OK,I have just been reiewing the disucssion from this previous post under this topic:-

"Positve Only Operant Methodologist"

My situation is, that I have 2 Terriers who have so far only been trained by Positive Reinforcement(treats & praise). One is a male (10 months old) and the other a female (1 and a half years old).

Yes, they like to please & yes, they appear to be quite well focussed - BUT, if they are very tired or very distracted by something, I cannot rely on them to do what I have asked them to do 100%.

They will sit/drop/stay/come/wait/go this way (plus perform a number of tricks eg: shake hands/roll over/dance/crawl) in various environments, but sometimes the will to please, or outside stimulus proves too much to cope with for them.

In these instances, what is the best way to deal with this?. I am seriously considering corrections as the next step, but is this really warranted, or is there another way to re-focuss them?

It's a personal choice at this juncture. You can raise the value of your reinforcer so that it competes more effectively with the competing distraction, or you can use a correction to emphasize that it is no longer just a request. At the age of your dogs, I would add corrections. Since they already understand the commands and have a strong reinforcement history behind them, you're not going to ruin their attitude by requiring them to obey now, as long as you apply corrections that are appropriate for the temperament of each dog.

The real problem being finding the reward that CAN compete with the distraction.


IMO you never will with most dogs, especially in situations with many distractions and in different environments.

If your preference is to stick with R+ for now, then under heavy distraction you need to both raise the value of the reinforcer and increase the frequency of reinforcement. If it's a new distraction that they're not used to, and a tough one for them to ignore, you might need to reinforce continually during the behavior, and stop reinforcing only when you want the behavior to end. This is assuming that they're not so distracted that they're refusing the food. If that's the case, then look at what food you're using and see if there is something that might be more valuable, or realize that they may not be ready for that level of distraction yet, and perhaps work at a lower level for a little while longer.

Thank you for your advice re: my 2 terriers.

I have been using the same old treats day in , day out, so maybe I will have a go at upping them to something a bit more exciting.

If the yummier treats don't do the trick in the long run, I'll start at a low level correction & see how I go.

Thanks.

If you can set up a situation where those 'distracting' things can occur under controlled conditions. You can increase the distance between your little rascals and those distractions at first while rewarding them for keeping their eyes on you (or whatever it is you want). Gradually decrease that distance as they demonstrate reliability. I'm being exceedingly brief here, but the best possible situation would end up looking like this:
"When the distracting thing happens, looking at mom brings rewards!" So distracting things will, hopefully, come to serve as a signal to look at you.
Make sure that you have the very best rewards saved for the most trying distractions. You might want to do these exercises when the dogs are getting close to dinner time.
If the distractions involve stuff like "chasing prey", then make sure that these dogs DO get a chance to chase stuff during their day AND put that chasing on a cue ("get it!")...and don't ever let them "get it" without your cue if possible.
If you want to punish, you don't necessarily have to yank or shock....if the dog makes a bolt for the distractor, you can just say "no!" and instantly put the dog back in the house alone.
These are just some ideas without actually knowing your situation.