개 훈련에서의 강화 #2

Just go crazy with this list. If you go to my blog, you can find and just do a search. You'll find, I've given you a list of, you know, kajillions of different things dogs might love. What you need to do is find out from your dog which one he loves best. And I'm going to put a little asterisk beside this because that changes during your dog's life and it changes depending on what's going on. For example, your dog may love training with a little dried up cookies. No, my dog loves dehydrated cookies or whatever cookies. Maybe it's dehydrated beef liver. But if your dog just went for an hour hike with you and it's 40 degrees Celsius outside, be careful if you're hiking in that kind of weather, FYI. I bet your dog's number one reinforcer at that point is water. Yeah, I really just want to drink a water. That's all I want. So, the reinforcers change depending on the situation. Reinforcers could change depending on the life cycle of the dog. So, puppies may love food that they don't love when they're geriatrics. Your geriatric, you know, as my dogs get into their late teens, their palate gets a lot more selective and there's things they absolutely want and things they absolutely don't want. You want to be fully aware of what your dog loves. And we're going to talk a little bit later about once you know what those are, the most effective way to use them in your training. So, make a list of all the things your dogs love food-wise. Now toys. And you might, you might be saying, oh, my dog, my dog's a rescue dog and he came to me without loving toys. Just make a list of all the toys you would love your dog to be, to, to want to love. All right. So, tug toys or, or things you can throw. Make, just go crazy. What would be convenient for you in your training if your dog loves these, love these things? And trust me, it's easier to train a dog who loves toys and food than for a dog who just loves food because they'll come a point where they've had enough. Now, if you're training a little Chihuahua, guess what? They're going to be full a lot faster than a Great Dane. So, having the advantage of teaching that Chihuahua to love playing tug with you is going to extend the time that you can train with them. So, it's really important that we teach the dog that, that, that toys are really cool too. More on that later. The third, the third area of reinforcement that I use in my training is the area of activities. So, what activities do you love? And this is a great reinforcer and it's a great reinforcer for people as well as for dogs. So, my dog loves to go in the car. My dog loves to go to the park.

Dogs love, uh, Tater Salad loves to meet new people. I mean, that is one of his high, high, high value reinforcers. Um, there are dogs that just don't care about meeting other people. Um, dogs love chasing. So, running with other dogs or chasing wildlife might not be a great reinforcer for you to use. So, what we're talking about is things that you can use in training, but then in order to have that great family pet, you need to become aware of what are the reinforcements that my dog, that, that, that my dog's getting daily that I may not want them to be getting. So, you need to be aware of those. Things like, um, looking out the window and aggressing at X, whether it be a delivery person or dogs going by, fence fighting with the neighbor's dog, running up and down and aggressing at the neighbor's dog. Um, these are things that you may not want them to find, you know, obviously, uh, chewing on the corner of your cabinet. You might have a new puppy that could be very reinforcing. These are activities you might not want to use in training. You might not want your dog to find reinforcing, but they find them reinforcing. So, make a list of those. We had a Jack Russell years ago, um, lived with my, my folks. And so, my mom had this rule that dogs had to stay in the kitchen. Sad, but true. I know a lot of people have that kind of, um, environmental restrictions for some dogs. And this Jack Russell, her number one reinforcement was to get on the table and steel steak knives and chew the handles off of them. Kind of dangerous, right? Because they got a pretty hefty blade on them. Um, so, make a list of all the activities you dog, your dog loves. Both the ones you'd prefer them not to love and the ones that you could use in training. For example, um, going for a car ride. Like what we're going to do is you want, we're going to take those things that your dog loves. And we want to, once you establish the value, your goal as a trainer is to transfer that value in areas that would be of benefit to the dog and of benefit to you as their, their owner and caregiver. So, it's not just what they love. Today is about how we can transfer what they love into what we want them to love. If that makes sense. Transfer value. Um, and you know, I, I've touched on it that, that it's important for us when in our interactions with humans that we know what they love. So, I'll give you an example. Um, I worked in a job years ago where, um, the head of the department, he knew I had a horse and I love to ride. And so, we got, um, monetary bonuses throughout the year that

if you, if you did this, you got this bonus and that was great. I got the reinforcement of getting a paycheck every two weeks. Great reinforcement there. But things that happen predictably are less less reinforcing. The, um, here's, here's how reinforcement works in the dog's brain or in the human brain is you get the reinforcement and it gives a dopamine release in your brain. And that dopamine release is the feel good chemical, um, that actually a lot of like junkies get. And so, that's why, uh, a drug use is so prevalent is because you get multiple dopamine releases. Um, social media likes create a dopamine release. So, that's a whole nother discussion we're not going to talk about, but that's how reinforcement works is this dopamine release. And funny enough, science has shown that, um, the dopamine release when you're training with food in, in dogs, as soon as the dog sees the food initially, they get a dopamine release. But very, very quickly, if you're somebody who uses lures, the dopamine release, you don't get it anymore. Um, which is one of the reasons why food luring doesn't create an addiction to training in the dog the way reinforcement-based choice learning does. So, in the same paper that they talked about, the dopamine release happens initially when the food lure comes out, but eventually, like very quickly, the dog doesn't get a dopamine release. They called it the choice point. So, when there's a choice point made by the dog and they can predict reinforcements coming, that's when the dopamine release happens, which is why when you use choice in your training, you get many dopamine releases in the dog and they learn to love to train. All right. Getting back to when I was, um, working and I had this awesome manager, it would be like a beautiful spring or fall, summer afternoon on a Friday afternoon. He'd come into my desk, into my office and he would say, you know what, Susan, uh, you've, you've done amazing work this past month and, uh, it's a gorgeous day out there. It's too, too good a day to waste. Go out and ride your horse. And I still, I mean, that's gotta be 30 years ago. That was one of the biggest reinforcements that anyone could ever use, um, for me. So, just think about if you've got a, a child at home. How, how can you use those reinforcements to deepen the bond that you have? I will always remember Richard Donnelly. I'll remember his name. I'll remember what he looks like. And I'll remember him walking into my office on the occasions that he did to say, you know what, um, no one's going to

