Part 2C (ii) The Happy Zone

To summarise the process we have been through so far:

1. Nose touches (NT)
2. Rear end awareness
3. 2O2O as a discrete exercise (away from contacts)

We are now going to transfer this behaviour to contact ends, transfer the motivation, fade the NT and transfer that to forward focus using the following steps:

1. The Happy zone
2. Fading a NT
3. Looking ahead / next obstacle
4. Fading reward / varying reinforcement

Happy zone

Thanks to Linda Hutchinson and Janet Jackson for giving me some ideas on this part of the exercise and for giving it a name!

 Objective

Reinforce this position so the dog is motivated to assume and maintain position

How?

Transferring the work from the step and contact trainer to bottom of contact. First using NT then substituting target for play reward then moving reward away from contact.

Total Time

2 months

Stages

Transferring

Dog is now exposed to a contact (DW or AF it doesn’t matter). In my experience having worked systematically worked through the process described in previous posts one will notice:

1. Their dog very quickly investigating the new equipment
2. The dog placing rear legs on the contact, assuming the 2O2O position

When your dog freely places its rear legs on the contact area (by positive reinforcement), we re-introduce our command. Now we test this by giving the desired command (again as mentioned earlier, I use ‘there’). The dog should quickly assume the 2O2O position.

Now we are ready to reinforce this and gradually fade the foundation training.

Using the NT

Jaidi learning to use remote reward system

Arguably we could skip this part of the process, but I feel it provides a method for hands free reinforcement.

So the dog can now perform 2 distinct exercises (i) assume 2O2O position (ii) NT a target. We now simply introduce the target and follow very similar steps to posts from November 2011.

I recommend a ‘remote reward’ but either walking back and laying treat onto the target or using a small sealed food container and releasing the lid to reveal the reward will work as well. The advantage of the remote reward is complete independence and focus on the target to deliver reward.

Distance nose touches using a remote reward system

I would avoid ‘throwing treat’. As this can build handler focus as the dog learns to understand that treats come from the hand, or worse, the pocket. This builds handler focus through a reward process of:

NT – look to hand – receive treat

Additionally how consistent is throwing a treat in respect of accuracy to achieve instant delivery?  Particularly when it is cold (one has gloves on) or the surface is uneven and the treat gets lost?

Substitution

So now we have the dog NT in a 2O2O position, we substitute the treat for a toy. Again this step is optional as some dogs just simply prefer food reward to tug or chase games. Either way the future process remains the same. But at this stage I want to describe why we start to use our toy. An example of this can be seen in the early part of this video.

We started our substitution training around a year old

The reward for the NT is transferred to the toy. We use the same criteria as discussed in earlier posts about variable reinforcement schedules. I suggest facing the dog and actually offering the toy and playing ‘tug’ game. The reason is that we want to build such high value for just being in that position as well as change focus from the target to the toy.

Some schools of thought would argue against actual interaction on the contact as potentially reducing independence. However it is a very short stage of the process and also allows precise reward for accurate limb positioning which should be:

• Straight and facing forward, front and rear leg in line
• Both rear legs firmly positioned in the centre line of the contact

Only reward when this is being achieved.

 Jaidi demonstrates NT in 2O2O position

Next post we will look at fading the NT.