Honoring

[Here's a discussion of training steadiness, especially on the honor, on the PGD list:]

On Apr 19, 2010, at 1:50 PM, Amanda wrote:

Secondly, how do I start training the Honor. I am a newbie to field training, and I have a VERY noisy Toller in the blind, who screams and cries once the calls start. She is not steady on the line (working on this as well.) I have started to stand facing the opposite direction as someone suggested last week, but need to know what else I should be doing. C/T for quiet doesn't seem effective as she is off food once birds are in sight.....

Thanks for the kind words, Amanda.

And congrats on having a Toller. I love Tollers.

Here are my suggestions on the honor:

(1) Never miss an opportunity to honor after running your series. I don't care if you're the only one out there honoring, that's their loss. IMO, the single most important key to learning to honor is having the dog understand that first you run your series, then you honor. You, little miss Toller, will never be sent on those throws a second time, so you may as well relax. Try to arrange to run in front of someone who's going to run an interesting series -- preferably a multiple -- so you get a good honor opportunity.

(2) Yes, use a totally different posture for honoring than for running the dog. That's actually two things: First, develop a nice, consistent set of line mechanics. And second, do something completely different for honoring. This may be more of an issue for 2Q dogs than 4Q dogs. I often see people stand next to an honor dog no differently to my eye than if the dog were marking, yet the dog is completely relaxed and in no danger of breaking. Must be nice, but until my dogs are like that, I do like you do and face backwards, always off the dog's right hip. I also use a special cue -- "Just watch", repeated quietly over and over, with an occasional "Sit" thrown in -- that of course I save exclusively for that context.

(3) I cannot emphasize this enough: The dog must never succeed in breaking. Ever. Either train a controlled break -- good luck doing that with a young 2Q dog, but if you can, great -- or have the dog on a tab in any practice situation where there is even the faintest possibility of her breaking. Do NOT rely on the thrower picking up the bird. The dog's adrenaline-pumping outrun is still too much reinforcement for the break, even if the dog doesn't get to pick up the bird.

A tab is a short line attached to the dog's collar like any lead and with a knot at the other end for traction. L&L's tabs are 9" so they can't catch in the dog's toes when running. Of course you don't want the dog to become tab wise, that is, only being steady when wearing the tab. So put the collar with tab on at the beginning of every practice, and take it off at the end. The dog then has no idea why she's wearing it, and becomes habituated to it. Alice would say the tab becomes "neutral". When honoring (and also at the start line if the dog is at risk of breaking), hold the tab tightly but with a slight amount of slack. The slack is so that (a) the dog has no idea you're holding it and tab awareness doesn't become part of the context for not breaking, and (b) the dog can't build up any momentum and injure herself if she does break and takes up the slack.

(4) If you want to borrow this idea from me, you can give the dog a well-rehearsed pattern of great things happening back at the van after the honor. This is a mixed bag. The good news is that the dog has something to look forward to after the honor, making a break less likely. The bad news is that having a highly excited dog at the end of honor, like I do with my dogs, means you've got to figure out how to keep the dog in control when the judge releases you, instead of the dog racing back to the van before you can get on her leash. I'm thinking I won't do this with my next dog.

LL&L

Alligator Water Entry

Both Lumi and Laddie had problems on and off with water returns. It has perhaps been our single greatest training challenge, and this post is not on that general topic.

But Laddie had another problem that made his training even more difficulty, so I thought I'd highlight that problem here.

Laddie had no trouble with water entries during his first few months, but around the age of a year old, he suddenly became unable to enter water while carrying a retrieval article (training dummy or duck, for example). In a 4Q dog, the problem might have been masked by an ecollar-trained recall, but for Laddie, it became a major barrier.

In fact, it took weeks before I even realized what the problem was. For a long time, I thought it was simply a recall problem. But actually, Laddie had developed a phobia about the water entry itself.

