# Charging the clicker - when will I know that he "gets it"?



## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

I've started working with my 9 week old lab (Charlie). He isn't the first puppy I've trained, he's my second (LOL) so I am not too experienced at all. I didn't clicker train the first puppy because I was working through a seeing eye dog group and had to follow their training, which was mostly luring behavior with treats then fading treats. 

I really want to use capturing his behavior as much as possible with Charlie and have been charging the clicker the past 2 days. Short sessions with him. But I don't know if he really gets it. He looks at the clicker hand when I click then looks at the treat hand and I give him a treat. Does it sound like he's got it?

On the other hand, he is doing amazing with Zen. I'm kind of in shock that he gets it already. :clap2:

Thanks so much in advance for any advice 

Lisa


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## aBlueDog (Feb 14, 2011)

You will know when he is facing away from you and you click and he gets whip lash looking at you


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

It sounds like he's getting a connection right now: first comes the click, then the treat. That's a good start! The thing Harper has been doing lately, is focusing more on the sound, and looking at me. He doesn't look to the other hand to get the treat. The treat doesn't necessarily have to follow immediately, because he's confident he'll get it in a second. So, it's kind of like the click is really what he's after, because he knows what will eventually come. It doesn't have to be immediate with him looking at both hands! Does that make sense? Probably not, lol!


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

I've been making sure he's already focused (more or less) on me when I'm doing this so I will try it next time when he's not looking at me and see what happens. I'll also try giving it a second before giving him the treat and see if he looks at my face. Pretty much I've been following the advice from Pat Miller's The Power of Positive Dog Training: "_Click!_ the clicker and pop a treat into your dog's mouth."

:sigh: I just want to get this right, you know? BTW, my avatar is of my two dogs. Charlie is the puppy, and the older lab is Kiwi.


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## qingcong (Oct 26, 2009)

Actually, there's no point at which he "gets it", meaning there will never be a point when he's at 100% forever. He can have a strong charge, weak charge, or non-existent charge. There's no absolute charge. Your goal is to keep the charge strong, and you'll know when you click at he makes a beeline for your hand.


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## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

qingcong said:


> you'll know when you click at he makes a beeline for your hand.



That would sound like the dog "gets it" to me.

Yet you say there's no point where he'll get it?

What part of the above behavior would be the dog NOT getting it?


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## qingcong (Oct 26, 2009)

KBLover said:


> That would sound like the dog "gets it" to me.
> 
> Yet you say there's no point where he'll get it?
> 
> What part of the above behavior would be the dog NOT getting it?



In training, we're not concerned about knowledge and understanding. I'm not saying dogs don't understand stuff, it's that until we know how the brain works, we'll treat them as a black box where we simply observe frequency of behavior. If you started clicking everyday and nothing happened, eventually the click's charge will become weaker and weaker. We do know what he "gets", so we don't care about that.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

I usually hold the clicker behind my back, because I don't want the clicker to be a visual thing, I want them to respond to the sound, not my finger moving. This is mostly because when I do shaping with them sometimes my finger twitches on the clicker, because I almost clicked them, but then decided it wasn't good enough and didn't click after all, but because the dogs saw me 'almost click' they think they are getting a treat.

Wait for your puppy to be playing or do something away from you, then click, and see if he looks up at you or comes running.

Shaping puppies is sooo much fun


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

Thank you!!! Will definitely put this one to use as well!



lil_fuzzy said:


> I usually hold the clicker behind my back, because I don't want the clicker to be a visual thing, I want them to respond to the sound, not my finger moving. This is mostly because when I do shaping with them sometimes my finger twitches on the clicker, because I almost clicked them, but then decided it wasn't good enough and didn't click after all, but because the dogs saw me 'almost click' they think they are getting a treat.
> 
> Wait for your puppy to be playing or do something away from you, then click, and see if he looks up at you or comes running.
> 
> Shaping puppies is sooo much fun


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

I don't worry too much about charging the clicker. Barring special circumstances (noise sensitive dog for example), this is not a particularly challenging concept for the dog and over the course of the dog's life he is going to experience so many click-treat pairings that he's going to "get it" deep in the doggy fibers of his soul. I would say you have enough of a correlation to move on.

I understand wanting to get it right, I'm very picking in my training mechanics as well, but one of the great things about clicker training is that it's very resilient to fixing mistakes you might have made. You just change what gets reinforced!

