Getting Behaviours

When dog training, whether for obedience, competition, sport, or tricks, there are several ways of “getting behaviours”, but the most popular methods used by clicker trainers are:

• Luring
• Capturing
• Shaping

Luring is a hands-off method of guiding the dog through a behaviour. Here is an example of using a food lure for training “down”.  With your dog in the sit position hold a food lure in your hand. With your hand closed, position your hand close to your dogs nose and slowly draw a line down to in-between your dogs front paws. As you do this your dog should naturally follow your hand, and as soon as he is in the “down” position mark the behaviour with a “click”, open your hand and reward him with the treat.

Luring is a great way of kick starting a new behaviour, but a lure should only be used for 3 maybe 4 repetitions to ensure your dog does not become lure dependent. So in the example above on the 5^th repetition use your empty hand to guide your dog in to the “down” position but do not take your hand all the way down to in-between his paws, stop short and allow your dog to finish the behaviour with no further lure. As soon as he is in the “down” position mark the behaviour with a “click”, get a treat from a pouch and reward.

On the 6^th repetition use your empty to hand to give just the smallest gesture, stop, allow your dog to finish the behaviour and as soon as he is in the “down” position mark the behaviour with a “click” and reinforce with a “treat”. On the 7^th repetition give no gesture at all, allow your dog to finish the behaviour, as soon as he does, “click and treat”.

Capturing a behaviour simply entails waiting for your dog to do something you like and then capture it with a “click and treat”, rather like taking a photograph, you capture the moment of the behaviour. You can only capture behaviours that your dog will offer frequently and naturally. Here is an example of capturing a “bow”.

On waking from a snooze dogs will typically stretch and form a “bow”. So just wait for such a moment and as soon as your dog is in the “bow” position mark the behaviour with a “click” and then reinforce with a treat. Dogs snooze a lot, so you can capture and mark the “bow” position several times in just one day.

Shaping a behaviour means building a particular behaviour by using a series of small steps to achieve it. Let’s say your dog now has a reliable “sit”, but you now want to train a 4 minute “sit,say”. You will break the behaviour down and reward successive approximations toward the desired final behaviour.

Here is an example of shaping a 4 minute “sit,stay”. Give your dog a request to “sit”, “click and treat” for just 1 second of sitting. Take a few steps away so that your dog will be encouraged to stand up and follow you, then request him to “sit” again, but this time raise the criteria slightly, wait 2 seconds, then “click an treat”. Take a few steps back again so that your dog stands and follows, and then again request a “sit”, keep raising the criteria (time) of your dogs sit position, and reward each successive approximation, until he has reach the desired final behaviour of a 4 minute “sit, stay”, then “click” and reward with a “jackpot” a handful of treats, or his favourite game.