Problem Solving *Free*
This dog starts to focus on the hand holding the treat and ignoring the target hand. It’s a simple fix: put your hand holding the food behind your back between each repetition. It also can help to feed the dog with the target hand or place the treat on the palm of the target hand. See how I shift the treat to the target hand at 0:13? That way she starts associating the food delivery to be in that hand so that’s where she will go to get it. We can stop shifting the food to the other hand once she catches on.
While she puzzles through the challenge, she sits at 0:08. It is much easier to get a dog to move to a nose target if she is standing. I use the reward at 0:17 as a lure to get her standing to set her up for the next rep. The faster she learns that she can nose target while standing (and doesn’t have to sit between each rep), the easier our job will be and the faster she will progress.
Problem solving:
Here is a dog in a shelter learning to nose target. When he seems to forget what we are doing, I wiggle my fingers to attract his attention. It works and he’s back on track!
In this clip, I place my hand in one position and feed from the other. That way he must make the choice to move back to my hand to touch it. That allows me to control the distance. We get into a smooth rhythm of loops of behavior. This is called “Loopy” training.
In Loopy training, the dog does the behavior, gets marked and reinforced so that he is quickly ready to do the behavior again. Loopy training is an effective pattern to get in many repetitions in a short period. It keeps the dog’s interest by keeping the rate of reinforcement high.