So Many Choices: for trainers & for dogs

1. So Many Choices:for trainers & for dogs Kathy Sdao, MA, ACAAB www.kathysdao.com

2. Choices Trainer’s choices include: • What will you teach exactly ? • How will you “get behavior”? • Will you use R+, R-, P+, P-, Classical Conditioning? Combo? • What reinforcers? Kept where? Delivered how? How often? • What are criteria for success? How will you change criteria? • How will you set up the training environment? • How will you structure a training session? • When will you add a cue? What cue? • How will you judge if the behavior is fluent?

3. Trainer’s influences • Habit & practice your own reinforcement history • Role models in person, on TV, etc. • Education conferences, seminars, books, DVDs, etc. • Personal values*

4. You aren’t the only one making choices. • Dogs face hundreds of “choice points” daily. • Reinforce as many correct choices as possible. Frequently Precisely Generously Really

5. Behavior humans prefer: Make easy Behavior dog prefers: Make hard   SMR ▲ Be a “choice architect.” • Manipulate environment so when dog is at choice point, she’ll choose correctly 80-90% of the time. • Jungle-path analogy(Jean Donaldson, The Culture Clash, p 51)

6. Reinforce dogs’ choice points. • Set up the situation cleverly, then observe. • Pay attention! Notice correct choices. • Spend more energy watching the dog than luring, prompting or physically manipulating the dog. • This allows the dog to make free choices, without becoming dependent on your help.

7. Explain training to a novice in 30 seconds • What’s essential? • What’s important? • What’s irrelevant? Ann & Boomer

8. Get SMART See Mark And Reward/Reinforce Training

9. Back-chaining a behavior chain (e.g., soda fetch) First, train each link to fluency & give each a cue. 1 2 3 4 Cue last behavior several times; reinforce well. “4”  R+ Cue preceding behavior, then final behavior; reinforce. Repeat until fluent. “3” – “4”  R+ Next add the preceding behavior, etc… “2” – “3” – “4”  R+

10. Back-chaining core skills for the trainer (Dog moves)  TrainerReinforces (Dog moves)  Trainer MarksReinforces (Dog moves)  Trainer SeesMarksReinforces

11. R = Reinforcement Strive to create dozens of reinforcers for each animal you train. “Our job is to maximize the efficiency of positive reinforcement.”BF Skinner

12. To be a reinforcer, a consequence must… • follow an action = be contingent on a response Time • cause the action it follows to be repeated or occur more often Function “Should Kids be Bribed to do Well in School?” Time magazine, April 18, 2010, by Amanda Ripley

13. The more reinforcers, the better • Pavlovian conditioning:creates new conditioned reinforcers • CS + US  B (reflex) • The Premack Principle:dog’s distractions = potent reinforcers • “reinforcement is the opportunity to exchange a less probable activity for a more probable one”

14. Another source of R+ Cues = conditioned reinforcers • Cue must be familiar; behavior must be fluent • Cue must have been trained with R+   Secondary Primary Tertiary

15. “The Precious Cue” • Good news! Opportunity for dozens of additional reinforcers Essential for training links in behavior chains • Bad news! Don’t give cues simultaneous with bad behavior Worst for dogs with few other ways to earn R+

16. Reinforcement maintains behavior. “You have to floss only the teeth you want to keep.” Your choice: 1) positive reinforcement = the addition of treats;  satisfaction or 2) negative reinforcement = the removal of aversives;  relief

17. The opposite of reinforcement is…? … no reinforcement.(Not punishment.) Differential reinforcement requires you to avoid reinforcing errors. • “refusal” to respond to a cue • incorrect response to a cue • imprecise movement (e.g., weave-pole entry) • “bad” behavior

18. M = Mark Why bother? Because for animals, figuring out what behaviors “work” is harder if the reward is both: 1) the reinforcement & 2) the info about which behavior was correct TSA analogy

19. Clicker functions • Conditioned / Secondary reinforcer Strengthens behavior • Cueor Sd The occasion when going to the feeder is reinforced • Event marker Pinpoints the desired behavior • Bridge Bridges time between behavior & treat Promise = reinforcement is coming

20. Clicks are the fulcrum “There are two sides to the click: what happens before, and what happens after. What happens immediately before the click is a behavior the trainer would like to strengthen. What happens immediately after is an event the animal would like strengthen, such as receiving food. The click unites these two desires.” Alexandra Kurlandwww.theclickercenter.com

21. What weakens your marker? • It’s redundant/non-informative • It’s poisoned • It’s infected with too many anxious situations • You require more behavior after marks • It marks non-behavior

22. Marking precisely… • You can’t take a click back • Timing improves if you can predict behavior • This is a function of seeing well Mean simple reaction times for college students = ~0.19 sec for visual stimuli; = ~0.16 sec for sound stimuli www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/index.php

23. S = See Seeing is influenced by… • Preconceptions & labels “Who would you be without your story?” Byron Katie • Judgments & analysis “Don’t think, just look.” Ludwig Wittgenstein • Talking & prompting • The audience effect

24. Seeing practice “To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.”George Orwell, 1968 1) “Surprising Studies of Visual Awareness”(DVD) Simons, Daniel (2008) www.viscog.com www.theinvisiblegorilla.com 2) Watch videos of animals moving, in slow motion

25. What precedes the “S”? • Your decision:Search pattern for a specific clickable behavior • Your attention: Human brain processes one-half of one millionth of sensory data it receives. Consciously choose to filter in correct behaviors. • Your set-up: Strongly influences the dog’s behavior

26. S = Set-up: the other “S” • Control the environment not the dog • Limit dog’s activities & access • Much good training is undone by allowing dog to rehearse bad behavior outside training sessions. • dog barks out front window at passersby • dog lunges at another dog on hurried walk in busy park • Reactive dogs often need to be confined, especially early in retraining program.

27. Careful set-up pays off. • Ideally, distractions becomes cues for correct behavior • Morton’s recall video • Rusty & Charlie responding to a “mock knock” • In my car, Effie looking at me when she sees a dog • Best if distractions are added late in training sequence, as “new cues”

28. Thank you!

29. Getting behavior • Trainers want to change behaviors. • But we can’t manipulate behavior directly. • We can manipulate events immediately before a behavior:antecedents • Or we can manipulate events immediately after a behavior:consequences AB C

30. Ten ways to “get behavior”: 1) Physical pressure (“molding”) 2) Prompting 3) Luring 4) Targeting 5) Capturing 6) Shaping 7) Classical conditioning (e.g., music trick) 8) Removal of inhibitors 9) Modeling/mimicry (for primates especially) 10) Verbal instructions (for humans who share language)

31. “Spin” Nick: Effie: Garth: More seeing practice