Shaping Is Fun! (aka Today's Sunshine)

Monster and I have been working more on base position through shaping using a platform (I told you about this yesterday, keep up). While it's still far from complete, I finally get the charm of shaping!

Shaping has never really worked for us before. If Monster isn't being given cues and guidance, he'll just shut down. I assume this is a result from our unfortunate time of correction based training, and I'd more or less given up on Monster ever conquering this. As I told you yesterday, he did the same when I first introduced the box. Instead of experimenting and offering up a score of behaviors to try to find the right one, as you read about in all those smug, braggy (not really, I'm just jealous) explanations of shaping, he'll just become passive and either wander off or lie down and look at me mournfully.

But now! As soon as I walk near the box, he'll do an amazing flying stomp to get on it and then look at me expectantly. It's so great it's actually making me tear up! (I've had to put the box away when we're not training now, since he just won't leave it alone.)

Well, click already!

I've tried to use the camera to capture it, but it's really hard since the focus still has to be on Monster and rewarding everything he does right. However, I discovered something today I just had to share. Well, I've noticed it before of course, I expect everyone has. Tail position. Yeah, advanced stuff, right? But see, while I know dogs "talk" with their tails, and I can read Monster fairly well, today's training really drove home how precise it is, and how much it tells me about how the training is going. I couldn't catch an example of everything, so I'm using some other photos too. Check this out:

*Should be a photo here, but I don't have one. It looks almost identical to the next one, except the tail is limp and close to the body.*

Above should be an illustration of what it looks like when he doesn't understand, and is also unmotivated to try, perhaps even a bit uncomfortable. This would be how he looked when I first put the box in front of him and he shut down.

I don't get it...

Here his tail is pretty low, but he's holding it a bit out from his body. It says he's interested in the situation, but has no clue what's going on. This is what his tail looked like when he first started interacting with the box at all.

Hang on...

Here his tail is stiffer, and he's holding it out even further. This means he's fully engaged and actively trying to figure out what pays.

All right!

This tail is held almost straight out (looks like he has gas), and means he's really thinking. Once he's reached this position, he's working hard and figuring stuff out and learning. And enjoying himself!

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but who cares - it's fun!

Once the tail goes higher, it means he's either so sure of the behavior he no longer has to think about it, or he's become exhausted and can no longer focus. In either case, he becomes goofy instead of concentrating.

I rule the world!

And once it's high and tense, there's just no hope of working with him, he'll just jump, bark and be generally obnoxious. Too stressed.

I find that I get the best results if I try to keep him going between "Hang on..." and "All right!". If he goes lower than "Hang on..." it means he's not understanding, and if he goes higher than "All right!" it means he's either learned it already and isn't being challenged, or I've worked him too hard for too long and he's stressed out.

Our result from today is that Monster now realizes that the reward comes for moving his back paws, he'll now step around the box with his back paws while keeping his front paws on the box (and occasionally falling off).

So tomorrow - no scratch that. No planning while Dobie is here. Next time I'll try to get him to seek base position next to me, and follow me when I move away. We'll see.

But honestly, even if he never gets base position, I don't care because this has been an awesome experience!

(No, not really. He has to get good base position for us to be able to do pretty much anything... But you know what I mean.)

I've been working hard today!