If you haven't come across it already Susan Ailsby's Training Levels is pretty much the best thing on the internet, and an updated book form is due very soon.


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

Thank you RaeganW for the link, it's one I haven't seen. GAHHH!!!! I have so much to read LOL!! 

I know I'm probably over-doing this - I am currently loading the Protocol for Relaxation days and each step into my iPhone's todo app - but I'm having fun. I also created a database to track the puppy training and my older dog's continuing education on my iPhone as well. You can call me a nerd, it's ok  I was going to use a notebook to journal the progress but I figured since my iPhone is my third hand and most of my brain I might as well put it in there.


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## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

qingcong said:


> In training, we're not concerned about knowledge and understanding. I'm not saying dogs don't understand stuff, it's that until we know how the brain works, we'll treat them as a black box where we simply observe frequency of behavior. If you started clicking everyday and nothing happened, eventually the click's charge will become weaker and weaker. We do know what he "gets", so we don't care about that.


LOL. Probably the reason I'll never get to be a total clicker purist (though it is a tool I use and like an awful lot). I simply can't visualize a dog as a black box, and training as simple i/o would bore me to tears. I am very concerned with knowledge and understanding, and I look at training as a conversation between me and the dog. Frequently the most interesting part of the training session is not the dog increasing his frequency of behavior, but the questions he asks and the suggestions he makes. That's what keeps me involved - not charting frequency and calculating reinforcement schedules. I train because I LIKE dogs and I like being able to set up a common language with them. I guess I'll always be an artist instead of a scientist.



RaeganW said:


> I don't worry too much about charging the clicker. Barring special circumstances (noise sensitive dog for example), this is not a particularly challenging concept for the dog and over the course of the dog's life he is going to experience so many click-treat pairings that he's going to "get it" deep in the doggy fibers of his soul. I would say you have enough of a correlation to move on.
> 
> I understand wanting to get it right, I'm very picking in my training mechanics as well, but one of the great things about clicker training is that it's very resilient to fixing mistakes you might have made. You just change what gets reinforced!
> 
> If you haven't come across it already Susan Ailsby's Training Levels is pretty much the best thing on the internet, and an updated book form is due very soon.


I second Sue Ailsby's Training Levels! It's a great, easy to follow step-by-step program to a well trained dog, and also to a good foundation for any kind of competition. And the list is very supportive (also she has some great articles on her website www.dragonflyllama.com) She's also blogging about her new puppy right now! Sue thinks that charging a clicker is un-necessary, and that while it sends the message "you'll get something good for that!" it misses the other very important part of the message "I like when you give me that behavior". I don't charge, I just start with a simple behavior like the name game or targeting fingers, and usually the dog is starting to put it together in a few repetitions.


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## qingcong (Oct 26, 2009)

Pawzk9 said:


> LOL. Probably the reason I'll never get to be a total clicker purist (though it is a tool I use and like an awful lot). I simply can't visualize a dog as a black box, and training as simple i/o would bore me to tears. I am very concerned with knowledge and understanding, and I look at training as a conversation between me and the dog. Frequently the most interesting part of the training session is not the dog increasing his frequency of behavior, but the questions he asks and the suggestions he makes. That's what keeps me involved - not charting frequency and calculating reinforcement schedules. I train because I LIKE dogs and I like being able to set up a common language with them. I guess I'll always be an artist instead of a scientist.


I'm concerned with knowledge and understanding as well. Only, the knowledge and understanding is happening on my end, not the dog's end. 

I'm not a clicker purist by any means, I'm not too experienced at shaping, but I set myself to a pretty rigid set of scientific principles. There's a common misconception that clicker training is cold, boring, lifeless, uninvolved. That's exactly the opposite of how I see it. In shaping behaviors, usually done with a clicker, the dog is 100% involved in his learning. The dog is offering new behaviors, readily and willingly. The human is equally involved - the human is observing behavior and perfecting his/her timing. There is totally a conversation happening in clicker training, and it's every bit as rich as you would like. I find that approaching training in a scientific way first allows me access to the artistic side.


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

I understand what qingcong is saying about a strong, weak, and no charge, but I still believe you can tell if a dog is basically "getting" it. We started Doggy Zen, and have done some other trainings, too, that say, when there is ___% accuracy you can move on, or when they get 5/8 right, you can move on.
I agree there is no total "complete" charge, necessarily, but maybe because I'm not a purist in anything, I feel like I can make the generalization that my dog "gets" it.
I also agree with Raegan not worrying too much about charging the clicker....if there is a lot of C/T going on, the dog will see the connection there, easily enough.


