Show Me The Money

Ivy at seven months old today. She still hasn't really had the sudden growth spurt that both the kelpies had around 6 months but when I look back on photos from a few weeks ago, I realise that her change of height is gradually sneaking up on me.

I have been thinking hard about reinforcement and motivation lately and reading the post about reinforcement in this blog really struck a chord with me, so much so that I have printed it out for my training diary as a reminder of just how important building value for a motivator is.
And - wonder of wonders - once you actually have that high value, things like proofing for distractions become a lot easier. This is something that should be glaringly obvious but it's not something that I ever thought about until I read that post, strangely enough.

Since we have been lucky enough to have overseas trainers of the calibre of Susan Garrett and Greg & Laura Derrett visit these shores most of us who have been to their seminars have thought a lot more about reinforcement - and learnt that we are all extremely stingy when it comes to using it effectively. Ivy's training log has 'Building Reinforcement Zone' as one of the first pages, but when I looked back through Cruz's I couldn't find too many references to 'rate of reinforcement' and certainly none relating to RZ. In fact in most cases all I did was document what I actually used.

But after reading Justine's blog, I am now thinking reinforcement through one step further. It's not enough to have an extremely high rate of reinforcement, nor is it enough to have a dog that tugs and takes food willingly - although those things are highly desirable and a big step in the right direction. To go that extra distance you need a motivator that your dog is absolutely wild for - and this can be built up as part of your training process.

Ivy is the first dog I have had that is crazy about tugging and I think this has made me take this behaviour for granted in some ways. But there are many other things in her environment that she is also crazy about, so the first thing I have started to do is to test the value of her tug against other things.

My list so far, in order of (easiest first) my predicted difficulty :
1. Continue tugging with me when L. comes in the front door as she usually runs to greet him.
2. Continue tugging with me when L. comes outside and stands in the agility area.
3. Continue tugging with me when the 2 old dogs are walking outside agility area.
4.Continue tugging with me when L. runs around outside agility area, kicking ball.
5. Same behaviour but inside agility area.
6. Continue tugging with me when L. is running around outside agility area with kelpies.

So far we have passed numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 with flying colours. Have tried number 5 and she ran after the ball once but came straight back and tugged when I called, so this will now be our 'starting point' for distractions and also shows me that I can still build more value for the tug at home before I start to test it out in other environments.

I would have to say that the ball would have equal if not higher value at the moment - but I don't want another dog who is crazy about things that won't fit in my pocket, already have 2 of those! I know that a lot of trainers won't let their agility dogs play with balls at all, but at the end of the day, she is not an 'agility machine' and is still my pet so I don't really like the idea of taking away something that she absolutely adores and has fun playing with - at least the soccer ball is interactive. And depending on how I go building more value for the tug, I can still use the ball to transfer value if I have to.

So I'm off to add some more pages to my training diary - a further page to follow on from my RZ section that focuses on continuing to build value for reinforcers (rather than taking them for granted because your dog willingly 'does' them) and another page to focus on a list of ideas for more formal 'proofing' of behaviours that I am happy with so far - of which there are many, she's a great little girl. And one day, when I know I have that 'golden' motivator that kicks butt with all others, any time and anywhere, I will let you know !