I'm guessing that these were the steps that led to the problem:

1. Like most puppies, Laddie was uncomfortable from the beginning at crossing what I call the "swim-line", the transition when wading out when the dog is no longer able to touch bottom and must begin to swim.
2. Also like some puppies, Laddie apparently came to a solution: He would leap over the swim line as he entered the water. At the time, I thought it was exuberance, and it is a joy to watch. But I now believe that it was also an avoidance behavior.
3. That worked fine until one day Laddie must have been carrying an article in his mouth when he made one of those leaps, and it hurt. I'd guess it must have hurt quite bad because of the effect it had on him, or it must happened several times. I was not aware of the incidents at the time they happened, I only speculate that they occurred.
4. As a result, Laddie became afraid of those leaping water entries. But he had never learned to "alligator" into the water, simply pushing off when he reached the swimline. And his recall was not strong enough to pull him back to me despite the phobia.

[more to be added, on how I addressed the problem and how I'd avoid it in future]

Notes on RRR for Training Recall

[Another reply to a PGD post:]

On Jan 26, 2010, at 10:06 PM, another poster wrote:

You might try the book "really reliable recall" if you're having recall issues. The trick is to be more rewarding than whatever else is going on, so the dog wants to return to you.

I'm sorry, this is incorrect. Nearly every dog trainer -- and this doesn't just apply to field trainers -- soon realizes that if you have to be more rewarding than "whatever else is going on," it will be impossible to create a reliable recall in many dogs.

Some points about RRR in particular:

* The RRR program is wonderful for pet dogs and dogs in other sports. I used it with Lumi and it once saved her life, as documented in an article on recall by September Morn in Dog Fancy magazine some years ago.

* RRR does NOT depend upon you being more rewarding than whatever else is going on, nor does any other high-quality recall training program.

* RRR is unfortunately not adequate for training a field recall.

* Even if it were, RRR is explicitly NOT for everyday recall. According to Leslie Nelson, the woman who designed RRR, it will fall apart if you use it for routine recall. It continues to work ONLY if you save it for emergencies.

* An interesting phenomenon has been recorded by some people who've train RRR: It can actually cause undesirable responses to increase! The reason for this is that the RRR recall cue is highly reinforced, which turns it into a conditioned reinforcer, much like a clicker. For some dogs, the cue then actually acts like a clicker. For example, the dog is chasing a bicycle and the trainer calls "DARLING" (or whatever the RRR cue is). Yes, the dog puts on the brakes and comes running for treats, but in addition, the dog has just been reinforced ("clicked") for chasing the bicycle. Each time a bicycle goes by, the handler calls "DARLING" and the dog in effect gets clicked and treated again. This is called "shaping" (though of course it's inadvertent). One day, the dog catches the bicycle.

We can discuss the mechanisms of how a recall can be trained WITHOUT being more rewarding than whatever else is going on at some point in the future, but for now, I just want to clarify that nothing you can do can make you more rewarding than the things a field retriever discovers as alternatives in the field.

LL&L

The Field Recall

[This began as a reply I wrote on the PGD list; it's been heavily edited to add content I thought of after I posted it, and in this version bears little resemblance to the original post:]

On Jan 26, 2010, at 4:28 PM, another poster wrote:

One burning question for you. Do you have a reliable recall? If so what is your secret?

Hi. I'm not the person you addressed your question to, but I'd like to offer my own answer because it's such an important question.

First, a disclaimer: Both of my 2Q Goldens had failures in their most recent Senior Hunt Tests because of recall, so I have not yet proven that I have a complete solution.

On the other hand, they both have JH titles, one has a WC and a WCX, both have won First placements in club trials, they both have several Senior ribbons, and they both have excellent, though not yet perfect, recall.

I won't be so presumptuous as to tell you what I think you should do. But I will give you the instructions I intend to follow with my next puppy, whom I will also train exclusively with 2Q methods:

(1) Use a standard, high-powered recall program designed for general trainers, and get as much benefit out of that program as possible. I invented a program I call the Walking Recall in 2010. I've had more success with the Walking Recall than any other program I've ever used, and I've used many.