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## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

qingcong said:


> I'm concerned with knowledge and understanding as well. Only, the knowledge and understanding is happening on my end, not the dog's end.
> 
> I'm not a clicker purist by any means, I'm not too experienced at shaping, but I set myself to a pretty rigid set of scientific principles. There's a common misconception that clicker training is cold, boring, lifeless, uninvolved. That's exactly the opposite of how I see it. In shaping behaviors, usually done with a clicker, the dog is 100% involved in his learning. The dog is offering new behaviors, readily and willingly. The human is equally involved - the human is observing behavior and perfecting his/her timing. There is totally a conversation happening in clicker training, and it's every bit as rich as you would like. I find that approaching training in a scientific way first allows me access to the artistic side.


Then I'm guessing you really don't look at dogs as black boxes? I think training black boxes would be boring. And, if I were trying to sell someone on the idea of this kind of training, I suspect telling them to look at their dog as a simple input/output object would be extremely off-putting. Hopefully learning and acquisition of knowledge goes on both with you and the dog, and of course, like with any learning, if you don't use it you lose it. So nothing is ever completely "learned." It is always a work in progress.


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## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

qingcong said:


> I'm concerned with knowledge and understanding as well. Only, the knowledge and understanding is happening on my end, not the dog's end.


I'm the exact opposite.

I already know what I know. I want to know what *Wally* knows or doesn't know and how he's expressing the "gaps" in his knowledge, the parts of the tasks he doesn't understand and why he might be making those incorrect-in-my-mind choices.

If that makes me unscientific, so be it. 

I use enough of the science to help understand what's in his mind. That's why I understand operant and classical conditioning and am trying to go beyond that as well. 

I believe in using behavior to see inside the "black box". To me, that's the real thrust and point of behaviorism.




qingcong said:


> In shaping behaviors, usually done with a clicker, the dog is 100% involved in his learning. The dog is offering new behaviors, readily and willingly. The human is equally involved - the human is observing behavior and perfecting his/her timing.


You say trainers aren't considered about if the dog is getting it - yet the whole point of shaping is seeing the dog getting parts of the whole in progressive sequence towards the goal you have in mind, and then pushing the dog to extend what he already understands to develop the next step.

So I would say a trainer using shaping absolutely is concerned about the dog getting it for each and every step and then the dog's getting it in putting the pieces together.



qingcong said:


> If you started clicking everyday and nothing happened, eventually the click's charge will become weaker and weaker.


In other words, the dog is becoming more uncertain about the association he made originally.

It's the same principle as why desensitization works. The original X = scary becomes more uncertain when X = good stuff starts happening. 

If click starts equalling nothing, the dog becomes less certain that it means food is coming, so you get less "sharp" behavior (the whiplash, etc) because he's not as certain.

Uncertainty comes out in behavior, so seeing less frequent/less intense/conflicting behaviors is seeing uncertainty in the mind.


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## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

KBLover said:


> I'm the exact opposite.
> 
> I already know what I know. I want to know what *Wally* knows or doesn't know and how he's expressing the "gaps" in his knowledge, the parts of the tasks he doesn't understand and why he might be making those incorrect-in-my-mind choices.
> 
> ...


That's sort of where I am at. I see the science as necessary, but a "means to an end." And, as Bob Bailey is fond of saying, clicker training is a MECHANICAL skill.


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## lisak_87 (Mar 23, 2011)

You will know when your significant other is a doofus and clicks the clicker absentmindedly one night and the puppy comes BOLTING to you for a treat.

>.>


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

lisak_87 said:


> You will know when your significant other is a doofus and clicks the clicker absentmindedly one night and the puppy comes BOLTING to you for a treat.
> 
> >.>


 LOL! OR, when the little kid brought to training class to watch randomly starts clicking right next to you!


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## lisak_87 (Mar 23, 2011)

doxiemommy said:


> LOL! OR, when the little kid brought to training class to watch randomly starts clicking right next to you!


Or when you're watching a dog training show that involves clicker training and you find yourself rapidly muting the television b/c puppy will come ZOOMING at you if he hears even the faintest t.v. clicker click!


