Nubble

Even though Nubble is over 70 pounds, he still likes to squeeze into Gizzy's crate, sometimes while Gizzy is inside! He just lays down and curls himself into a little (well, big) ball. He has his own, much larger crate, but he seems to like the smaller one.



His puppy raisers took him to Cabela's, a huge hunting, fishing and outdoors outfitter. It was a good outing, although Nubble was pretty excited. Not only was there his normal excitement at being on an outing, but a thunderstorm was brewing and it was extremely windy outside. The Cabela's decor includes real stuffed animals, and Donna was sure that Nubble would have a hard time around the animals. But he surprised her. He behaved his best around the animals! He did bark twice at some of the deer, but that was it. The store was full of people, and Nubble was very attentive to Donna. They practiced up and all the way up on the benches in front of the fish tanks. However, they didn't stay there very long. Nubble loves to swim, and they thought he might want to jump in with the fish!

In puppy class, the Northeast Division has been working on shaping. Meg, the SSD coordinator in the Northeast, brought in a collapsible tunnel, and Donna worked with Nubble to shape him to go through it. Shaping is a learning process for both the puppy raiser and the dog, and Donna and Nubble are starting to get the hang of working together to shape a behavior. By the end of the session in puppy class, Nubble was putting his head into the tunnel!

Nubble always lets Donna know when he needs a break from a training session. He simply lays down and that's it!

Nubble and his puppy raisers had their puppy evaluation. It went well. "I was happy with the progress," says Donna.

Nubble is on his way!

Shaping Behaviors with a Plan

We held our first clicker shaping class last night! We've posted about shaping before, and we've discussed it in puppy classes, but this is the first time we've done a small, hands-on shaping class. This class focused on shaping with a plan.

When you shape a behavior, you're breaking that behavior into tiny steps. We use shaping to teach complex behaviors, such as turning light switches on and off. In order to shape a behavior, you need to know what the end behavior looks like, and then break it down into small progressive steps until the dog reaches that goal.

If you create a plan before you start shaping, you can be more systematic and you and your dog are more likely to be successful. Keeping detailed records allows you to break a behavior into tiny steps, and gives you, the trainer, a visible plan to follow. You'll be able to see the dog's success as he progresses through the steps. And if he has difficulty with a certain step, you can more easily backtrack to where the dog was successful.

When you're shaping a behavior, the dog should have an 80% success rate before you move on to the next step. If you're not having success with a step after three trials, you may need to backtrack. Don't keep insisting that the dog get that step right. You and the dog will just get frustrated. If your dog is having trouble, it's your job as the trainer to figure out why. It may be that you tried to take too big of a step. You may need to go back and break the behavior into even smaller steps.

With each step, you're going to change the criteria. For example, in the shaping class, we demonstrated by beginning to shape SSD Gideon to turn in a counterclockwise circle, a behavior he has never learned before. We began by clicking him for looking to the left. Once he was successful 80% of the time, we only clicked if he turned his head to the left. Here's a video of the beginning step of shaping Gideon to turn counterclockwise:



It's important when you're changing the criteria that you only change one thing. What would be a change in criteria? In the Gideon example, a change would be waiting for a head turn rather than just a look. But a change in the dog's actions is not the only thing that counts as a change. If you sit instead of stand, that's a change. If another person enters the room, that's a change. If you move into a different room or take a few steps away from the dog, that's a change. So you need to be careful that you're only changing one thing each time you move to the next step.

In the shaping class, we broke into pairs to practice shaping. Each pair was asked to shape one of the dogs (SSD Gideon, Star or Fire) to put their nose in a cone. (Since Gideon already knows how to do that, his group had to shape him to put his entire paw in a ring.) Everyone started with a plan. For example, Fire's handler's decided to start by clicking him for looking at the cone, then move on to clicking for touching the cone. As you can see in the video, Fire quickly caught on to looking at the cone.