ever be on their deathbed and regret not, not, not having spent more hours at the office. That's what he would say to me. Go out and ride your horse. So, what are those activities? Now that we've got our, we know that there's food, toys, and activities that we can use in training. The goal is right now, the value is with those things. So, the dog loves the food. The dog loves the toys. The dog loves the activities. Our goal is to transfer that value to us and to other things. So, if your dog only loves food, our goal is to transfer the value of the food to the toys. If your dog, um, loves to swim, for example, here's how people waste, uh, the value. You get a, you know, let's pick on Labrador retrievers because they're, they genuinely just ooze with this childlike joy when they get around water. Like, oh my gosh, I get to go swimming. Swimming? Someone say swimming? And so, when the, the dog learns that they love to swim, then they learn because dogs are great at predicting behavior, patterns of reinforcement. They learn, okay, in order to go swimming, we go in the car. And I know when we turn down the road that leads to the place where I can swim. So, then they start to get really anxious in the car. And then you try to get them out and you got to walk them on a leash to get to the pond and they're pulling and screaming and all of that gets reinforced. So, the dogs start barking and spinning in the car when they're getting closer to something they love gets reinforced by you getting them out of the car when they're barking and spinning or continuing to drive is the first reinforcement. The second reinforcement is you getting them out of the car when they're barking and bouncing off the, because we think it's cute at first. Oh my gosh, look, he loves this so much. You got to, this, this isn't going to be cute a year from now when you're just like, for the love of all that's holy, would you just effing stop that nonsense. So, you want to pick up on these things that you, and recognize they may be driving you crazy later on. So, we want to not reinforce and continue the loop of when you're crazy in the car. How are you going to stop that? Well, the first time they get crazy in the car, drive somewhere else. Do not drive to swimming so that they can't predict that. And don't stop until the craziness subsides. Or you can use a remote feeder and just feed them for being calm and peaceful in the car. The same as getting out of the car. Crate games is a great routine that they understand they don't get out until they do X,

Y, and Z. But when you get this, you get these Labradors or any dog who loves to swim in there, or it doesn't even have to be swimming. They're going towards something they know that they love to do. They're pulling, they're clawing at the ground and you're continuing to walk. You are reinforcing that by, this is one of the biggest, biggest reinforcements on the planet for everybody, all animals alike, permission. Permission is a massive reinforcement. So, the permission to go for a swim, it reinforces them pulling on the leash because they pull on the leash, then you unclip the leash and let, and they just charge to the water. Rather than backing that up and the act of being calm in the car gets reinforced by you continuing to drive to the car, to the pond. The act of being, of sitting patiently while you open the door and put on the leash gets reinforced by the act of getting to walk on a leash. The act of walking on a loose leash gets reinforced by you carrying on walking towards the pond. The act of sitting calmly on a loose leash and not screaming like a banshee gets reinforced by you unclipping the leash. They still don't get to run to the pond yet. The act of sitting calmly off leash at the pond, you might even ask them to lie down, sit, build in these other behaviors. Now I'm talking down the road. You're not going to do this at first, but you're going to build in all these other behaviors. Those are the things that now you're transferring the love of swimming into things that work for you. A great calm dog that can listen while they're excited and want to work. That is awesome for you. So, we want to transfer the value of what your dog loves most of all into something beneficial. That's what helps build that relationship. That's what strengthened the bond with Richard Donnelly and I because he used great reinforcement, the permission to do something of high value to me, which helped strengthen the bond that I had with him and ultimately with my job that I loved. So, that is using whatever that activity is. Like for example, we've had stud dogs here and Buddhist dog dogs love most of all is breeding. And so, we built in doing simple behaviors for me before you are allowed to breed a bitch. And that is something that people just throw away that value. Don't give the value away, build something into that value. So, even if it's just you have to do a sit stay, well, you know that bitchin' season is right in front of you and I'm going to release you, giving you the permission. All right. And that's how you can use that value

to your great benefit. Now, activities are going to change as your dog grows up. So, when a puppy comes to the home, they're number one, they love to chase other dogs. There's nothing, probably no activity more valuable than that. And that will change as they grow. You want to jump on right now. What is the list of what your dog does that they love, what they know, that you think is great. How can you transfer that value into you? I'll give you the spoiler alert. It's just permission. And what are the activities your dog currently does that is not beneficial to you? And how are you going to use reinforcement to stop those behaviors? Today is going to be, has been focused on activities. We will revisit this topic and we're going to talk about how can we take the value of the food the dog loves and transfer it into getting a dog to love toys. Because toys are huge when you want to train your dog. They're a massively value. So, we've got make a list, check that list routinely, what your dog loves, food, toys, activities. How can we transfer value into things that are going to be a benefit to training and a benefit into ultimately developing that relationship, whether it be the relationship you have with your child, relationship with a coworker or spouse, somebody who works for you. And of course, shaped by dogs, it's all about the relationship we have with our dogs. That's it for today. We'll see you next time on Shaped by Dogs. See ya.