it!” (chase a thrown treat), and “Okay” (release to the environment, in this case, the kibble on the floor). I call Game out of eating a few times just to make sure my recall cue is as strong as it needs to be for this training project to work – and it is.
I’m using the same value food here from my hand and from the floor (kibble).
Please note: if your dog does not like being “pestered,” only interrupt them once while they are eating. Game doesn’t mind because she’s a Mal, and loves to work. Not all dogs are like that. While we want to test our recall cue, we also want to make sure it keeps its positive connotations and doesn’t feel like we are nagging the dog!
Wanna work on this or similar behaviors with your own dog? Join me in Out and About at Fenzi Dog Sports Academy!
Love this! Do you only offer this course once/year?
Thank you, Rhonda! It usually runs every 6 months at FDSA (I just haven’t updated the schedule yet). I’d love for you to join us this time around! There are lots of different adventures to choose from in the class!
However, if the particular behavior you’re interested in is distractions as reinforcers, you can just read along here as well. This isn’t a lecture in the class yet, and I’ll be documenting Game’s daily progress here on my blog! Feel free to share your progress in the comments if you train along with your own dog! 🙂