Shaping Our Way to Calm

While I'm fairly familiar with using a clicker as a tool for training new behaviors, I've never really had someone explain the training process of "shaping" to me. I understood the idea that you were trying to start with a smaller piece of a behavior and slowly shape that skill into a more complex behavior but didn't really have a grasp of the mechanics.

What better people to learn from than the expert training team of Eva Bertilsson and Emilie Johnson-Vegh who together own the training center Carpe Momentum and teach agility seminars throughout Sweden and Norway. I took their shaping class called "You're in Great Shape" and then throughout the week saw shaping put to use in various labs that used the technique. 

To start with you need the basics of how clicker training works. First you set things up to make the behavior more likely (for example if you are training a dog to lay on a mat and be relaxed you need a quiet environment that isn't overly stimulating, and a time of day that they aren't more excited than usual). This is called the "antecedent." Next you mark the behavior you want. This would be the click and it communicates to the dog what behavior is being reinforced. And then finally comes the consequence, in this case a great consequence that the dog really enjoys. Most often people start out with tasty treats but a toy crazy dog might like a toy instead. The connection of the reinforcement to the less likely behavior will start to make that "less likely behavior" happen more often. If you want to learn more about shaping check out The Ten Laws of Shaping on the Clickertraining.com Website.

And here's the starting point in shaping that I didn't know about. You must start with a behavior that the dog is already doing currently. For example, if you want a dog to eventually lift their rear leg on cue you start might start clicking when they start to walk and lift that rear leg. They are already walking so capture the part of that you like. Then as a behavior becomes quite frequent you can increase your criteria for a click - say the leg needs to come up higher.

I'm a total beginner and so I'm starting with something pretty easy that I hopefully can eventually use as a part of helping my dog Frodo to learn some calming techniques. So my first shaping exercise was to teach him to go to a mat. Eventually we'll work on settling on a mat and then generalizing that to other places. I let him set the shaping pace and had no goals for the session other than to practice the skill and hopefully teach Frodo something in the process.

I started out clicking whenever his head turned in the direction of the mat. He knew I had a sack of treats there and proceeded to sit in front of me, stare and me and occasionally bark in frustration. Since I wanted the experience to be positive for him I stood up and walked around since it was more likely he'd glance at the mat if he was moving around. Sure enough I got a few glances and we were on our way.

Frodo is very impatient, a bit frenetic, and easily frustrated. So it was important to use tiny, tiny steps so his rate of reinforcement for behaviors was high. It was Frodo's first time with a shaping exercise as well so we were learning together. It was exciting for both of us when he figured out that he was in control - his behavior made treats get tossed. Sometimes if he seemed too frustrated I would lower the criteria for awhile so the reinforcement would come at a faster pace. That's where flexibility is so important with this skill - you don't just move forward in shaping, you move where the dog needs to move and sometimes that's stepping back to an easier behavior for awhile.

Here Frodo was first learning a down got him a reward. As you can see there is nothing calm about him but we have a long way to go before we reach calmness.

Once he was looking at the mat and occasionally touching it we increased the criteria and touching the mat was the behavior that earned the treats. Once he was regularly doing that it was two feet on the mat, quickly moving to standing with all four on the mat and then sitting on it. After awhile he laid down on the mat - the final behavior that I was moving towards - and I did a jackpot when he laid down, tossing the treats methodically and slowly off the mat so I wouldn't get him ramped up and also to reset him so he could strengthen the skill of going to the mat and lying down. After several reps of him going to the mat and being rewarded for an "on mat down" we ended the session, both of us happy and ready to do more. That's also a trick to shaping - end your session before any boredom sets in. This is probably the toughest step for the human since we are getting rewarded by our dogs success and we want to keep going.

From his body language you can see that he's still a bit stiff and poised to leap up at any moment, but he's calmer than he was when he first started giving a "down" on the mat. Good work Frodo!

Was our first experience perfect? Not at all! My rate of reinforcement was too slow initially and Frodo got frustrated so I should have broken things down more. It also didn't have the beautiful flow that I saw happening with the very experienced shapers who I saw demo-ing the skill over the weekend. But it was our first try and Frodo and I both learned a lot and enjoyed the experience so I'm going to call it a success.

Once we strengthen this skill of settling on a mat, we'll start adding a cue and also use some tricks I learned from another lecturer, Sarah Owings, about teaching a calm settle on a mat. But I'm trying to just be in the moment and work from where we are at rather than letting those future goals hang over my head and make me overwhelmed. Tiny steps are just as important for me as they are for my dogs. If I overwhelm myself I'll end up giving up and that doesn't help anyone. Better for everyone to take it slow, focus on the present, and have fun with it.

Mutt Mats

For those of you looking for a great mat, check out Mutt Mats. I love them! I bought a size medium at the Expo and it will be a good size for Chima but I can also use it folded in half for Frodo and Tilly who are smaller. Another nice extra is the rope that you can use to bring it along to training classes or mat sessions outside of home, just like your dogs own personal yoga mat. But you don't need a fancy mat to teach this skill. Other great options are bath mats that you can find on clearance all the time or even just use a towel or crate liner.