Category: Getting Started, Common Problems ¤
  Author: Lana Mitchell ¤
   Title: Addendum to the No Pull Recipe ¤

Greg Barker wrote:

> Hi Lana,
> I'm Greg Barker and have been reading your post on non-pulling from the
> keeper page and I am not clear on the use to the clicker in this. If the
> dog is not pulling it gets C/T, which is fine, but why do you go back to
> the starting point after this? If the dog is doing the right thing ( not
> pulling)  why use the adversive of going back to the start?
>

Greg,

I've also sent this post to the list and notified Helix in hopes that she
will update the keeper page with this information.

Once the dog is not pulling, going back to the start is no longer an
aversive but becomes the restart of the game. He has been R+ for correctly
moving a predetermined distance without pulling. The exercise has been
aborted by his success. He should not view this as an aversive but for what
it is, the restart of the game. If the dog is viewing it is an aversive, his
trainer needs to let him know it is not by skipping back , praising
verbally, and to the spot where the game can begin again.

Believe me when I say that I have used every previously known way to stop
leash pulling plus inventing a few of my own including this one. This is the
only one that works fast and works on all dogs even those that are not food
motivated.

Remember that the dog who sits once when you say "sit" does not really
*know* how to sit. The dog who can go 20' one time on a loose leash needs to
do it many more times before he *knows* it. He needs to learn it in one spot
until he understands the rules before those same rules may be enforced in
strange territory. Each time you restart from where you are you enter
strange territory and will have to enforce the rules there. To do this would
be raising criteria too quickly and unfairly. You would be dragging this dog
back (to where?) every time a car goes by, every time a kid appears, every
time a cat is heard or seen. These are increases in criteria and should be
done under controlled conditions, not in new territory. Remember that when
you add a new criterion old criteria must be lowered. If you move farther
down the block and a kid approaches with a cat in his arms, where is the
lowered criteria?

I hope this answers your questions, but to add one more thing. Please
remember that operant conditioning training is working within the animals'
success levels and levels of understanding then very gradually asking for
more. Plunging a dog into new territory by not reworking known territory
after he was successful, is to me an aversive all on its own because it
means failure to the dog.

--
Lana Mitchell
CLICK! for Success