I am standing at my front door with my sheepherding whistle. This is a “special” whistle that one has to learn to produce sound from by positioning strategically on the tongue. The whistle is super loud and you can make many different types of sounds with it. The different sounds communicate to a sheepherding dog when herding what you want him to do in relation to the sheep.
I have used this whistle with my dogs when I need them to come back to me pronto without a second hesitation. They have both learned that this particular sound means chicken skin or homemade liver treats will follow.
This morning they are both in the front area barking at our neighbor walking her dog. They cannot approach because of the fence we put up but nevertheless they are barking at them. Our MO is to let our dogs bark here and there since barking is normal dog behavior. In fact, it came along with domestication. They are allowed to bark depending on the hour (no 4 am barking allowed- for example) and only for a prescribed amount of time. So once they got their “allotted” barking time I whistle hard.
Rioja stops what she is doing and she runs full speed towards the home. Deuce follows, his running for this kind of thing is a bit more dainty a result of hating to walk (or run) on gravel. I make it count since they both stopped what they were doing and came when called. As I stand with glee by the window I see them almost approach the front door. I go to the fridge and pull out the tasty treats.
Now I am back at work and the dogs are sequestered inside so they don't go back to barking.
Not sure if it was the same day or the following, but the same scenario repeats itself. I guess from our dog’s point of view there is always a good reason to bark… I bring out the whistle and… it takes them a bit longer to respond.
Mmm, I think to myself: Not good enough! I open the front door for them and I give them a lesser “goody”. Still a goody but not the “ultimate goody”.
What I am doing here is exercising my right to reinforce based on what is a called a Schedule of Reinforcement for Excellent behavior or DRE. My contingency when it comes to the use of the whistle as a recall cue and their response is that in order to get chicken skin or dried liver is they MUST turn on a dime when hearing the whistle - no lingering allowed. Think of this particular schedule as upping the ante for any given behavior. Yes, I continue to pay them for coming (always!) but the reinforcement varies and is contingent upon their response.
When a behavior is solid enough (or fluent in dog training parlance) in a given situation say my fenced-in property, it is appropriate to switch to a schedule that reflects the quality of the response.
The thinking is this: Dog gets paid for effort and for correct response. The faster the comeback - in this case, the more valuable the reinforcer. And so the dog learns within a few trials what kind of a response is needed to earn a coveted reward. Varying schedules of reinforcement not only keeps the “game” interesting for us, since we have to think this through but it also makes for behaviors that are less prone to extinction.
I have used this whistle with my dogs when I need them to come back to me pronto without a second hesitation. They have both learned that this particular sound means chicken skin or homemade liver treats will follow.
This morning they are both in the front area barking at our neighbor walking her dog. They cannot approach because of the fence we put up but nevertheless they are barking at them. Our MO is to let our dogs bark here and there since barking is normal dog behavior. In fact, it came along with domestication. They are allowed to bark depending on the hour (no 4 am barking allowed- for example) and only for a prescribed amount of time. So once they got their “allotted” barking time I whistle hard.
Rioja stops what she is doing and she runs full speed towards the home. Deuce follows, his running for this kind of thing is a bit more dainty a result of hating to walk (or run) on gravel. I make it count since they both stopped what they were doing and came when called. As I stand with glee by the window I see them almost approach the front door. I go to the fridge and pull out the tasty treats.
Now I am back at work and the dogs are sequestered inside so they don't go back to barking.
Not sure if it was the same day or the following, but the same scenario repeats itself. I guess from our dog’s point of view there is always a good reason to bark… I bring out the whistle and… it takes them a bit longer to respond.
Mmm, I think to myself: Not good enough! I open the front door for them and I give them a lesser “goody”. Still a goody but not the “ultimate goody”.
What I am doing here is exercising my right to reinforce based on what is a called a Schedule of Reinforcement for Excellent behavior or DRE. My contingency when it comes to the use of the whistle as a recall cue and their response is that in order to get chicken skin or dried liver is they MUST turn on a dime when hearing the whistle - no lingering allowed. Think of this particular schedule as upping the ante for any given behavior. Yes, I continue to pay them for coming (always!) but the reinforcement varies and is contingent upon their response.
When a behavior is solid enough (or fluent in dog training parlance) in a given situation say my fenced-in property, it is appropriate to switch to a schedule that reflects the quality of the response.
The thinking is this: Dog gets paid for effort and for correct response. The faster the comeback - in this case, the more valuable the reinforcer. And so the dog learns within a few trials what kind of a response is needed to earn a coveted reward. Varying schedules of reinforcement not only keeps the “game” interesting for us, since we have to think this through but it also makes for behaviors that are less prone to extinction.
No comments:
Post a Comment