(2) Minimize retrieves in the first few months of the dog's introduction to field work. She should be hungry to retrieve at all times, including at the end of a session. I want that hunger to grow and grow. For starters, it might be a single retrieve per session. After a week, maybe two. After a month, maybe three. That might be it for the first six months. (You can train several sessions a day, so the puppy could get perhaps nine retrieves in a day, but only a small number per session, and only if the hunger level stays high.)

(3) Do not train retrieve-to-hand until you begin formal retrieve training, which might be after six months of earlier field work. I believe that retrieve-to-hand works against the field recall and should be delayed until the pup's recall is really field-hardened.

(4) Never put the dog in a situation where she can self-reinforce by refusing a retrieve unless you are 100% certain that she won't do it. If that means you must sit out some of the retrieves other people in your group are running, so be it. This is a huge psychological barrier.

(5) Having the dog on a long line may allow you to run her in situations where her return could otherwise not be fully trusted. Don't use the long line to punish a failed return by jerking on it, just use it for management. A long line is at the heart of the Walking Recall program mentioned above.

(6) If the dog does not return on cue, do NOT let her complete the retrieve, but DO cue her to sit/stay, walk out, quietly and gently slip on her lead, bring her back to the start line (no training, just walk her back quietly), and give her another chance to do the retrieve correctly.

(7) If the dog does not return after a single recall cue (whistle or voice), do not continue to use additional recall cues, but rather use the Walk Out described in the previous paragraph. Repeated recall cues may work initially, but they quickly deteriorate for an interesting reason: The recall cue is a highly reinforced stimulus, both by the act of completing the retrieve (the retriever's most powerful intrinsic reinforcer other than sex) and by the trainer's many and varied methods of extrinsic reinforcement for a successful retrieve. A highly reinforced stimulus gradually becomes a conditioned reinforcer (a clicker is an example). This means that if the dog dawdles, and you use your recall cue, you are reinforcing the dawdling. If the dog continues to dawdle, and you continue to call the dog, you are further strengthening the dawdling. In fact, you are in effect shaping the behavior of dawdling. It's a vicious cycle that only gets worse over time.

(8) As in your recall program, develop a graded set of distractions and locations for which the dog's recall is to be proofed. Here's a hard one: a retrieve across a channel where there's no way for you to reach her. When she can do each location, add diversions like someone playing with another dog on the far side, or a training partner throwing a dummy on the ground nearby just as she's picking up the bird. No matter how many locations and diversions she's been proofed for, realize that if a novel one occurs, there's a good chance she'll fail with it. So keep coming up with newer and more difficult ones.

(9) Do not get lulled into a false sense of security by how well your puppy's recall is coming along, and by how easy it is for your buddies to train a high-quality 4Q recall to their dogs. That is not useful information to a 2Q field trainer if it leads you to take shortcuts with your own puppy's recall training. It IS fairly easy for them. It will NOT be easy for you.

(10) The declining field recall is a great example of what the Kellers called "instinctive drift" in their landmark article "Misbehavior of Organisms". The subject learns a desired behavior, gets huge reinforcement for it, is never once reinforced by the trainer for an undesired behavior, and yet begins to perform the undesired behavior more and more as the subject continues to practice. The more your pup retrieves, the more her instincts will beckon to her to fail on the recall, so even as you reinforce her success, she is still increasingly exposed to the suction of the undesired behavior. If you don't want that to defeat you (it DID in fact defeat the Kellers), keep up your guard and EXPECT a once-reliable and highly reinforced recall to start failing.

That's my list for now. It's not my complete training program, it just addresses the one subject of field recall.

Best of luck with your dog! I hope you keep us up-to-date with your adventures together.

