One of my goals is to get Rogue to respond on the source of the odor and stay there until he is rewarded. The first thing we tried was to have my trainer reward Rogue as I am walking away. This should have taught him not to pay attention to me but to stay at source until he gets his reward but it didn't work. Next I tried telling him "Stay" when he got to source and then I would try to make another presentation and keep moving. I think this started to work but the problem is that it is his job to tell me where the odor is and not my job to tell him. How can I tell him to stay when I don't know where the trainings are?
Today I started something new. I put a tug toy next to his reward. I made sure that I was standing on the other side of the room when he found the source of the odor. After he responded I walked to the source of the odor and pulled out his tug toy.
I know what you are thinking, Rogue is going to start sniffing for his tug toy and not the odor he should be sniffing for. I have about 6 different tug toys made out of 6 different materials. If I only use one or two a day then he shouldn't put the odor of his tug toy with the odor he should be sniffing for. But you are right, this is a fine line I'm walking and I will have to be careful. Anyway in the 30 seconds or so that it took me to walk across the room and pull out his tug toy he showed no signs of wanting to leave source. In fact he put his nose back on source 3 or 4 times. Since this was the first time that I have tried this I know that is not why he stayed at source. Maybe me telling him to "Stay" worked better than I thought. After we played for a little while and I let him win the tug-o-war game, he ran back to source, spit out his tug toy and responded again. This time I tossed his tennis ball, his real reward.
Here is what I need your help deciding. If I let him go back to source (after he gets his tug toy) and reward him again, this time with his tennis ball, is this going to help or hurt his training.
I think it might help because He might learn that he needs to be at source to get what he wants or he might hurt because nothing has changed. I still have his tennis ball so he should be next to me to get what he wants.
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To me, it seems to be a good thing to let him go back. I think of it as re-enforcing the behavior. Maybe after he realizes that he gets rewarded for being at source, you can extend his time there before the reward. Even if its for a few seconds, its more than before. Then maybe he'll get the idea of "Hey, I'm not leaving here til I get my reward!" I also think varying the type of reward....ball, tug, kong, etc....will keep him interested. Kinda like "what am I getting this time? woohoo!"
ReplyDeleteJust my thoughts from the other side of the fence. BDL
I will keep doing this but not all the time. I hadn't thought of changing his reward like that. Good idea. I'll see if it works.
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