Learning From My Mistakes #1: Teaching Zeus to Target at a Distance

I have a desire to teach my dogs and goats how to pull carts. Livestock guardian dogs don't like to play much but the training with them is good for bonding and for obedience so I thought I'd work on some preliminary behaviors needed for cart-pulling before I invest in equipment. I don't actually think Zeus (2 year old Akbash) will ever pull a cart because he doesn't like leaving the livestock or going for walks. But I thought some of the training could be useful anyway.

I found a list of needed behaviors in the Facebook group, Dog Carting Beginners and decided left/right would be a good place to start. I found this tutorial on Karen Pryor's Clicker Training website and decided to follow it.

The tutorial seemed like it was broken up into nice small steps so I started right with it. Zeus is really good at hand-targeting so I thought it wouldn't be too hard for him. I used a soccer cone he had never seen before and got some cut up pizza--a high value food for him so I could keep him interested. Unfortunately he did not like something about the cone and wouldn't touch it or take the pizza off the top. He wasn't following my tutorial (come on, dog, play by the book!) so I was then unsure what to do.

There are lots of things I should have done but on the spot I was baffled. I lowered the criteria to just looking at the cone, but I also threw treats near it to lure him into touching the cone and marked him for that too. That was one mistake--I was marking two different criteria so the poor boy probably wasn't sure what he was really supposed to do.

Another mistake I made was when he walked away I lured him back with a treat. I should have let him walk away and ended the session so he would learn if he stopped playing the treats went away.

I posted this video in the Facebook group Clicker Training. It was a little scary posting a video where I knew I had made mistakes online because internet people can be really mean, but the group gave me some excellent advice. Here are some highlights from their advice:

• start with a hand target--something he already knows and has a history of positive reinforcement with--to build confidence and interest
• add an object in my hand before putting it on the ground
• go more slowly and keep the session short
• try higher value treats if he doesn't seem excited
• mark only one criteria at a time
• He learned he could get me to click just for looking so he trained me to give him less work

The next training session I tried using the cone in my hand. He touched it with his nose twice out of curiosity, which I rewarded him for. But then he turned his head and refused to look at the cone unless I put it behind my back. It was a "maybe if I pretend it isn't there it will go away" type of look. Silly dog. So I decided I didn't need to use the cone because it falls over easily anyway. 

The next time I started with and hand target, then held his food dish handing in my fingers below his palm and asked him to touch my hand with the bowl hanging there. He had no trouble doing that. Next time I will ask him to touch the bowl itself. He has happy memories with his food dish so maybe this time he won't pretend it doesn't exist.

(For the record, my 1 year old Great Pyrenees learned the exercise with the cones in about 10 minutes, so I am getting to practice the full behavior with her).