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

I did as many of you suggested and moved on to "sit." And I hid the clicker behind my back. I'm kind of in awe over how much easier it is to train like this instead of lure / push the butt to the ground. He couldn't sit fast enough for me! I know it won't always be this easy, but I'm just thrilled at how much he wants to work, even after I said "all done!" and tried to get him to play he kept sitting instead of playing (he likes his treats!!) 

The timing is so _fast_ though, I started by clicking and treating when he sat on his own, did about 3 minutes of that then took a break for a while. Did another session so I could add "sit" and I kept screwing up when to say sit, when to click. Charlie just looked at me like, ok I know what you want me to do now gimme my treat! That's as far as I got today, I haven't tried to ask him to sit before he makes his own move toward sitting. I feel like I need a heck of a lot more training than he does.


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## RaeganW (Jul 14, 2009)

Training is a mechanical skill. Pawz, we need to hang out.


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## qingcong (Oct 26, 2009)

I think training is like any skill - football, piano, cooking. You have to start with principles and fundamentals. Those who have perfected the fundamentals eventually transcend the nuts and bolts and can approach their discipline as an art. I guess it's possible to never fully master the science but focus solely on the art aspect, like Jimi Hendrix, but from an objective standpoint, he was clearly limited musically compared to Mozart.


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

Charlie is sitting so well, I'm really in awe. I'll have to find the chapter that tells me how long I keep clicking and treating, I'm know I have to reinforce it for a while, but not forever.

To keep me nice and humble, I've been working on my 6-year old lab with the clicker. I've been trying to teach her to touch her nose to my palm. I figured that would be easy! Well she is so focused on either where she knows the treats are (started with them beside me, then hid them behind me, she just stares where she thinks they are) OR on my face, like WTH give me my treat you odd person. She *rarely* will voluntarily touch her nose to my palm. Even after I click and treat. I even click and treat if her whiskers brush against my palm. For a bit I tried gently touching my palm to her nose, clicking, then treating. And after I did that she _might_ touch me on her own once or twice, but then she goes back to the stare contest. I've thought of backing up and trying shaping, like if she even glances at my palm, clicking that and going from there. But she won't look at my hand hardly ever, and will even move her head around my hand to stare at me or where she thinks the treats are.

I'm not frustrated, just baffled at how to get around her laser focus on my face / the treats. Any suggestions? (and as always, thank you so much for your help!!!)


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## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

LisaM said:


> Charlie is sitting so well, I'm really in awe. I'll have to find the chapter that tells me how long I keep clicking and treating, I'm know I have to reinforce it for a while, but not forever.
> 
> To keep me nice and humble, I've been working on my 6-year old lab with the clicker. I've been trying to teach her to touch her nose to my palm. I figured that would be easy! Well she is so focused on either where she knows the treats are (started with them beside me, then hid them behind me, she just stares where she thinks they are) OR on my face, like WTH give me my treat you odd person. She *rarely* will voluntarily touch her nose to my palm. Even after I click and treat. I even click and treat if her whiskers brush against my palm. For a bit I tried gently touching my palm to her nose, clicking, then treating. And after I did that she _might_ touch me on her own once or twice, but then she goes back to the stare contest. I've thought of backing up and trying shaping, like if she even glances at my palm, clicking that and going from there. But she won't look at my hand hardly ever, and will even move her head around my hand to stare at me or where she thinks the treats are.
> 
> I'm not frustrated, just baffled at how to get around her laser focus on my face / the treats. Any suggestions? (and as always, thank you so much for your help!!!)


Where are you looking? Many people make the mistake of staring at the dog, and of course if that has been rewarded, you'll get lots of eye contact but not much else. Focus intently on where you want her to touch. Some dogs will do better touching a margarine lid or a target stick than a hand. Postit notes are fun to teach, because then you can put it on other items.

For when to start phasing out the clicker, I'll do a ten treat trial. Give the cue word and if the dog responds to the first cue at least eight out of 10 times (with no body movement or expression from me, in different positions, I figure I can up my criteria. Of course, my dog won't perform to the same level at Petsmart on a Saturday afternoon as he will in my kitchen, so I'm still going to be staying with a click every time in difficult situations. There are a number of ways to fade the clicker. Some involve complex schedules of reinforcement. I might do Chutes and Ladders (300 peck) which is increasing the amount you ask for in very small increments, and if the dog has a glitch, take it back down to baby steps and build back up. For instance, for LLW I would take one step/C/T, then two steps/C/T, then three, etc. If the dog loses focus, I back up and start with one step again. I also play with differential reinforcement. So if commonly takes my dog three seconds to sit, I might click sits that happen in two seconds or less, and when she's doing an average of two seconds, I'd only click sits that happen in one second or less, etc.


