Shaping Explained- Part 1 of Training Your Dog to Turn on a Light Switch with Clicker

[Mewsaphine]

Love the JACKPOT!!! Good girl. I'm such a cheater or rather...impatient. I probably should have taught my dogs this way rather than just teaching them to up on the wall to do this. It may have saved my walls some extra scratches since they use their paws for the off, and their noses for on. The funny thing is...my poor dachshund theoretically has all the behaviors down...just isn't tall enough to really do them...lol.

[86Dreamcatcher]

Thanks for sharing this! I'll have to try this with my dog.

[kittycatfire1]

sorry tuch my hand

[supernaturalbc2009]

@kittycatfire1 If your dog is not comfortable touching your hand (perhaps has been taught not to) you can teach him/her to nose touch the end of a stick or wooden spoon instead. The point is that they know they can use their nose to target things to start the behavior. You could also just shape the nose touch on its own before the rest of the behaviour. It just takes a little longer than dog that already knows the nose touch.

[kittycatfire1]

my dog will not tuth my hand

[Ammalinda]

I loved the video and the tips.....the first training I ever had with my dogs was the chain and jerk method. I love the positive reinforcement approach and am grateful for all the tips. Keep up the good work!

[supernaturalbc2009]

@Ammalinda Me too! I really wish the trainer I had when I was 15 has started me on positive. Instead he was a former police dog trainer who actually demo'd how to string your dog up by a choke chain when it reacted to other dogs. Since it was a family dog class and I had a daxie at the time, it was highly inappropriate. Intutively it felt wrong.But sadly, when under stress, guess which methods come out of the woodwork? Retraining yourself is the hardest part about it. The dogs certainly love it!

[MeraShahid]

what is a clicker? what's it's purpose in shaping? and how does it make a difference to not using a clicker?

[supernaturalbc2008]

@MeraShahid The clicker is a marker that tells the dog when they are doing the behaviour you hope they would.

It's purpose in shaping is to exactly mark the behaviour. It allows you to shape tiny segments of a behaviour that you could not otherwise get if you just used a reward with no marker. These tiny segments lead to a larger behaviour that in turn lead to the final one you are shaping. Using a metallic sound is better than say a voice marker because it is consistent.

[MeraShahid]

@supernaturalbc2008 Oh I see…Thankyou for letting me know…this may be able to help me with my Psychology exam…Thanks…=).

[BoundsOfJoy]

@billywig2 As soon as I bring the treats out my two cats line up right alongside my pup and work just as hard as he does for them. My cats like to feign superiority, but really....

[supernaturalbc2008]

@BoundsOfJoy LOL! Love to see people using the clicker on all their animals!

[rocawear6i9]

im studying this in psychology! this is pretty cool lol. thanks for the upload

[supernaturalbc2008]

@rocawear6i9 You are welcome. I wish we studied this when I took Psyc! Donna

[josski32]

Why do you have he light switch on the floor? How do you get one? Answer please!

[kimberlyfour]

Thanks so much for posting this. It is really helpful to me as I begin the journey of training a very busy, smart, and stubborn terrier.

[Candorsmayhem]

The best example of clicker training I have seen. Thanks for the demo

[supernaturalbc2008]

@Candorsmayhem Glad it was a good demo for you! D

[billywig2]

Wow, it's amazing, you can almost see what he's thinking! "Should I put my paw on the wood? No... Maybe if I- Yes! Treat!"

I'm going to try this with my cat, just started conditioning her tonight, and when she heard the clicker in the video she came running. (maybe I'll have to use headphones from now on)

[dionysus98052]

Thank you for sharing this! I've adopted my very first puppy. I'm taking him to puppy classes and socializing him. He's 5 months old and I'm clueless but doing what I can think to do. I'm looking to connect with avalanche SAR folks to help train him for this work and get further guidance. This video was very helpful to me!

[thezooprincess]

Wow, this was so helpful! Thank you so much for this video! I want to train service dogs someday, so this is really inspiring and helpful in the training of my current (and very first) dog. Thanks!!

Jessie is both smart and adorable :3

[shteffeh]

I'm revising for my animal training module at university and was having difficulty getting my head around using the clicker as a reinforcer, this video has been a brilliant demonstration thanks!

[supernaturalbc2008]

@shteffeh Glad it helped! I sure wish we were taught this stuff at university! I know my animal behavior experiment/term paper would have been very different had I known about Operant Conditioning!

[vonSontausenGSD]

Super job! Very well shown and explained. Thank you!

[animalvidsforyou]

my dog can do this... I'll be posting videos of her when shes trained and when I get a new web cam. mine is broken now.

[MrTazz1000]

wow my 3 month old lab would savage the open pot of treats lol

[supernaturalbc2009]

@MrTazz1000 The first all dogs need to be taught is food zen! Then you go from there!