But when his handlers increased the criteria to touching the cone, it became more challenging. Instead of simply touching the cone with his nose, Fire began biting it.



Because he wasn't successful at this step, his handlers backtracked to clicking for looking at the cone.



They also adjusted their shaping plan, breaking it into smaller steps. Instead of jumping from looking at the cone to touching the cone, they clicked for looking at the cone for a longer amount of time.

As a trainer, the challenge with shaping is to make the steps small enough. When the dog isn't being successful, it's your responsibility to figure out why and adjust the plan accordingly. You want to set the dog up for success.

Mary Hunter's Stale Cheerios blog and Karen Pryor's website are great resources for more information about clicker training and shaping.

The shaping class was a lot of fun, for both the people and the dogs. Have fun practicing shaping with your dog!

Nubble's Progress

Snow is now one of Nubble’s favorite toys. Lucky for him, there’s a lot of it! He burrows into it and pops up covered in the white stuff. He loves snowballs, too. Gizzy, his puppy raisers’ other dog, follows in the path he forges through the snow.

He’s getting much bigger! Look at the difference between him and Gizzy!

He now has very nice self control when Gizzy is eating. He lies down nicely and just watches her. Self control is very important in a service dog. They need to focus and not give in to whatever distractions may be around. Nubble still has some work to do – he still wants to investigate cigarette butts and food wrappers – but his leave it skills are improving every day.

As the dogs grow, they usually go through “phases.” One day they’ll perform skills beautifully and be perfectly behaved, and the next day they’ll “forget” the skills they know and want to romp and play all day. Nubble has been having a great time with a play retrieve, running for the toy and bringing it right back. Lately, however, he’s been playing keep-away with the toy. Donna and Lindsey have been ignoring him when he plays keep-away, but right now, he still thinks it’s a fun game.

Last Wednesday, Nubble had his first puppy evaluation. We evaluate each puppy to make sure that they’re on track with their training and to make sure that training to be a service dog is still a good fit for them. We also check in with the puppy raisers. Good news: Nubble is proficient in the puppy cues (sit, come, down, etc.)! And though his puppy raisers need to work on their handler skills a little bit, they’re doing great!

Donna and Lindsey have been working on shaping with Nubble. They borrowed a small platform, and they’ve been shaping him to stand on it. So far, he has progressed from just sniffing at the platform to putting one foot, and then two feet, on the platform. He does step all the way up with all four feet, but he still thinks he’s supposed to walk right over it, not stand still on it. We’ll update you on his progress next week!

Recently, Nubble went to the gym. His puppy raiser didn’t plan on working out. She just wanted to see how he would react in the new environment. When they first went in, he sniffed around a lot and pulled at the leash, but then he settled down. They walked around, and Donna sat on one of the weight machines. Nubble sat nicely in front of her. Nubble thought the treadmills were very interesting, and Donna used this as an opportunity to work on stay. First they practiced while just being close to the treadmills. Next, Donna stood on a treadmill and faced Nubble. When he showed that he could stay when she stood on the treadmill, she turned around as if she was walking on the treadmill – and he still stayed! Nice job, Nubble! They also practiced stay around the ellipticals, and he did great there, as well. Needless to say, his puppy raiser was very proud of his behavior at the gym!

We’ve mentioned that the dogs-in-training learn to give behaviors in all sorts of different environments and surfaces. This week, Nubble encountered several new surfaces. At the gym, Donna had parked next to a drain grate. Nubble walked right over it, no problem. After he got across and heard the water rushing underneath, though, he wouldn’t go back across. It took some time listening to the water before he grew accustomed to it.

He also walked on a frozen lake. (If the lake wasn’t frozen, it would have been only six inches deep.) Nubble went slip-sliding all over! He loved it.

Look for more about Nubble next week!