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

Pawzk9 said:


> Where are you looking? Many people make the mistake of staring at the dog, and of course if that has been rewarded, you'll get lots of eye contact but not much else. Focus intently on where you want her to touch. Some dogs will do better touching a margarine lid or a target stick than a hand. Postit notes are fun to teach, because then you can put it on other items.


I know my eye contact has not been consistent, sometimes I watch her watch me, or I do look at my hand. I will try post-it notes, thanks 



Pawzk9 said:


> For when to start phasing out the clicker, I'll do a ten treat trial. Give the cue word and if the dog responds to the first cue at least eight out of 10 times (with no body movement or expression from me, in different positions, I figure I can up my criteria. Of course, my dog won't perform to the same level at Petsmart on a Saturday afternoon as he will in my kitchen, so I'm still going to be staying with a click every time in difficult situations. There are a number of ways to fade the clicker. Some involve complex schedules of reinforcement. I might do Chutes and Ladders *(300 peck)* which is increasing the amount you ask for in very small increments, and if the dog has a glitch, take it back down to baby steps and build back up. For instance, for *LLW* I would take one step/C/T, then two steps/C/T, then three, etc. If the dog loses focus, I back up and start with one step again. I also play with differential reinforcement. So if commonly takes my dog three seconds to sit, I might click sits that happen in two seconds or less, and when she's doing an average of two seconds, I'd only click sits that happen in one second or less, etc.


Oh my, that stuff I bolded and italicized in your quote is like a foreign language to me _*off to search and google*_ I did get the rest of it though!

I really appreciate the response and suggestions, I like that you gave me specific ideas to try. Thank you very much!!!


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

LLW = lose lead walking

I found the 300 peck method pretty useless for teaching duration for holding position, but I guess it might work for some dogs (I found it ok for LLW). For duration during a sit/stay I first did a trial to see how long they could hold it with no reinforcement. I asked them to sit, then just timed how long they sat before getting up. Then I work on that duration +/- 30% before giving a treat (or other reward), so sometimes it's easy for them, other times more difficult. So sometimes I will ask them to sit for 7 seconds before rewarding, other times 12 seconds, then maybe 10 seconds etc etc. Gradually the time they can sit with no reinforcement increases, and you then test them again to see what their new limit is, and then work with that +/- 30%.

As for fading the clicker, that's easy. Once you have added the cue, you no longer need to click the behaviour. The clicker is only for training new behaviours.

Fading the food reward isn't all that hard either, once you have the behaviour on cue you can ask for it before giving the dog a life reward. A life reward is anything the dog wants, so if he wants the door opened, the food bowl put on the floor, the fun toy in your hand, ask him for a behaviour before giving it to him. He wants to go and sniff a tree? Make him walk there on a loose lead, or next to you, or make him sit, then release him to go and sniff it. 

I still use food rewards sometimes, other times I give them something I know they want at that time. I try not to ask them to do anything unless I can give them some type of reward. By rewarding them with *something* most of the time, I can sometimes ask them to do something without rewarding them without ruining the behaviour.


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## LisaM (Mar 1, 2011)

Thank you lil_fuzzy, I figured LLW was something easy that I hadn't come across in the forums yet! I saved the 300 Peck link to read when I get a chance


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## DJEtzel (Dec 28, 2009)

I personally don't charge the clicker anymore. I've read studies and experimented and it's proven use-less if not slowing us down.


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## doxiemommy (Dec 18, 2009)

Funny story, well, kind of. I always hate to start out with "funny story" and then have people think it was more like "dumb story". 
Anyway, we had already taught "look" to Harper, and "sit". Kind of a "default" sit, too. So, that if he's on leash and we stop, he just sits next to us. So, the first manners class we went to, I had a hard time getting him to do much at first. He was on leash, and just sat and looked at me!  Of course, "sit" was one of our tasks, and so was "eye contact", but it was like after the first sit and look, it was constant! It was like he was frozen in the sit and look!