[laurielatorre]

My puppy is already 10 weeks, he already knows sit & down & sleep (for naptime if hes too hyper). I am trying find out how I can train him to alert me sounds because I want to able train him as my hearing assistance dog... so its kinda complex bc I am deaf...any suggestion?

[GoneToTheDoggy]

awesome! my dog knows how to turn on the lights, but we have difernrt light switches, and he cant use his nose for them, but he is a small dog, so he uses his paws to turn on and off the lights :) good video though! :)

[noe2rs]

Great video--I've been training dogs all my life and it still helps to see step-by-step training.  Good idea on the girlfriend training...I try this with my husband all the time. They are so much tricker to train than dogs!

[supernaturalbc2009]

@noe2rs Ha. Ha. Aren't they? Especially when they know what you are doing! LOL!

[navaxtina]

great video! Thanks!

[dudestube]

It is truly astounding to watch Jessie figure the whole thing out !

That is great !

[SaraB24]

Thanks so much for this video! Our german shepherd puppy is in obedience class, but it's me who needs better training, especially on using clickers! This video really made it clear to me.

[supernaturalbc2008]

Glad it helped!

[bionikata]

can you use the clicker on your girlfriend too?

[supernaturalbc2008]

Yes! it's called TAG teaching! Teaching with Acoustical Guidance! Or you can be more subtle and just reinforce behaviors you want and ignore the ones you don't!

[ircphoenix]

@supernaturalbc2008 There was a "Big Bang Theory" episode devoted to exactly this. It was hilarious and something my girlfriend discovered that I do to her. LoL

[MeraShahid]

@ircphoenix oh yeh the chocolate one…we watched that in our psych class….

[sundaymorningsleeper]

I've been using it on my kids! Lol, they think it's great. So you could try the girlfriend.

[vikidobe]

@bionikata Since women are smarter than males, no doubt she is already using it on you.

[tartanqueen52]

Your videos have been most helpful for this novice dog trainer. Both my dog and myself have had great success using your techniques. Thank you!

[supernaturalbc2008]

You are very welcome! It's great to have the feedback as well!

[dustinjamesboswell]

woah....totally awesome

[plac0za]

im really impressed,, congratulations

i wanna ask something i have a doberman puppy shes almost 3 months she know how to sit, lay down, come, stay, give the paw, play death but whitout the clicker so i wanna start the clicker training it is ok she can start learning with a different form ?? or can be more hard for her?

[supernaturalbc2008]

Because clicker training is about the dog making choices, you can start clicker training as young as 4 weeks old! So go for it and have fun!

[freeshapingjunkey]

fantastic work you do!

I have a 4 year old border collie that i adopted 3 mounths ago...im clickertrainging him with great sucess and i thought it would be funny to service dog train him. show everyone that rescue dogs can do great! i have a spesific question...how many sessions and how long do you train on turning thi light on/off? and do you follow the 300 pecing/80 % rule? im planning to teach him to turn light on/off and will have a plan before we begin;O) hes soooo fast!

[supernaturalbc2008]

How long sessions are really depends on you and your dog. Jessie has done quite abit of clicker training and enjoys shaping and is motivated to work for longer sessions when offering a new behavior. I find that in early stages of learning this is most effective for her. So we do about 40-50 clikcs before taking a break.

[supernaturalbc2008]

Once she understands the behavior (in this case flipping the light switch in place), I go back to the 10 reps (or less), break, 10 reps and reduce the number of reps we do. The break allows for latent learning (think time) on the part of the dog. Once she is doing it consistently and we are generalizing to other rooms etc, then we will do 5 reps or less or she gets bored with the behavior.

Hope that helps!

[freeshapingjunkey]

yes that was really helpful! thank you very much for your time and good explonation. i will begin today, and i promise to upload the progress here on youtube!

thanks!

[supernaturalbc2008]

Can't wait to see your video! You can upload it as a video response if you like!

[freeshapingjunkey]

yes offcource! ;O) I uploading today, and i will start with a nose target that looks like a light switch...i dont have one exept from the wall,and thats abit high up. i will se what i can make that reselbles. he has done some hand targeting with be since i got him and he is pretty good. i guess he will transfere that to this assessment! im exited to start;O)

talk later

[DebbieDavidson06]

Wow, this was impressive. Great job, Donna

[magmaemil]

Good job you two! Very clear and informative.

[Balto32]

Thanks so much!

^^

[zsianz1]

yep another great video. love the way you go through things. 5*

[supernaturalbc2008]

Hi Discdogshayne,

I'll leave that to be answered by the next video (coming soon!)

As to the practice switch, try a dollar store or second hand stores for the two parts of the plate (cover plate and the actual switch). This training prop cost me $1.29 as I found the wood in my garage!

[discdogshayne]

i've been working on some service behaviors w/ my dog just for kicks (she picks up anything i drop [except food items lol, will take off my socks,and working on alerting to my phone)--I was considering teaching this but two things came to mind... all my light switches are way TOO tall for her to use once she learns it and two Where did you (how did you) make your practice switch?