g a l o d y

Slate and I have been steadily working on our CAP3, and here is the next instalment.  The previous instalment (Criteria 1 & 2) can be found here.

Here are Criteria 3&4.  For those of you subscribed by email, you can view it here on YouTube.

Slate and I have been working on our next CAP 3 exercise, which is:
 

3.  Chain at least 6 individual behaviours where each individual behaviour is cued and reward is only given on completion of the chain.
 

4.  Maintain the quality of each behaviour within a chain (above).

 

Although there are more behaviours in this chain than in the last one, it is actually easier because you can cue each behaviour:  Last time I could only give one cue to start the sequence.  This time I can ask for each individual behaviour.
 

For our 6 behaviours, we are working on:
 

1. Weave through right leg
2. ‘Spin’
3. Weave through left leg
4. ‘Twist’
5. ‘Reverse’ (walk backwards)
6. Target/nose-touch my hand

Only the behaviours with ‘ ‘s around them in the list above are cued with verbal cues.  The others are cued by physical cues from me.  However, no where does it specify that the cue has to be verbal, so this is hopefully ok.

 

Choosing these behaviours is actually harder than it looks, because ideally the behaviours chosen for both this exercise and the previous one, need to be self-completing behaviours.  (This much I remember from the last course I did at Learning About Dogs, who accredit the CAP scheme.)
 

‘Self-completing behaviours’ have no ‘duration’ on them.  To make this clearer:  Behaviours like ‘sit’, ‘down’, ‘bow’, ‘play dead’ etc, all have duration on them – the dog should stay in position until given another command or released.  The dog can’t decide for itself when to get up, or that would be breaking a position.  
 

By contrast, a behaviour like ‘Twist’, for example, completes itself: The dog will turn in a circle once and then the behaviour is finished.
 

When building a chain, behaviours with duration complicate matters, because you are not releasing or rewarding the dog after each behaviour when running a chain.  Certainly not in Criteria 1 & 2 (the previous exercise), when the chain should run itself after you give the cue for the whole chain.  What is the dog supposed to do then, if there are behaviours like ‘sit’ and ‘down’ in the chain – decide for herself how long to stay in each position?  
 

Yet finding enough behaviours which are ‘self-completing’ and yet relatively simple, is quite challenging.
 

Finally, it is possible to include one behaviour with duration as the last one of the chain – because you’re going to click the whole chain at the end, and reward.  So there will be a release given by you, after that last behaviour.
 

Anyway, Slate and I are ready to film Criteria 3 & 4 now, but our cameraman is in the US…
 

 

Here’s a video for the first and second criteria of my CAP3 assessment.  For those who subscribe by email, you can see it on YouTube here.  The criteria are:

1. Use a single cue to chain at least 3 individual behaviours where a reward is only given on completion of the chain.
2. Maintain the quality of each behaviour within the chain.

I would just do it the LADs way for the sake of creating this video, but it isn’t the method of clicker training I’ve used with our dogs and I don’t want to confuse them.  Our dogs always believe that the clicker means ‘behaviour over’.  I want them to understand the clicker in this way – I’ve thought about the LADs way of ‘working through the click’, but I feel that this way of ‘click = end of behaviour’ works better for me, when I use the clicker to train various tasks.  It’s also the way in which the majority of non-LADs clicker trainers use the clicker, too.

I do have what I’d call a verbal bridging word (‘Yes’), which LADs call an ‘alternative click’, which isn’t rewarded by an immediate treat and which is much more like the ‘working through the click’ which LADs do.

So, in short:  I’ve achieved the results required, but I’m not sure they’re necessarily going to like how I did it.  But I don’t know if they’re marking the ‘how’…

But it doesn’t matter, since I’m enjoying the process of all this anyway – and learning a lot about chaining behaviours together.

I haven’t posted for a couple of weeks because we hit a snag in the CAP3 stuff, which I think I’ve now worked through…

What I say here might not make much sense unless you first read my earlier post here.

