One week after starting to teach a trick I thought would take 5 minutes to train I am baffled about how to proceed.

The trick: Take an item in his mouth and bring it to a specified family member. It should have been simple. He already knows a command to go to everyone in the house by name. So all I had to teach him; was to carry something in his mouth.

The problem: I can't get him to take anything into his mouth. I think this is due to years of bite inhibition practice and the leave it command regarding items that are not his. He is 8 years old and was raised with 3 kids since the time he was 8 weeks old; hence,lots and lots of reinforcement for not using his mouth around hands or picking up items other than his own toys.

The first thing I tried was to tease him with a sock and once he put his mouth on it; I would have marked and treated. No such luck he wouldn't go for it.
I tried using treats which he readily accepted but then he ate them and there was no way to mark the behavior because getting the reward was the behavior.
Toys were my next attempt. I can give him a toy and tell him to go play with Tommy and he will take the toy to my son. This is the behavior I wanted but with him carrying other items. Toys especially tennis balls motivate him more than food so I use toys a lot in his training and I couldn't figure out how to switch to other items because he would refuse to take anything other than his toys.

Today I came up with a good idea; I got a paper towel tube and hid a treat in it. He enjoys finding treats and will pick up things to get to what he's looking for. This was working perfectly. Everytime he picked the tube up I marked and the treat fell out and he got his reward. I even added a vocal cue "take it". But when I went to hand him the tube he backed off and wouldn't take it. I tried enticing him with it but he went into avoidance, turning his head away which is the behavior he has been rewarded for for 8 years. Any suggestions?

Try using a clicker if you don't already to take your voice out of the equation. Dogs can be turned off by voice even if you are being pleasant. I learned this with Duke recently. Even when praising him, talking at all was a bit stressful and made him uncertain(specifically talking about tugging and having things in his mouth)

Use a clicker and set things out that are interesting and dog related, possibly toys or whatever at first. Try to catch him grabbing and holding without you hovering or too nearby, mark and toss reward.

You can also start by teaching him to touch something with his nose, and then seeing if that can bridge the gap to actually holding it.

I taught Duke by marking him grabbing and holding his own toys and treats/chewies etc, but with 8 years of strict mouthing/bite inhibition you may have a battle on your hands trying to find ways to undue what you taught him.

Sheila,
I would recommend breaking the "trick" down even further than you have. Also, like Jennifer said get a clicker if you aren't already using one. In my opinion the bite inhibition training wouldn't apply to this "trick" training, in that I'm guessing that the bite inhibition you did was probably very situation specific and the trick you are trying to teach won't fit the bite ihibition training situations. In other words the same cues shouldn't be present in this situation or at the very least not interpreted the same way by the dog. The last thing is patience and baby steps.
One method of getting the behavior: I would start with a place that has no distractions and that is familiar to the dog. Place an item (one that you want the dog to carry later) in the middle of the floor. If the dog looks at it click and treat. Continue this way until the dog looks readily and it appears that he understands that looking at the item gets him the click. Now here is the important part, you don't want the dog thinking this is the finished trick, so you will begin reinforcing him intermittently (every other, fourth, etc. look)for looking at the item. This should produce some variation in the behavior, which you will capitalize on and begin reinforcing (click and treat). For example, the dog may now take a step toward the item, click and treat. Follow the same steps as above, reliably taking steps toward it, intermittent schedule, looking again to reinforce variations in behavior closer to what you want.
The main things to remember are your timing (a good reason for a clicker), rate of reinforcement (should be high to keep dogs attention), and behavior broken into small steps so the dog suceeds (Bob and Marian Bailey identified these three steps as very important to getting behavior).
Take the finished behavior you want and go back and come up with the steps (small)that will lead you there. Remember, small easily reinforced steps. And before each training session, have a plan in mind as to what you will work on during that session, but be prepared to reinforce the dog if he jumps ahead of your plan. This is it in a nutshell.
Hope this helps,
Randall

 Quote: jennifer marshal

Try using a clicker if you don't already to take your voice out of the equation. Dogs can be turned off by voice

LOL! I'm not singing.

I have been using a tongue click to mark, easier for me. I've been using marker training with him since he was about a year old, I started with a clicker, moved to my voice but found I would sometimes accidentally mark behaviors and now do the tongue click. My timing is better this way; I could be all thumbs with the clicker.

