I have taken Forrest's Engagement skills course, where says, when we start a lesson the dog should ideally engage us. I'm trying this, I'm asking "what do want?" and wait for the dog performing some behavior of his choice.

One of them mostly makes a playbow, the next one a sit pretty, the third one begins to bark (coming from Mark's exercise "speak and quiet"). I don't give any cue. I just wait for them to start with something.

I keep myself in the same position for each dog, but each one makes his individual choice.

This choice may sometimes be influenced from where I stand or move, eg near one of the posts, where they have often made an "around" etc. This seems to be an averbal cue. They often chose to present a behavior which is connected with the object near to them, a bench to jump on, a touch pad to step on to etc.


My question: I'm a bit confused about whether I should mark and
reward, although I have not given a command.

That depends on whether or not you want to shape that behavior.

What you are describing is "freeshaping", where you take a behavior that the dog offers and reinforce until it becomes predictable. Once it is predictable, you can associate a command or signal with it. To shape the behavior, you m&r every time the dog offers, at the moment he offers. The dog begins to associate the behavior with the reward, and he becomes classically conditioned to offer that behavior.

Not all trainers use freeshaping. I have used it to capture novel behaviors that the dog can use to beg treats off of the kids. However, for the purposes of training sport and working dogs, I prefer to lure, or to build a complex behavior from individually learned components, like Balabanov. IMO, this is much more direct, and therefore quicker to train.

Teaching a new behavior with markers always requires a mark before the reward.

As the dog understands the command then the reward becomes random.

When training with a command and the dog tosses random behaviors it's simply a matter of not having proofed each behavior before moving n to a new behavior and the dog is confused, thus the random behaviors during actual training.

If the dog is offering random behaviors with no command then the dog has learned how to make you a treat dispenser.

Thanks, Duane. Yes this might be a form of Free Shaping. Though Forrest used it in another sense, not for a new behaviour. I used this for teaching the play bow. This was the quickest way of teaching something, because I could capture the moment, when the dog did something spontaneously.

But as I can not always free shape I also use luring. But there the opinions of the instructors seem to differ a bit. Mark Keating always warned from using luring too long.

He does it, but just for a short time. He says, yes, they learn quicker, but if doing it too long, we will spend a lot of time getting rid of it afterwards. He soon fades it out.

For example, when he taught the bark and quiet, he waited for the dog to bark. In some cases he also tried to frustrate him,(knocking on a door and so on), so he could then capture the moment.

Making him wait IMO is also a frustration. One of my dogs made me wait endlessly, so I stopped the whole thing with a sigh,partly amused, partly frustrated, and said "Woof!"
In this moment my dog answered with a woof! Since then I use Woof as a command for barking.

What method was that??? No idea!
At least it still works.

 Quote: Bob Scott

When training with a command and the dog tosses random behaviors it's simply a matter of not having proofed each behavior before moving n to a new behavior and the dog is confused, thus the random behaviors during actual training.

If the dog is offering random behaviors with no command then the dog has learned how to make you a treat dispenser.

I don't think (JMHO) that most trainers who use free shaping are doing it during the course of another training session, or marking spontaneous behaviors whenever a dog decides to offer. The demonstrations of free shaping that I have seen, and the limited amount of free shaping that I do, take place in a dedicated session, separate from obedience training.

"Mark Keating warned agained from using luring too long".

That is not a warning against using luring. As with any training technique that you use, you are going to fade the cues. Luring is no different. I teach the sit by luring. My current dog learned in less than three repetitions. From the beginning of the second session, I was able to lose the lure.

The way that you saw Mark teach the bark is exactly how 99% of protection sport trainers teach it. He learned that from those before him. That is the difference between shaping and free shaping. Free shaping is capturing a spontaneous behavior and classically conditioning it. Shaping is taking any behavior that you want to reinforce, using a lure or developing a cue to signal the dog for that behavior, and reinforcing the behavior until the dog performs the desired behavior on cue.

Out of curiosity, how did Forrest use free shaping in another sense? I have not seen the video. I guess I was under the impression that he used it as an engagement game to teach the dog to interact with and focus on the handler in order to facilitate clear communication. How else would free shaping benefit someone who is training a working dog?

If he did not use shaping for a new behavior, that is not "free" shaping, as I understand it. He may be "shaping" a previously learned behavior, but "free shaping" is using a mark to capture a random behavior.

Someone please correct me if my understanding is incorrect. Free shaping is for developing offered behaviors. Shaping is for making behaviors predictable and chaining individual behaviors into a complex behavior.

Hi Bob. Yes, mark before the reward I know. And introducing a command only once the dog has understood what we want from him. And then random rewards.

But in this case it is about rewarding without having given a command. The dog knows various behaviors already well and he can offer them.to us. Of course not all day long, just in the beginning of a session.

Forrest after his cue "Ready to work?" wants that the interaction comes from the dog. He wants him to be active, engaged and somehow an autonomous partner, not a robot who is just waiting for commands and following them.

Good heavens, no, a treat dispenser I don't want to be. That's why I was in a conflict doing this. (And that's why I never reward my husband without previous command!)

Forrest's course is over - sometimes my questions enter my mind too late. I have still access to the material though and I was searching for that specific part, but could not find it any more. I will have to look for it again. Maybe I've misunderstood something.

Thanks, your attitude seems to me very logical.

Hi Duane. I think, I understand luring, free shaping and shaping exactly in the way you do.

About luring: Mark doesn't warn against luring, just against doing it too long, which you obviously are aware of. He himself uses and teaches luring. Depending on the exercise it is the best way and often we don't have a any other choice. But there where he can he prefers free shaping

About shaping and free shaping: I know the difference between the two. I didn't want to say that Forrest called the offering of already learned behaviors Free Shaping.

I just described what he was recommending for activating the dog to be an engaged and quasi equal partner. I didn't think about free shaping. You called it like that in your answer and I thought, maybe she's right, maybe this is another form of it. Lol, what a muddle.

Forrest didn't speak in his Engagement Skill course not about free shaping at all. He just wanted the dog to offer known behaviors as I describe in the answer to Bob right above.

I didn't want to create a confusion, I should have searched for this part a second time before putting the question here. Forgive me for that!

I will take in August a Forrest course about Heeling a second time with one of my other dogs and will certainly have the opportunity to ask him about this.

I will then let you know. Or I will find it sooner scouring the course again.

Thanks a lot for showing so much interest!

"But in this case it is about rewarding without having given a command. The dog knows various behaviors already well and he can offer them.to us. Of course not all day long, just in the beginning of a session."

I don't look at that as free shaping if the dog already understands these commands.

Beginning, middle or end, to ME It still amounts to the dog controlling the treats.

I wouldn't correct this behavior but I would remain neutral, simply ignore it and start the training session.

That will eventually extinguish the random offering and have no effect on the actual training.

A would have no problem if the dog offered me a sit or bark or whatever you want to show he is acknowledging the beginning of training.

STILL not until I gave a "ready" command or whatever you say to let the dog know training has begun.

Yes, Bob, thank you. I do not reward every behavior, they offer spontaneously.

Forrest does this - as far as I remember - always after his cue for the beginning and a few times in between the session. He wants that the dog continually asks for interaction, that he pushes for the work to continue and for this he gets the reward.