Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:00 pm (PDT)
Hi Dawn!
Congrats on Diva's getting to the point where you're working toward fluency. This is always the hardest part.
The bad news is that you can't teach Diva to have less prey drive: that's in her genetics, and it will always be there.
The good news is that you certainly can use clicker training to build fluency in any behavior, even when you have to build against the genetic grain. And this goes hand in hand with teaching the dog to control its tendencies to follow its genetic code.
How well you succeed in building the behavior you want depends upon how much time you put in to teaching the behavior and adding the 4 D's: Duration, Distance, Distraction and Diversity.
No behavior can be said to be 'fluent' or 'under stimulus control' until you have taught the behavior with a focus on each of the D's, and worked through them.
An example of how a behavior is NOT under stimulus control or is not fluent is the sit. If you ask most handlers if their dog knows 'sit,' they will likely reply 'of course! We've done it successfully a thousand times in a row."
But does your dog know 'sit' when you walk behind the dog, cue the dog to sit? If the dog turns around to face you before sitting, then your dog doesn't really know sit. He only knows sit in the context of how you have taught him to recognize the cue, most likely when he is in front of you or on the side of you. But will he do it when you are lying down, with your hands covering your face? Will he do it when you bounce a ball close to his body? Will he do it when a cat rushes by (or a Yorkie? <G> Will he do it when you open up an umbrella as he is sitting? Will he do it when someone wiggles a piece of steak in front of his nose? Will he do it when a child is trying to pet him, or when a baby is crying next to him? Will he do it next to a street when city buses backfire and big trucks roar past?
If you haven't taught the dog to sit with all these types of D's, then the dog still doesn't know sit! He knows sit in SOME but not many different contexts. He knows sit when there may be no trigger distractions. He knows sit when you are
in the room, but perhaps not in another room where he cannot see you.
He knows sit when another dog walks by, but not when a rabbit, cat or little dog runs by. He knows sit when there are few distractions, but not when you pop balloons, toss balls, drop clipboards and books, pots and pans.
Now, the good news is that once you have ONE behavior taught to this level of fluency, other similar behaviors come faster and easier. If the dog can bypass trigger distractions and out-of-context cues in a sit position, then doing them in a down position is going to be a piece of cake.
Most dogs DO have some kind of strong predeliction for something their genetics tells them to do. Some like to bark. Some are genetically wired to chase rabbits or ferret out squirrels and other prey, or to stalk and herd things that move.
When we choose a SD candidate, we try to maximize our chances for success by choosing breeds with less genetic hardwiring than other breeds, but since most dogs still have some vestiges of their breed origins, these hardwired behaviors will come out during training and during teaching behaviorsthrough to fluency.
Correcting these hardwired behaviors is usually pretty difficult using punitive methods, unless the punishment is pretty severe. Since we don't even go to that place with clicker training, we can use positive reinforcement to build, increment by increment, the behavior we DO want to see. This way, we are also not going to see fallout from coercion nor cues being poisoned by adding an aversive stimulus.
So your dog breaks his stay when the Yorkie dances by? Think of it as simply 'informataion' to you. Not a bad thing, just information. Since your dog has not been taught the lesson before in this context--with the little Yorkie tripping its triggers constantly--then you have to back up, accept that your dog is being overwhelmed by a trigger stimulus that he has not yet learned to ignore.
Increase the distance between your dog and the Yorkie, and work on increasing by only a few seconds each time--the duration of time your dog can hold the stay. As he becomes more able to bypass his desire to chase the Yorkie, move the dog closer and closer until he can maintain that stay when the Yorkie is running right by your dog's nose. Or work your dog on the outside of the circle, giving your dog
as much distance as possible while the Yorkie jumps and dances in the center. Find the distance at which your dog simply cannot help but react, and back up just behind that point--to the point where your dog CAN maintain the stationary behavior. Reward that success generously and continue working toward incremental successes.
The bad news is this isn't likely to happen overnight, or in a week or two or three. Training through to fluency takes a LOT of time, a lot of patience, and a LOT of hours of work, especially when you are teaching against the genetic grain.
To expect your dog to understand the stay in any stationary behavior means you have to put the time in with training, and you'll likely not be able to do that within the short time frame of a group class. What may be easy for another breed of dog may be extremely hard for your dog, given its particular hardwiring. And likewise, behaviors your dog is very good at may be extremely difficult for other class members' dogs to offer when their particular hardwired triggers are tripped.
Accepting your dog's particular harwired proclivities doesn't mean you have to give up getting a solid behavior; it means that you now have the information you needed the most--and you have the opportunity to teach your dog incrementally how to respond appropriately to your cue, and to keep that cue as his focus.
You note that "I have worked her many times but still the fire in her eyes wins." Many times is not enough, Dawn. It's just the very tip of the bucket, the first lick of the ice cream cone. You have tons more teaching to do before your dog can become fluent when her hardwired behaviors are tripped.
This is why most of us who have been in the service dog world for years realize that we cannot hope for fluency until we have put in the time, and even with the most diligent training plan, it's going to likely take 2 years or so before you see real fluency amidst genetic triggers. Some behaviors will become fluent quicker than others, but if there is a problem with distractions in one behavior, chances are you will have the same problem with the same distractions with a different behavior.
Fluency is not something the average pet owner is going to worry about, or even think about. But it's something that we service dog trainers/owners/handlers have to think about all the time, because we expect our dogs to learn to be bombproof in public. Depending on the breed, the intensity of the genetic makeup, the dog's background of reinforcement, the skill of the teacher--all these things need to be taken into consideration, and may increase or decrease the time you have to spend working with the dog.
Hope this helps!
Warmly,
Debi Davis
Las Vegas, NV, USA
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