Trying to free shape some stuff

[Maxy24]

I just finished reading "When Pigs Fly" and it inspired me to want to free shape a lot more. I didn't really know what to shape, but my brother's girlfriend wanted me to teach him to "brush his hair" by swiping his paw over his head. I tried it today but failed miserably. I just don't really know what I'm doing. I started by clicking for any paw lifting, so now he has a great wave, but I don't know how to shape that into wiping his head (and to be fair I didn't even free shape the wave, I prompted paw lifting by putting my hand above his head, I couldn't take the staring). He did wipe his eye several times and I clicked and jackpotted them but he never voluntarily did it, he only did it because his eye bothered him. Any ideas? I could teach him to lower his head as well, but I doubt he'd ever do both a lowered head and a paw raise, but I could be wrong.


And/or what else can I shape him to do that might be easier?

[Dekka]

Before you free shape...

Play with the clicker with a friend. Free shape each other, no talking etc and then get feed back. It will also give you a better understanding of how hard being free shaped can be at first

[Taqroy]

Originally Posted by Dekka

Before you free shape...

Play with the clicker with a friend. Free shape each other, no talking etc and then get feed back. It will also give you a better understanding of how hard being free shaped can be at first

We did this in my training class...it took me FIFTEEN minutes to figure out that the trainer who was shaping my behavior wanted me to put my hands in my hoodie pockets. Free shaping is HARD. I haven't successfully free shaped anything that I can think of. Pretty much everything starts with - I don't know if I'd call it a lure exactly - but more of an attempt to get them in the right position.

[Raegan]

I have found that shaping with a prop is easier than shaping independent action on the dog's part.

To start, I wouldn't have any particular goal in mind. Get the dog in training mode, flourish a box down in front of him, and click for interaction. Click what he gives you.

The reason for flourishing the box is to make it obvious to the dog that this is a thing we're training with. If it's just laying around, the dog could be interacting with it but you aren't clicking, so the dog thinks that interaction with the box doesn't pay.

You can probably get a few clicks for looking at the box at first. Use reward placement to either set the dog up for another repetition or to point out the value of the box.

Use lots of different props. A shoebox, a basket, spare PVC, whatever is laying around. It should be relatively dog safe and durable, though.

[Maxy24]

Well how else would somebody get a dog to do this behavior? In training class they suggested sticking tape on their head...but I don't know if it'd work for him, I might just end up with tape I can't get out of his head. Or as soon as I take the tape off of his head he'd have no idea what he was supposed to do.


I've shaped him with props before. That's how I taught him a retrieve. He's pretty good at it. But without props he can't really do much. All he ever seems to want to do is hit me with his paw. I found when teaching him to cross his paws that he becomes very dependent on touching me if I use that as a "lure". I had him hitting my hand on the other side of his paw so he crossed them. Trying to fade out my hand was not going well. He had no idea he was crossing his paws, he was just hitting my hand. I think eventually we could have gotten it, but god it was taking a LONG time. And this morning when I was getting him to raise his paw I was holding up my hand and he was just reaching for it. Again he doesn't understand he was being clicked for raising his paw, he just thinks he's getting clicked for trying to get my hand.


So I thought if I free shaped it it would take the whole lure dependence out of the equation.

It's strange how some behaviors are super easy for him. I captured him stretching and he was a pro at bowing very quickly. He was really good at "say your prayers" very quickly too. I prompted him to put his paws up by tapping the chair, rewarded that a few times, then captured him for looking down and he caught on right away.

[Taqroy]

Use scotch tape? Or maybe a bow from a present? They're not too sticky, I stick bows on my dogs more often than I should really admit.

Maybe you need to fade your lure faster? Try four or five repeats and then fade it out? And try using a target that is not your hand (like a coaster or a touch stick or something).

I dunno, I'm sure that you CAN free shape stuff. I just know that I find it really difficult and I pretty much suck at it. And I don't get why dogs pick up on some things so fast and other things take days and days to teach them. It took Mu one session to learn how to close doors, it took me a week to teach her bow. Dogs are weird lol.

[adojrts]

Search for Microshaping, lots in info on it. Should help.

[MafiaPrincess]

We shaped each other on vacation. I use a clicker often enough, but free shaping seemed like a foreign concept. It helped. I found that my clicker timing is good, and I could shape others well - so I should be able to shape my dogs..

But found being shaped frustrating as hell And I see how my dogs manage to get 'stuck'.

[lizzybeth727]

I LOVE freeshaping! But there are a few important points to keep in mind when doing freeshaping:

With new dogs, before freeshaping intricate behaviors, start with capturing very large behaviors, such as sit and down. These are much easier for the dog to figure out and be successful with, and it will begin to teach the dog the extremely important concept of offering behaviors (I think in the book she calls it "being operant"). The dog must understand to just try stuff, even when the human is standing still and not moving or prompting him to do something. If a dog will not do any behaviors without a prompt, you will not be very successful trying to freeshape a new, intricate behavior. (Even if you've already taught sit and down, they're still a good place to start with the concept of offering behaviors.)

IF you do lure (I rarely do, but sometimes it's necessary), it's VERY important to fade the lure exremely quickly. After about three times the dog successfully does the behavior, you should remove the treat from your hand and just use your hand to "lure" into position; after about 5 more of those, the dog should start offering the behavior without needing any prompting from you. If it doesn't work this quickly, particularly if the dog is generally a quick learner, then he's not ready for luring. Learning a behavior from learning is actually a difficult skill; the dog has to focus on his body rather than on the treat in front of his nose.

If your dog gets stuck halfway through shaping a behavior, it's almost always because you raised your criteria before he was ready. For example, let's say you're shaping a dumbbell retrieve. Your dog is reliably touching the bit with his nose, so now you're looking for tooth bumps (you want him to touch the bit with his teeth). He's never offered a tooth bump before. But since he's so good at nose touches, you raise your criteria and stop clicking nose touches, waiting for a tooth bump. Your dog will nose-touch the dumbbell about 5 times and then give up and quit training; he's "stuck." Even though Shirley Chong says he was ready to progress to tooth bumps, he wasn't actually ready for you to quit reinforcing nose touches because he's never offered tooth bumps.

So instead of thinking of shaping as a staircase, where you do one step and then move up to the next step, think of it more like a graph where you have ups and downs, but your overall movement is up. Your steps are going to overlap a little. So, for example, when you're on the nose-touch step of the retrieve and he offers a tooth bump, YAY! Jackpot it! BUT don't move up a step! Stay on nose touches until he offers a couple more tooth bumps, so that when you quit reinforcing nose touches he won't get frustrated and shut down.

Knowing when to raise criteria is absolutely the most difficult part of freeshaping. Pro trainers with tons of experience still have problems with it sometimes.


As far as your "brush your hair" trick, I think this is one example of a trick that will be particularly difficult to free shape. I'd stick a piece of tape on his head and just capture when he paws at it. Yes, the most difficult part will be getting him to paw when the tape is no longer on his head. So for that I'd keep the tape on longer than you think you'll need. Then take the tape off, click him once for pawing, and then put the tape back for a few more clicks, gradually weaning him off needing the tape.

[PWCorgi]

Knowing when to raise criteria is absolutely the most difficult part of freeshaping

TRUE!