Lindsay, with Lumi & Laddie (Goldens)

2Q, 4Q, and Instinctive Drift

[More thoughts on the terms 2Q, 4Q, and instinctive drift from articles posted to the PGD list, somewhat edited for republication here]

Posted December 17, 2009, at 1:05 AM

On Dec 17, 2009, at 12:02 AM, higgins10000 wrote:

> Sorry to plead ignorance here but what is 2Q?

Hi, Brad. I'm not Randy, but I can answer that. "2Q" is a term that was invented by Alice Woodyard to distinguish between traditional dog training methods ("4Q") and those that don't use aversives.

Both 4Q and 2Q refer to the four operant conditioning quadrants, outcomes for behavior that affect the probability of future choices under the same circumstances: positive and negative reinforcement, positive and negative punishment.

"2Q" provides a useful alternative for those who feel the term "positive" is not an accurate description of our approach, since we do NOT use positive punishment, and we DO use negative punishment.

LL&L

Posted December 17, 2009, at 10:55 AM

On Dec 17, 2009, at 9:46 AM, Alice Woodyard wrote:

Another reason "positive" is not accurate is that field training using
traditional methods is also strongly positive due to all the rewards (birds)
that are intrinsic to the dog work. You can't get away from that positive
aspect of field work even if aversives are used to shape behaviors.

Great point, and one that I'm aware of though I sometimes forget to mention it.

If it weren't true, they'd both be 2Q methods, just different Qs. :0)

I'd like to put even more emphasis on "strongly" in your first sentence for the information of those who are not aware of it. Successful 2Q and 4Q retriever training are both based above all on the dog's intrinsic desire and ability to perform field retrieves, so the lion's share of the outcome that shapes future choices comes not from extrinsic reinforcers like treats and games of tug, but from the intrinsic reinforcement of doing the work itself. The trainer's extrinsic reinforcers add to that, especially with puppies, but they don't add much, and they add less the more the developing dog discovers within herself the joy of retrieving.

The idea of training a retriever for advanced field work and somehow eliminating intrinsic reinforcement, so that the dog is only responding to extrinsic reinforcers -- a concept that seems to dawn on every newbie "positive" trainer as a lightning bolt, one example having recently been discussed at length on this list -- is totally out of touch with the actual experience of training a retriever. First, the idea of "desensitizing" a dog to intrinsic reinforcers is as absurd as the idea of "desensitizing" a teenager to music, video games, and sexual awakening by flooding the teenager with those stimuli. Second, if you somehow did manage to kill birdiness in an individual dog, you'd have a broken dog who would stand no chance of meeting the standards of dogs who retrieve for the pure love of it. At Junior level tests and breed certifications, we occasionally see dogs who don't show intrinsic field-retrieving desire. This probably isn't because they were "desensitized"; they either weren't born with it or they haven't had enough experience for it to come out. We don't see dogs like that at the more advanced levels, because they can't do the work.

Unfortunately, the developing dog doesn't only discover within herself the joy of retrieving correctly. She also discovers within herself an instinct for undesirable behaviors that were never trained, never practiced, but rise up from inside and become increasingly attractive to her. Those are the behaviors that I call "instinctive drift", borrowing that term from the Keller's famous article "Misbehavior of Organisms". From my experience, instinctive drift is a far more pervasive and difficult challenge in training retrievers for field work than in other canine sports and other animal-training endeavors, precisely because the sport is based upon the dog doing what it was bred to do, inviting those instincts to awaken and grow with every retrieve.

LL&L

Shaping Interaction with a Duck

[I sent the following post to PGD list on May 18, 2007]

In the thread "Forced Retrieve":

On May 17, 2007, at 6:04 PM, Linda Conrad wrote:

So, Lindsay, care to share how you got her to love to pick up
birds in 4 weeks time? I only ask because I'm struggling with this
issue right now - I jokingly said as soon as they start running hunt
tests with bumpers and Dokken ducks, we'll be MORE than ready!!!

Hi, Linda. Aren't Dokken's cool? We have a bunch of them, all different "species".