Watch Service Dogs-in-Training Demonstrate Their Skills

In a previous post, we talked about the basics of our 12-month evaluations for the dogs. During these evaluations, we focus on getting a good sense of the personality of each dog - learning who they are and how they respond to different situtations, including stressful ones. We ask the dogs to perform several tasks, such as basic obedience, recalls and shaping skills.

Our puppy raisers are responsible for teaching the dogs many of these skills and behaviors. We have several videos of dogs-in-training demonstrating the types of skills and behaviors we require in our service dogs.

Shaping Skills
We use shaping to train our dogs to do many of the behaviors they'll use as service dogs. The goal of this particular session was to get SSD Sunshine to put her foot on the upside-down food dish. Her handler starts by clicking her for looking at the food dish, then stepping toward it, touching it with her paw, and finally, placing her foot on the food dish. If you'd like to read more about the basics of shaping, read Clicker Training: Shaping a Behavior.

Take It
Many times, service dogs will need to pick up objects that their partners may have dropped. In this video of the Take It game, the dog receives a click and a treat for going to pick up one of the objects.

Self Control
Self control is extremely important in a service dog. We don't want our service dogs to give in to their every whim, sniffing and chasing after everything they find interesting. If a service dog gets distracted by everything in their environment, they won't be able to assist their partner.

One area where we train self control is at meal time with the food bowl. Watch SSD Thunder demonstrate his self control. His handler waits until he sits calmly before putting the food bowl down. Then Thunder must wait to eat until he receives the "okay" cue. We usually wait until the dogs makes eye contact with us before releasing them to eat. Even though Thunder's head is bent toward his food dish, notice how his eyes flick upward just before he gets the "okay."

These are just a few examples of the skills of a service dog. Coming next week, we'll share a post about balance dogs.

Clicker Training: Shaping a Behavior

"Rossi, puppy in a box." At those words, SSD Rossi puts one, two, three, all four feet inside an empty half-gallon ice cream container. Pretty neat trick, isn't it?

While puppy-in-a-box might not be a typical service dog skill, the method used to teach it is an important part of our service dogs' training. Rossi's handlers used shaping to train her to put all four feet in an ice cream carton.

When you're shaping a behavior, you're reinforcing small steps toward the behavior until you achieve the actual behavior. For example, to shape puppy-in-a-box, you would start by clicking your dog for looking at the box, then build up to touching the box with his nose, touching it with a paw, putting a paw in the box, putting two feet in the box, etc.

We generally don't talk or communicate with the dog while we're shaping a behavior. We want the dog to experiment, move around and offer different behaviors. When the dog gives a behavior that is a step toward the final behavior we're looking for, we click and treat. Often, we'll toss the treat away from the dog to reset him, so that he has to move around and offer a slightly different behavior.

When the dog is giving a behavior 80% of the time, we'll raise our standards for which behaviors get clicks. For example, instead of clicking for touching the box with a paw, we'll wait for the dog to leave his paw in the box for a few seconds, then click and treat.

We took video of Rossi demonstrating shaping at one of our puppy classes. Her handler wanted her to pick up a piece of garden hose and place it on the wooden podium. To train her to do that, he clicked and treated her for small steps along the way - looking at the hose, picking it up, walking with it, walking toward the podium and finally, putting the hose on the podium. Notice how he keeps raising his standards, making Rossi experiment until she finds a behavior that gets her a click. Also note that when Rossi seems stuck, her handler moves around to both reset her and give her hints about what he wants her to do.

Mary Hunter, a clicker trainer and blogger, has a very nice video on her Stale Cheerios blog that illustrates shaping. You can see how the dog continually experiments with behaviors until he discovers the one that earns him a click and treat.

As we refine a behavior, we add the verbal cue just before the behavior is given. Over time, we will only click for behaviors that we specifically asked for using the verbal cue.

Shaping is a very positive method of training dogs (and almost any animal), and we use it in our service dog training. It teaches the dogs to experiment with different behaviors, and it's fun for both our service dogs-in-training and our trainers and puppy raisers.