Fun with clicker training the retrieve!

[Root Beer]

Recently I've been working with clicker training Speedy to retrieve. I've used clicker with him for a while now as a positive marker, but I hadn't tried shaping a behavior with the clicker before. Rather, I should say that I never really persisted in trying to shape a behavior with clicker. But when it came to picking up the dumbell, it wasn't something I could compel him to do by luring him in any way, so I kind of had to stick with it!

 

We started off with him getting a click and treat whenever he put his mouth on the dumbell and lifted it even a tiny bit. It was tough to get him past that point. He was very eager to get that thing out of his mouth ASAP!

 

Gradually he figured out to hold it for about a split second and then up to the count of "one one thousand" before he would get the click.

 

He really seemed to get clued into the idea that if he did what I wanted, he would get the click and the treat, but he resisted it some. He went through a stage just after he started holding the dumbell for a split second where he would stare at me and whimper a little. This is a dog that never cried - even as a little puppy - in his life! But I found that if I let him whimper a few times, he would soon turn his attention back to the dumbell and would pick it up. It seemed for all the world like he was trying to work it all out mentally!

 

Once he got it, he got it. He is picking it up willing now and he can hold it for a decent amount of time and he's starting to carry it some!

 

He is clued into the "game" now. We have a ways to go because now I need to get him to let me take it out of his mouth instead of him dropping it, but we'll get there.

 

After we get this retrieve finished, I mean to come up with a new task to work on with the clicker with him. He seems to enjoy the mental challenge of figuring out what I want him to do. In fact, he likes it so much that I can do this with him with his ball sitting right on the floor near him and he completely ignores it! That is no small miracle!

[Deb Mickey]

Yeah Root Beer! The clicker is a GREAT way to teach a dog to accept a dumbbell! And once he has totaly understands the game, the dumbbell will become one of his favorite things.

 

My dogs "steal" other people dumbbells so they can bring them to me. It's a much nicer way to teach the retrieve than some of the old ways.

[Root Beer]

LOL @ your dogs stealing dumbells! I think Speedy will get to that point. I keep the dumbell on top of the fridge and when he has seen me going to get it the last couple of times, he started to prance around.

 

I don't really know the old ways of training the retrieve, but he tends to balk if I try to force him to do something he really doesn't want to do or doesn't understand yet. The fact that he can "experiment" with trying to figure out what I want really suits him. I'm glad he's finally picking up that idea. Also, it seems to actually make him pull his scattered brains together and focus. I can do this with a jump sitting around and he couldn't care less that it's there!

[Barb Scott]

The old way of teaching a retrieve involved pinching the dog's ear...enough said?

Barb S

[Zoe]

I love your post - I think it is great. I've been doing some clicker training with Dylan, but using the internet/magazines as a source so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but I think I have definitely taught him some stuff that he couldn't learn in any other way. He gets excited when I get things out that we've used the clicker to train him on too. And Dylan is the same as Speedy - I haven't forced him to do anything, but if there is a hint of me trying to "get him to do something he doesn't understand " , he doesn't like it. I can't explain it better !!! I know what you mean ! And I want to preach to other people where I train re: the benefits and joys of clicker ( positive )training methods.

Barb, if you're reading: are you serious ? Why ?

[Deb Mickey]

Some of the old ways (and these are still used today by some ) are pinching the dog's ear until the dog opened his mouth so the dumbbell could be put into it or twisting the dog's collar (think choking) to get the dog to open his mouth.

 

When I started in obedience 20+ years ago, causing the dog pain to perform was the norm. Leash corrections on choke or prong collars to teach heeling, ear pinch to teach the retrieve, etc. Most of what early obedience people did was taken from how the military then trained their dogs. The trainers used these methods, not to be cruel, but because no other methods had been developed. Maxx Paris, an obedience competitor who came on the scene and started to clean up with his border collies, showed a lot of people the benefits of using treats rather than force in training and put the bc on the map as a great obedience breed.

 

Karen Pryor came along and applied the work she had done with whales and introduced the clicker.

 

I personally couldn't cause my dog pain to teach it obedience skills, so I quit when it came time to teach the retrieve. Luckily I met a woman who showed me the Inducive Retrieve, which is very much like the clicker method without the clicker (the clicker method hadn't been developed at that time - the Inducive Retrieve methods is still a goodie!).

 

Thankfully, training methods have evolved a great deal since I first started.

[Root Beer]

but using the internet/magazines as a source so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right

That was my hesitation with using the clicker to train behaviors for a long time, too. I completely understood teaching the dog that the clicker is a positive marker and using it to mark behaviors that I had taught him another way, but wanted to reinforce.

 

But I got confused by the "behavior shaping" use of the clicker. I was really worried that I was going to do it wrong and just get him all mixed up.

 

Then, this past summer, I got a chance to see someone use the clicker to shape behaviors first hand and I kind of "got it". The best thing is that I saw that if I end up making a mistake and click at the wrong time or try to go to fast or something, it won't ruin everything!

 

I've run into that with Speedy and the dumbell. There have been a few times where it seemed like he totally "got" that he was supposed to hold it in his mouth for a few seconds and I stopped clicking when he dropped it sooner than I wanted. Sometimes (not always), that would confuse him. I found that if I kind of "backed up" and started clicking when he held it for shorter time periods, I could build him right back up to the amount of time I was looking for.

 

I've been playing with the clicker with all three of my dogs on and off since then and I've really found that just kind of playing around with it a bit has helped me figure out how to do it "right". And, in fact, "right" is a little bit different for all three of my dogs.

 

Using the clicker to get Speedy to work with the dumbell has been my first real experience of teaching a brand new behavior completely with the clicker, though.

 

I personally couldn't cause my dog pain to teach it obedience skills

I wouldn't, either.

 

It's interesting how the mentality has changed. I remember when I was a kid, my mother telling me NEVER to give our dog a treat for doing what I wanted him to do because I was going to "spoil him". We never actually trained him to do anything but "sit" and to jump over a hurdle made out of bricks and a stick (I went through a phase where I wanted to pretend he was a horse and since I couldn't ride him, I taught him to jump a hurdle). I'm glad we never took him to any training back then because it very well may have been painful for him.

 

When I took Speedy to his first obedience class, I was shocked when the instructor told us to bring treats for training! Since I was more than willing to "spoil" my puppy at the time, I wasn't opposed to the idea, but I honestly didn't think it would work. I was happily wrong.

 

I adapted a really good handout on the inductive retrieve to come up with Speedy's clicker training on the retrieve.

[Freeman's Mom]

I think the method that I used to teach my SP to retrieve was similar to your method. Did you use back chaining (before teaching him to pick up an object I first got a good solid hold)?

 

I've taught him to retrieve dropped objects and then bring them to me, I can give him towels or other objects and tell him to take them to my son, he can hold doors open, and can carry objects including grocery bags.

 

Here's a picture showing a few things he does to help out around the house- see Matthew and Monty's page:

 

A Pawsitive Puppy Solution