I should mention that it didn't take four weeks to get Lumi to love to pick up ducks, that took only a few minutes, but it took those same few minutes several times over a period of days, during which we had to start at the beginning of the process each time. Eventually, we didn't have to do again, since now Lumi seems all too ready to pick up ducks, but who knows, we may need to do it again some day if she loses that.

Other barriers also needed to be crossed in those four weeks. The actual progression was: 1st week, she wouldn't pick up a duck; 2nd week, she dawdled coming back on land retrieves; 3rd week, she picked up her first flyer (flier?); 4th week, Katie bar the door.

As for picking up ducks, we used shaping, or as it's also known, freeshaping. Although Lumi is a clicker dog, I didn't use a clicker because I felt that for this it would be superfluous. In addition, I didn't shape with food as I usually do (though perhaps I could have) because I felt we needed the best possible reinforcer, and for Lumi, that's swimming (an example of Premack reinforcement).

So each session went like this:

(1) Take a dead duck (preferably not too cold and in the best possible condition) plus a dummy and/or Dokken (I used both, I'll explain below) to the shoreline of some favorite swimming location. We used a fast-running creek, deep enough for Lumi to swim in, one of Lumi's favorite places in the world, about five minutes drive from home.

(2) Toss the duck on the ground near the water.

(3) Shape increasing interaction with the duck, reinforcing each correct response as follows:

(a) At the very instant of the response, Lumi receives a rousing send-out into the water (cue as marker), followed by me throwing the Dokken into the water just ahead of her, or upstream, or somewhere to make the swim the most fun possible. I used the Dokken for the water retrieves to help Lumi practice how to carry a duck.

(b) When Lumi comes back with the Dokken, bring her to heel, take the Dokken, and toss the dummy in the grass a few feet away, cueing "shake". In theory, this should keep me slightly drier than if she shakes as soon as I take the toy.

(c) When Lumi then brings the dummy back to me (again coming to heel), suddenly offer a game of tug (we use only the dummy for tug) for a few seconds.

(d) Finally, toss both toys on the ground, cue "leave it", and draw Lumi's attention back to the dead duck.

(e) Occasionally, I'd reverse the game of tug or the send out, or use only one of two. Lumi likes tug almost as much as retrieving. I don't want Lumi to know what reinforcer she'll get -- her motivation seems highest when I surprise her. (NOTE: Pretty much every field trainer I've met has warned me not to play tug with a retriever. Maybe I'll regret it someday. So far in our brief time in field training, I've seen no disadvantage and it has always had huge motivational benefit in other training.)

(4) As with any shaping I do with Lumi, the key is how I define "correct response" from one successive approximation to the next. For Lumi and me, it was something like:

* Glance in general direction of the duck -- "GO OUT!" (I might repeat this definition of a "correct response" or others two or three times, or go immediately to the next level on the next rep.)
* Glance at duck itself without lowering head
* Glance at the duck, lowering head slightly
* Seem to sniff the duck a little
* Touch nose to the duck -- (Sometimes after some progress, Lumi stops giving the current level of response, and we'll back up to an easier level and resume from there.)
* Place mouth on duck -- (When starting, you wonder if this will ever happen, after seeing how Lumi felt about the duck at the beginning. But she had a strong incentive -- those go-outs, to figure out what it was going to take to be sent out again.)
* Drag the duck one inch -- (When Lumi finally did that, I knew that it would be smooth sailing from there, and it was.)
* Drag the duck three inches, five inches
* Slightly lift the duck
* Lift the duck higher
* Put the duck in my hand, which of course I made as easy as possible
* "Retrieve" the duck after a toss about one foot away from my hand
* Retrieve after a toss two feet away, then longer and longer until I reach my throwing distance limit
* Put down a "sight blind" with Lumi beside me, walk a short distance away, send Lumi to retrieve (by now, she's coming to heel with the bird)
* Put down a sight blind with Lumi waiting some distance away in a sit, walk back to her, give her a treat her for waiting, then send her
* Increase the distance on sight blinds
* If available, recruit a bird boy for some longer marks (good luck finding a bird boy, that's one of my biggest problems)

I should mention that one of my criteria for correct response is enthusiasm. I might reinforce one or two tentative responses if necessary, but I want to extinguish those (by not reinforcing them) as quickly as possible.

