Daniel P. Hughes Webboard User Reg: 04-19-2005
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I believe that is the term for what I am going to describe.
Lets just say for conversations' sake you are going to counter condition a dog that has fear of trash cans. You start real far away where it doesn't affect him...My question is every time you reward him for not showing fear can you mark(click) it.
Connie Sutherland Moderator Reg: 07-13-2005
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Loc: North-Central coast of California
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Quote:
I believe that is the term for what I am going to describe.
Lets just say for conversations' sake you are going to counter condition a dog that has fear of trash cans. You start real far away where it doesn't affect him...My question is every time you reward him for not showing fear can you mark(click) it.
Not everyone will agree with this, but I reward positives only (that I can think of at the moment, anyway).
Wouldn't it be potentially confusing to reward for a negative? "Not showing fear"? I want to mark the desired behavior instantly, and when is the instant the dog *doesn't* do something?
So suppose you are training the dog to sit when company arrives (because you don't want him to jump on them). I'd mark the "sit" behavior as opposed to the not jumping up.
Robert VanCamp Webboard User Reg: 11-28-2001
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The goal of using treats to help with fear issues is to build a positive association with the object of the fear by pairing it with good feelings that come from eating tasty treats. The other thing that happens is that the dog will take more of a chance to be around the thing that scares him in order to eat the treats, thereby learning that the horrible thing is not going to molest him.
I wouldn't use the clicker, or a secondary reinforcer. You don't really need to worry about rewarding an instantaneous action.
If you wanted to reinforce the dog paying attention to you and not tripping on the can, you could use the clicker to click when he makes eye contact and then reward for that. In essence you would be teaching the dog to ignore the can. It would probably take more time for the dog to get over the terror of the dreaded can than it would to just put his food on the can, or next to the can.
Find out what the dogs' favorite toy is? Squeaky toys? Balls? The kids'stuffed animals...whatever??
Get a clean garbage can and put that item inside of it. Walk the dog up to just before his fear threshold and have someone else slowly tip the can so the item falls out...then leave the can on it's side and have that person walk away from it.
If the dog is still too scared to approach, have the person take the item out of the can and toss it to the dog instead of tipping it out of the can. It'd probably be best to do this step first anyway.
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