Your training methods (luring/free shaping/other)

I really have no patience for shaping. It is great for some things but not what I want to do all the time. I am on time constraints with training and being able to trial. Shaping for me takes too long.

I mostly lured in the past and when starting out used praise, but no specific verbal reward marker and obviously no click. Sooo yeah I created a dog that stares at me and can't think creatively.

When I agreed to take Scout I'd known her long enough already to know that what I'd used to train Lily wouldn't work for her, which led me to doing private lessons with an agility trainer to work on her confidence, teach me to use a clicker, etc.

Do mostly shaping with Scout, but if she's whelmed about something I may lure a lot more. I tend to default to luring and I don't necesarily think its a good thing because I can be real sloppy about it. Though doing more lessons has made my timing a LOT better.

Anyway, I laugh so hard training Scout because sometimes she will offer the nuttiest things. After working with her for literally two years on her platz (which I know she knows, but corrections aren't really an option with her because she'll just shut down) I finally got one with shaping on the mat. Not even joking, two years! And while she "knew" the behavior very well and would randomly do it sometimes for me, she has baggage from previous owners which includes an old habit where acting like she didn't know would get her the valuable functional reward of being left to her own devices. Sneaky! She was not happy when i figured that one out, LOL.

So going from that to her flinging herself down in a perfect platz on the mat or the rubber bottomed dish I use for perchwork/targeting has been really rewarding.

Shaping Scout pivoting with me ont he perch and using it as a foot target has been the one thing that has gotten her (and Lily.... I've been completely redoing Lily's foundation tbh and its helping immensely) straight and really comfortable working super close to me.

I reward Scout with both food and tug. I accidentally capped Lily's toy/tug drive after being given bad advice years ago one of the times I sat in to watch at club... same woman gave me the brush off later when I came and thats why I ended up working with the trainer I am... never been so glad for someone being so rude and self centered because I'd much rather be where I am.

I do use prong collar corrections with Lily, but tbh I hardly use the prong at all anymore. Like maybe on two walks in the past year and a half? And I'm getting a lot more reliable behaviors than I did when I was using a lot of prong corrections with her even without carrying clicker/treats on walks or in public places outside training. So I guess its working for us!

I shaped Lily to follow my finger, so I can lure without luring and its really helping me train her better. Its been really difficult teaching her shaping, BUT her zest and hardcore drive to work is back and way stronger than it was before so I guess its been very much worth the headache.

Last time we did bitework, I had her ready to go before our TD/decoy was done working out the latest schedule with the other guy who has the nice little GSD. I put her in platz in heel so she wouldn't wear herself out being super pumped and when he was ready I just said okay and she turned right back on like a light switch. I'm pretty proud given what I'm working with here... the half Siberian rescue mutt that I've done plenty of screwing up with is somehow very good at thinking while still in drive.

I think Scout's just growing up, she's a lot less frantic in drive while working lately, while still gaining confidence steadily, and is making really good progress there. She actually has much better drive for it than Lily because well she's mostly GSD.

Holy crap, sorry thats so long! I guess out of all my verbose crap its obvious I'm a better shaper than lurer! :rofl1:

My dogs aren't very good at free shaping. If they don't understand me, they will sit and down and sit and down and sit until one of those 2 works for them.

I pretty much use luring with food, then the same motion without the food, but with the word. Finally the motion is phased out.

Ha once again I could just quote your response and just swap names.

Mia is a freeshaping pro and is the dog that if there's a break in the game, she's pretty sure that random object over there is what she needs to be working with and she'll just start throwing random behaviors and cracking everyone up. She was doing this weird hopping over and over and over a wooden board the last class that had us all in hysterics. The good thing with Mia is once she gets it, she's got it and will start repeating it on her own

Both my dogs understand the freeshaping game but I use both lures and freeshaping depending on the behavior and what I think will work best for that dog. For example the trick I taught Mia to jump over my arms was 100% free shaped with Mia and is being lured for Summer because Summer gets nervous sometimes about her placement in regards to me (being behind me in particular) I have no idea why but she needs the extra incentive to do that cross behind me. Mia picked the behavior up faster than Summer. I do love freeshaping and I would say I free shape more than half of the behaviors with both of them. I don't ever really count lol, but all agility is shaped, no lured. Some tricks and other things I'll do more luring.

Both mine think shaping is the. best. game. ever.

In any real 'training' session, I don't use corrections at all. Haven't had the need yet for what I want. I will use verbal corrections at home in some instances if needed.

Oh and I use targets all the time. If there's a way to add in a target, I'll do that to break down a behavior.

I do use a NRM sometimes with Mia, less often with Summer who is softer. Mia frustrates faster and it can help to tell her 'try again'.

This for me, minus the trialing bit haha. If I want to teach my dog to rollover, for me it's just way quicker to lure it. Juno would be an awesome dog to shape with as she is very good at knowing exactly what her body was doing at the marker... I just don't have the patience to break a behavior down and work up to the finished product. It's fine once in a while but I could never teach everything that way.

Her "go to mat" behavior was shaped but only because that's how the trainer wanted us to do it lol. And it is cool seeing them work their brains through it but aagggghhhh I don't like being that hands off lol. Luring comes natural to me hahah I HAVE to guide her into place if she doesn't figure it out right away.

I think that with about 90% of the things you post! It always cracks me up that we seem to have the same pair of dogs - just in different packages

I would love to learn shaping, but part of the problem is that none of my dogs will offer up anything. They are so used to being lured/cued/commanded that they just wait. And wait...and wait...And considering when they're puppies they believe human flesh and couches are part of a balanced diet and that taking down doors and swinging from rafters are the best puppy games, I generally can't find anything shapable in there and we need a default control behavior pretty much immediately. So I lure a sit or a down until that ends up being the only thing they'll offer. :dunno:

Lately I've been experimenting with a couple of new and iffy methods...subliminal suggestive training, osmosis (yep, I put a book on dog training under the pillow where my dog sleeps) and "doggie see, doggie do".