Category: Advanced Stuff, Performance Events ¤
  Author: Shirley Chong ¤
   Title: Variable Schedule of Reinforcement for Heeling ¤
   
> Now on to the question parts: I understand about the C/T being weaned off as
> an exercise is mastered, but exactly HOW do you go about this with the
> heeling work without sacrificing the quality AND attention???  I am going to
> try back chaining, but any hints or suggestions will be welcome! We were
> working before C/T with weaning off food rewards at every halt, but I seemed
> to be loosing some interest from the dogs.

   Ronna, if you do it properly, weaning them off the C/T for heeling
will actually INTENSIFY their attention, eagerness and focus. Hard to
believe--but very true.
   What you're talking about is shifting them to a variable schedule of
reinforcement, which is more powerful than constant reinforcement.
   How to start.
   It sounds like what you've been doing is using the clicker as a keep
going signal and the word OK as a conditioned reinforcer (signal that
the treats are coming up). I prefer NOT to use a clicker as a keep going
signal but YMMV.
   At any rate, whatever you do, start off by setting up a pattern for
them (if you aren't already in a pattern already). For instance, give
them a CR and treat at every halt for a few minutes, until they think
that they know for a fact that the CR will come at every halt. Then do a
halt with nothing--no click, no praise, no CR, no treat. Cold turkey.
Give them the cue to heel again and do just two or three steps then give
the CR and make the treat a JACKPOT treat. Lots of whatever it is that
trips that dog's trigger.
   Work like this for a couple days--frequent small treats, then a
longer period of work, and a bigger treat. What you're trying to develop
here is the idea that the longer they go without a treat, the more
likely it is that they will get a super-deluxe treat.
   Then put in an extra halt without a treat. The sequence would go:
walk, halt, CR/treat, walk, halt, CR/treat, walk, halt, walk, halt,
walk, halt SUPERTREAT.
   When you see your dog get that anticipatory look when you skip a
treat or two, then it's time to start mixing up your treats again.
   Then bounce around those intervals. Mix it up so that it's not always
harder and harder--keep throwing in times when you CR/treat for one halt
as well as times you wait for three halts. And then go for four halts in
a row.
   It also helps to be unpredictable as to what your treats are and
where they are. Get the food off your body as soon as possible! Put it
on a table outside the ring, stash little Tupperwares around the ring,
have someone else holding the treats, etc. Using a conditioned
reinforcer means that the treat doesn't have to be there
immediately--you have time to run across the ring to grab a treat off
the table.
   Sometimes the treats should be relatively boring. Sometimes the
treats should be really super-dee-lish-us. 
   Sometimes the dog will do a tiny bit of heeling and get something
truly fantastic. Sometimes they'll work a long time and get a ho-hum
treat.
   The key to success is to be as unpredictable as possible.

M. Shirley Chong
The Well Mannered Dog