I had
picked a desired behavior that I knew could be done..
I had
picked signposts along the way for both him and I so we would know when we
getting the correct responses (approaching the desired behavior).
I had
not assumed that when I got a different response than I had wanted, that he
was 'being bad'; I assumed that WE were getting mixed signals, and it was
up to me, as the human, to change this. (In fact, I had assumed that it was
me causing th problem, NOT HIM!)
I had
given him a 'cue' (the clicker) to tell him when he was doing good. By doing
this, I allowed him to "pick and choose his behavior".
At
no time did I punish, reprimand, or threaten him.
At
no time did I ever say the word 'teddy', in fact the only I said at all was
'goodboy', 'that's it' or 'that's what I want' and I only said that for a
short period (10 minutes of 2.5 hours worth of training.)
If I
got a low hit rate (very few behavior events close to what I was working on),
I dropped back to the previous level behavior, and assumed I had moved us
too fast. Every time this happened, I was able to able to move on to the next
part of the behavior in a short time.
I changed
the environment, but kept the behavior and it's rewards consisitent. That
way I could expect the same behavior anywhere.
When
he started showing an unacceptable behavior (throwing teddy into the Christmas
tree), I did not punish or reprimand. I either ignored it, or I tried substituting
a different behavior for the unwanted behavior.
It takes
patience, care, and love to train your dog. When he does things that you don't
want him to do, he is not 'trying to be bad', only people can do that. Except
in cases of physical damage to the dog, problems with dog behavior are people
behavior problems.
About
using food as a reward: He got more food than he normally gets. Normally
he gets 2.5 cups. In less than 1/2 hour (a period shorter than our dinners)
he had his dinner. He got his 2.5 cups. He then went on to eat dessert too
(treats.)
If you have any problem with 'making a dog work for his food', think about
it for a second. Don't you have to? And also notice that I NEVER witheld dinner.
He had no idea this was dinner. It was just extra to him.
We're not talking about asking him to climb Mount Everest to get his dinner,
just learn one (1) new way to do things.
There are more training stories
to come. Stay Tuned.