Reinforcing a Give with a Cued Drop
Epic has a pretty crappy give. A few weeks ago that crappy GiveThe Give is a retrieve to the hand. A cued Give is a foundational skill that is not super useful in the actual performance of disc dog freestyle, and has huge applications for... More cost us more than a few points in a big worldwide contest – “Not Cool, Eppie!” and not cool, Ron… It’s been a problem that I’ve dealt with since we started working and it really isn’t that big a deal to me as I don’t really care too much about Toss n Fetch, the extra 3-5 seconds it costs us hasn’t been worth the effort to focus on the skill – there’s so much more to learn and work on… Well, that’s about to change…
Drop and Give
While Eppie has a crappy Give, he’s got an Epic Drop.
The idea in this session and with this method is to create a high rate of reinforcement and to conflate the Drop and Give. The end result should be rapid fire action as long as Eppie is complying with the cues. If he wants to go fast and have fun, he’s got to do daToss and Fetch, aka: Distance & Accuracy, Toss & Catch, is a disc dog discipline that uses a single disc. It is a timed event and you get scored based upon the distance... More Give as fast as he does da Drop… Dose are da rules… 😉
Rate of Reinforcement aka: Cookies Per Minute (CPM)
I’m using the term CookieA Cookie is traditionally thought of as a food treat given as positive reinforcement. In that definition, a cookie is a discrete piece of food reinforcement. In many dog training discussions, the idea... More loosely to mean a reinforcer. It’s a nice, compartmentalized metaphor that is easy to process and simplifies many complex pieces of reinforcement. Discs are cookies. Bites are Cookies. Throws and Rollers are cookies. Chasing the disc is a cookie. Activated handlers are cookies. And Next"Next" encapsulates the dog's anticipation of a forthcoming reward, sparking motivation and excitement. This expectancy creates a driving force that propels the dog through training, forming a continuous loop of engagement. When "Next"... More is a cookie. Next is not only a cookie, it is THE Cookie™.
Next is the cookie I’m really playing on here to make it more likely for Eppie to Give on cue. At this stage of the game I’m just laying the foundation of rapid fire cookies and creating a high rate of reinforcement with many CPMCPM means cookies per minute. It is a fun expression for rate of reinforcement, a very important dog training concept. CPM should be between 15 to 30 CPM when learning or adding value... More to give him the idea that Giving is Good…
If I simply worked the Give itself, or made long tosses like we’ll actually use in Toss and Fetch, the CPM will be too low to matter. By creating a really high CPM I create a strong motivator – “Do it right and you get Next.” This strong motivator will be thrown off if Eppie does not comply with my Give Cue.
Leveraging the Energy Level of the Game
The energy level of the game is a cookie. It is closely related to Next, but is not nearly as discrete and concrete. In order to leverage the energy level of the game I have to shape and create it through the rate of reinforcement. A high CPM = exciting game, a low CPM = boring game.
Once Eppie has experienced the high CPM game he should want to play it. If he wants to play that game, he’s gotta Give the disc when I ask.
I’ve done another round in this method that we’ll feature in DiscDogger Weekly #12 with a bit of a wrinkle, and will do a few more, after which I’ll try to leverage that high CPM game towards the give with a different approach and structure.
Stay tuned…
Beauty work in this video!
Thanks… We are having a bit of a problem with the pattern train… have to do some proper give work in “off field” situations, I think…