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## Pawzk9 (Jan 3, 2011)

LisaM said:


> I know my eye contact has not been consistent, sometimes I watch her watch me, or I do look at my hand. I will try post-it notes, thanks
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Oops! Sorry for not defining better. I'm glad I got you to look up 300 Peck though. Much more thorough explanation that I'd be able to give here. LLW is loose leash walking. I'll try harder to speak english.



Pawzk9 said:


> Oops! Sorry for not defining better. I'm glad I got you to look up 300 Peck though. Much more thorough explanation that I'd be able to give here. LLW is loose leash walking. I'll try harder to speak english.


Oh, and re: your question on where you look. If you want eye contact (dog glued to your face) look at the dog. If you want the dog to focus somewhere else (on an object, your hand, whatever) look at what you want the dog to look at.


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## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

DJEtzel said:


> I personally don't charge the clicker anymore. I've read studies and experimented and it's proven use-less if not slowing us down.


Didn't slow Wally and I down at all.

Once we got into "real" training, we took off because he already knew what it meant, so we were getting the fast c/t going. Instead of teaching him both the meaning of the click and whatever I was trying to mark with the meaningless-to-him sound.

Plus, the fact he was fearful at the time, I wouldn't want some random-to-him sound out of nowhere while he's focused on doing something else to scare the crap out of him. For us, it wasn't useless even if there's studies "proving" otherwise. I would think him getting scared while he's tentatively reaching out to touch an object or daring to offer a behavior would slow us down more than charging the clicker.



lil_fuzzy said:


> For duration during a sit/stay I first did a trial to see how long they could hold it with no reinforcement. I asked them to sit, then just timed how long they sat before getting up. Then I work on that duration +/- 30% before giving a treat (or other reward), so sometimes it's easy for them, other times more difficult. So sometimes I will ask them to sit for 7 seconds before rewarding, other times 12 seconds, then maybe 10 seconds etc etc. Gradually the time they can sit with no reinforcement increases, and you then test them again to see what their new limit is, and then work with that +/- 30%.


That sounds pretty much like the same principle behind 300 peck 

IMO, 300 Peck is basically just a way of shaping behavior maintenance. Like with anything else in shaping, sometimes you'll be able to "skip steps" if the dog is making fast progress.


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## lil_fuzzy (Aug 16, 2010)

KBLover said:


> That sounds pretty much like the same principle behind 300 peck
> 
> IMO, 300 Peck is basically just a way of shaping behavior maintenance. Like with anything else in shaping, sometimes you'll be able to "skip steps" if the dog is making fast progress.


I don't see it the same as 300 peck. For sit duration I found that by counting up until the dog failed and then putting him back in a sit and then rewarding because he sat for 1 second was like rewarding him for getting up. So if he got bored with sitting he could simply get up, be put back and get another treat.

And I also found that I was never able to count any further, he would always get up at the count of 12, and I was counting pretty fast. I find his duration much better when I work around his limit and alternate between asking for more or less each time.

Also, with 300 peck you have to go back to the starting point if the dog fails. With the method I use if he fails at 10 seconds then he is put back, then instead of rewarding after 1 second, he has to sit for the 10 seconds. (Obviously if he repeatedly gets up I know it's too hard for him, but usually I find that on the 2nd attempt he does it just fine, so he merely got up out of boredom the first time).


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## DJEtzel (Dec 28, 2009)

KBLover said:


> Didn't slow Wally and I down at all.
> 
> Once we got into "real" training, we took off because he already knew what it meant, so we were getting the fast c/t going. Instead of teaching him both the meaning of the click and whatever I was trying to mark with the meaningless-to-him sound.
> 
> Plus, the fact he was fearful at the time, I wouldn't want some random-to-him sound out of nowhere while he's focused on doing something else to scare the crap out of him. For us, it wasn't useless even if there's studies "proving" otherwise. I would think him getting scared while he's tentatively reaching out to touch an object or daring to offer a behavior would slow us down more than charging the clicker.


There's always the exception to the rule. It didn't slow Frag and I down either when we were starting, but I've clicker trained hundreds of shelter dogs, and about 8/10 just want to stand or sit (whatever they were doing when I marked) and it's 10x harder to get them to offer new behaviors or be lured. That's what they learned first and it's hard to sway them away from it. Even if it only takes 2 or 3 sessions to change their mind, I can proof a handful of commands in that time and it's time lost.


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