I brought home a hula hoop a couple of weeks ago. Valenzia was a little shy of it; she didn’t seem to like the shoop-shoop sound the sand made, nor the fact that it swung around in a wide arc that barred her from Mommy (me). I didn’t want my dog to be uncomfortable with the hoop, and one of the best ways I’ve found to counter-condition a “scary” object is to turn it into a training target.
I’ve posted before about using shaping games and silly tricks to foster creativity or take the edge off a wired dog’s energy. Since I was doing a few minutes of shaping anyway, I figured I could use our short training session for the next video installment. So, here it is!
I decided I would teach Valenzia to jump through the hoop. Now, it’s pretty easy to lure a dog through a hoop; show the dog a piece of food, pull it through the hoop, and the dog will follow. However, I specifically didn’t want to use a lure (or a hand target, which can also be used) for this exercise. If I lure, the dog is usually so focused on the treat that she isn’t paying attention to her feet, body posture or even the object she’s jumping. That’s not a big deal for a parlor trick like jumping through a hula hoop, but with some activities — Agility, for example — this can detract from the dog’s performance, or even put the dog at risk for injury. By using the clicker to pinpoint the exact movements you want the dog to repeat, it’s possible to reward the dog for picking up the feet, straightening the spine, or moving a certain way. You can shape the precise movement you want instead of hoping the dog gets it right.
Valenzia knows a shaping session when she sees one, so as soon as I brought out the hoop, she began poking it with her nose to see what I wanted. I began clicking any time her nose went inside the hoop, and then shaped her through it an inch at a time. A short video is below.
[youtube video_id=”HE-mGycacMI” width=”640″ height=”360″ ]
Ohh, this is awesome! I never saw training done like this before, the vid shows it done so well to really understand what’s going on, I like that allot. Usually it’s hard for me to understand things.