 Slate quickly got to the point where ‘Cabbage’ resulted in a twist and a spin, with no verbal cues given.  But, no matter how many millions and gadzillions and squillions of repetitions, she just would not do the ‘down’ at the end without the ‘Down’ cue word.  If I waited her out, she would either bark at me in frustration, try another twist or spin, or start walking backwards.  (‘Reverse’ – or walk backwards – was the last behaviour we free-shaped.)

I’m not sure why she had so many problems with the Down, because she has known this behaviour for ages – since a pup – and she always responds to the word cue immediately and quickly.  I think it isn’t one of her favourite behaviours because she likes to be always on the move (twist, spin and reverse are far more her kind of behaviours!).

What was missing, here, was her ability to anticipate or guess the down – uncued.  So, I isolated this behaviour (the down) and decided to work on her guessing/anticipating a down.  This involved repeating for ever and ever and ever ‘Down’>Click>Treat.  After every 20 reps or so (!), I would pause and see if she would offer me one, uncued, for a click and a treat.  Eventually, she started to do this.  If I appear with a bowl of treats, she will now eagerly throw herself into a down.

So I have just started to put the ‘cabbage’ sequence back together again, with the ‘down’ at the end.  We’ve only had half a session on this so far, so it’s early days yet to know if it’s going to work…

Meanwhile, Grey has learnt ‘spin’ (clockwise) and is thoroughly off the lure for it and responding to the word only.  She is now making good progress on learning the difference between ‘twist’ (anti-clockwise) and ‘spin’ (clockwise):  We are practising them in batches of about 10 of each, trying to get the right behaviour at the changeover from one to the other.

Many times now I have looked at the requirements for CAP3 with Learning About Dogs, and been too confused by them to start.  I’ve even been on a few advanced courses at LADs, working towards CAP3, but have never made an attempt at taking the assessment.

Well, I’ve decided to make a serious and organised effort now.  To that end, Slate and I have been working on criteria 1 and 2 from the list.  Our 3 separate behaviours are:

1. ‘Twist’ [spin in an anti-clockwise circle];
2. ‘Spin’ [spin in a clock-wise circle];
3. ‘Down’ [lie down].

Each of these behaviours are already fluent on their own, scoring 10/10 for repetitions.   What we have to do, for CAP3, is put them together off a single cue.  The cue I’ve chosen is ‘cabbage’.  So, when I say ‘cabbage’, Slate will ultimately perform an anti-clockwise spin, a clock-wise spin and drop down.  All off that one cue and not separately cued.  Moreover, the quality of each behaviour will be just as good as when it is on its own.

The way I’ve gone about this is by repeating ad nauseum ‘Cabbage’>’Twist’>’Spin’>’Down’.  Of course, ‘cabbage’ doesn’t mean anything to her at the moment, but it will come to ‘mean’ this entire chain with enough repetition.  After many repetitions, I would pause after the ‘cabbage’ word, just to see if we could get the next behaviour without asking for it.  And we could:  Already, Slate was twisting without the word, just after I said ‘cabbage’.  A couple of times, she even twisted and span without those cues.  And once she did the entire chain, without prompting needed.

Once we’ve finished this part of the assessment, we’ll video it for submission and I’ll put a copy up here.

I can only use one dog for the assessment, and Slate knows more behaviours.  We’re going to need 6 behaviours for one of the other requirements, and only the last behaviour can be a position – so it will be Slate.  But Grey gets equal training time, of course.  So, meanwhile, Grey has been learning ‘spin’.  At the moment she only knows ‘twist’ (anti-clockwise), so I’m teaching her ‘spin’ (clockwise) as well.  To teach both ‘twist’ and ‘spin’, I use a target stick which is gradually faded.  Grey gets very very excited about clicker training, so it is a little difficult when bringing the target stick in from above, to get her to keep all 4 feet on the ground and not do a jumping circle – but she’s getting there.