I have no idea if that exact progression will work on other dogs. Lumi and I have done a good bit of shaping in other activities over the years, so she knows this game well. That is, she knows that reinforcement is contingent on her own actions. I suspect that dogs who have not been shaped in the past may need time to learn that concept, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe any retriever would respond as Lumi did to the above sequence regardless of training background.

I know from other lists that people often have questions about shaping, such as, What if the dog just looks at me?, or What if the dog gets interested in something else instead of interacting with me? I'm sorry if no one on this list has such questions, but I'll give a brief answer in case someone does.

First, I'm not a shaping purist. Dogs (and all animals) are most drawn to salient stimuli, so I'm not above moving the duck around to make it more interesting, even though that's not pure shaping. I'm also not above moving around myself, such as moving to the other side of the duck, so that Lumi might brush the duck as she comes toward me. ("You touched the duck! YAY! Go OUT!")

Perhaps most important, I set my criteria at whatever level it takes for me to get a response I can reinforce quickly. I don't want twenty seconds to go by with Lumi just wondering what's going on. Did her eyebrow flicker? Good enough! "GO OUT!"

Then there's timing. Sometimes I watch people trying to shape and there's too much delay between the moment the dog committed to whatever the current criteria are, and the reinforcement. I consider half a second too long. At the very instant Lumi does whatever it is I'm looking for, that's the moment I burst into motion and voice.

So if the dog is just looking at you, move around, move the duck around, take any glance away from you as your criteria until you're getting some fluency with that. If the dog isn't in the game, make the game as easy as necessary by lowering your criteria so that she can get reinforcement quickly (three seconds is what I aim for), and of course use a high value reinforcer.

Sorry if I've given too much detail, just trying to answer as best I could. I hope if you try it you'll let us know how it goes.

L&L

Hike Training: Pick It Up

My wife and I have always loved hiking, and both of us feel that the experience is enhanced even more by having our Goldens along with us.

Because we're out there to have fun, I tend to resist using the occasion of a hike to do training, but over time, I've come to feel that attitude is a mistake. I now think a dog can learn some poor habits under that attitude — for example, learning that the recall is optional — and I've now reconciled myself to the idea that some rules should always be in effect.

On a hike just yesterday, I noticed another example of not maintaining that concept. I realized for the first time that both Lumi and Laddie frequently drop the dummies they've been retrieving, playing tug with, and carrying around. They drop them to sniff, to eliminate, to explore, to pick up some alternative toy, and so forth.

I've always seen them doing such things, but yesterday for the first time that they exhibit a similar lackadaisical attitude about their returns in event situations. "I need to relive myself," the dog thinks, or "Hmm, this looks like an interesting bit of shrubbery to nose around in." So they drop their bird and off they go. Then, maybe they remember the bird and pick it back up again, or maybe it has now somehow become passé or distasteful.

So yesterday I came up with a new rule. Every time either dog put his or her training dummy down for an instant, I immediately called, "Pick it up." If the dog ignored me, I rushed to the side, gestured to the dummy, and again said "pick it up", as many times as necessary. The dog could do anything else — engage me in a game of tug, watch me throw the dummy and run to retrieve it, trot along carrying it, engage in any other activity without dropping it, or give it to me to carry — any other option except drop it.

I'm hoping that as that rule becomes consistently ingrained during future walks, a time will come when neither dog ever needs to be reminded again. At that point, I'll have a usable cue for a test if it's needed — "pick it up" — or better still, the training will carry over to event conditions as well.

Wouldn't that be nice?