I agree I do have my work cut out for me because the training scenarios I have set up to teach him bite inhibition and leave it resemble the scenario of setting items out and clicking when he ignored and did not grab the items. Now I'm looking for him to do the opposite....thanks I think I may be on to something. I need to change my approach.

 Quote: randall gore

In my opinion the bite inhibition training wouldn't apply to this "trick" training, in that I'm guessing that the bite inhibition you did was probably very situation specific and the trick you are trying to teach won't fit the bite ihibition training situations. In other words the same cues shouldn't be present in this situation or at the very least not interpreted the same way by the dog.

His training in this area was generalized to as many situations, scenarios,and environments I could think of. He was extremely mouthy and my insurance policy against an unexpected situation was reinforcing his bite inhibition...maybe I went overboard Both you and Jennifer are correct, I have to break it down even further. What he is offering me is the avoidance behavior he has been rewarded for when items and hands are flailing around him and leaving things unknown to him alone.

Your instructions are very clear, I want to take it back a step further. I think I should start with him just opening his mouth. From there I am not sure what would be next but it needs to be something different from what I have been doing. Any suggestions on where to go from there? These posts have been tremendously helpful. Thanks.

It might be a good idea to try a clicker. I'm pretty new to using clickers myself but I think that if you introduce a new marker (click) as a reward instead of the tongue click he won't perceive that as the reward he got previously in the bite inhibition and he may be more willing to offer the new desired behavior. Just a thought.

Hi,I think one of the most difficult things about teaching behaviors is for us humans to break them down into the smallest elements.  That is an art in itself<g>.  Think about when you first taught your kids to tie their shoes (assuming they're not velcro wraps).  Just having them pick up the two sides of the laces, then eventually, making that first tie, before you even get to the bunny ears and the loops...lots of very small steps before you get to the endpoint.One of the issues you are having is getting him to pick something up that he already has some history with.  It might make sense to start with a totally new object.  (And I realize you've done a great job of explaining to him that if it's not his, he shouldn't touch it at all, so even a totally new object is going to be a training challenge for you.)You might want to try a small container (I like to use clear ones that you can see thru, like a little plastic spice jar with a lid, or even a very small Tupperware container).  Have him watch you prepare it, which you do by getting some of his favorite treats, and rub them all over the inside of the container, make it nice and smelly, make yummy noises (oooh, wow, yum, isn't this the greatest!), let him smell it, making happy noises, then put a couple of the treats in it, put the top on, and entice him with it as you would one of his toys.  When he gets excited about it, drop it on the floor, reward any movements he makes towards it.  If he goes right for it, touches it, have a party, open it, give him the treats inside.  Gradually raise the bar...eventually, he'll pick it up, big party, he always gets the treats inside.  After a few repititons at each step, be happy, and stop while you're ahead!  I know whenever I've set out to teach a trick in 5 minutes, that's been way too fast<g>.  And, you can break this one down, once he's reliably picking up the container, to "get it", eventually, once he's gotten it, "hold it", and you can gradually increase the time he's holding it, then gradually increase how far away from you he is so he has to come further to give it to you to open for him, etc.  Take as long as it takes for him to love this part of the new game.  It's not a competition, right?  As long as you eventually get to the endpoint, who cares how long it takes? (And, eventually, there will be "give it," so he has to actually give it to you, rather than drop it on the floor, before you remove the lid and give him the treats inside.)On the other end of the trick, I'd have him "go to Charlie," just to go to the person, have a party each time, so he just loves that part of the game.  This is a totally different part of the process, one of the elements you need to break it down to.  It's fine if there are a bunch of separate little commands...get it, hold it, give it, go to Charlie...eventually, when he's doing all of them reliably, you can omit the interim commands, and end up with the ones you want to use for the final version, whatever they are ("get it...take it to Charlie!").Make sure your training sessions, which should really be fun play sessions, are brief each time.  You don't want him to get bored, you always want to end on success and lots of happiness over the whole process.  You also don't want him to perceive you are at all frustrated<g>...another reason to quit while you're ahead on a successful trial.And, one nice thing about using a container like this is that once he gets it about the container holding treats that he'll get, you can use this with other things...you want him to run thru a hoola hoop?  Toss the container thru the hoop, he'll chase it down.  (Also, you always put the container away when you're done...this is a new toy that you control, and once the positive value is on it for him, whenever you get it out, he knows some fun and good treats are coming.)leih merigian

PS, I'm not sure what happened to this post, which I wrote in paragraphs...sorry it all got jumbled together<G>.