Category: Getting Started, Puppy Stuff ¤
  Author: Shirley Chong ¤
   Title: Building Unpredictability and a Solid 'Leave It' ¤

Line Farr wrote:

> it has become clear that 'leave it' means 'back off and
> then you can have it', or back off and sit, down or whatever and then
> you can have it'.

<<snip>>

> From my end, I want to teach him that he needs to be
> mannerly whether or not I have my gaze fixed on him and that he can't
> have or investigate everything that jiggles his spinal cord or brain cells.

<<snip>>

> Some feedback I'm getting (and not from J/P style trainers) is that he
> needs a big correction to stop him in his tracks on the male dog front.


   Line, it looks to me like you've gotten stuck on one level and
haven't done several things that are necessary to complete his
education. NEVER FEAR--they aren't hard to teach and I doubt you'll have
to resort to punishment.
   First of all, if you were teaching him to sit, what would you do?
You'd work until you could put in on cue (you've done that so far with
the Leave It) and then you'd work on putting it on a variable schedule
of reinforcement. Right now, you're stuck on a one-for-one schedule. If
this were a sit, you'd be clicking and treating for every single sit.
You wouldn't expect to have a very enduring behaviour with that, would
you? To give it endurance, you have to put it on a variable schedule.
You'd just stop clicking for every single sit and start bouncing around
with one, two or three sits necessary to get a click. You'd bounce that
schedule up higher and higher until you were getting HUNDREDS of sits
before you clicked. I estimate that Chamois and Bidge are on a VSR of
thousands of sits for each click for a sit.
   Next, your reinforcers are predictable to him. He can see what it is
he'll get IF he does what you've cued: Leave It. It's time to activate
the gambler in him--start varying your reinforcers! Show him one measly
piece of kibble in a boring place and when he does the Leave It, whip
out the cheeseburger from MacDonalds. And--this is soooooo tough and
hard--it has to work the other way. Show him a piece of raw liver and
when he does the Leave It, give him a measly piece of kibble. Or give
him nothing! The more variety of reinforcers you can show him, the more
power the Leave It will have for him. You know you're on a one-way track
to failure if the dog knows what you have to offer.
   You want to extend the duration of the behaviour. Again, think about
sits. If you wanted to teach a sit stay, what would you do? You'd stop
clicking the instant his butt hit the floor and start clicking only the
sits that are a split second longer. You'd slowly work the duration of
the sit upwards until he was sitting for five or ten minutes before you
clicked. Right now, you're stuck at the point where he moves away from
the distraction and then immediately moves towards it again. You need to
extend the duration of the Leave It indefinitely. And then start
incorporating other criteria, like maintaining the Leave It while you
glance away and then glance back; while you gaze for a second away and
then look back; while you stand up and then look at him again; etc. If
this sounds like proofing for a stay, well, it is! This is just a stay
with a different cue and a different start.
   And you do NOT want to attempt teaching a "dead man" behaviour.
"Being mannerly" is something any self-respecting corpse can do--so by
definition, it's not something you can teach. What do you want him to do
instead? I plump for a sit or a down stay, but I'm weird. Pick the
behaviour you want and train for it.
   To me, using the bonker in this situation would be akin to taking
that dog who had only ever been clicked for split second sits and
bonking him for not sitting for 30 seconds. Yes, you could probably get
the dog to freeze into position (we're talking a sighthound here, aren't
we? isn't it in the sighthound standards to freeze when confused and
upset?)--but would it be fair? 
   And more importantly, by systematically working on all of the above
criteria, you will develop an ironclad Leave It. He won't be working to
avoid the punishment, he'll be working in order to get something. Much
more powerful.

M. Shirley Chong
The Well Mannered Dog