October 1, 2023: Chai’s first two “hug an object” shaping sessions!

Very happy with how today’s sessions went!

Notes for next time:

+ Take turns standing and kneeling myself.
+ Only click for paws on the respective outside of the pole (to eventually get up to pole between paws).
+ When appropriate, select for paw curls around object/reinforce duration; whatever makes more sense depending on what Chai offers!

October 2, 2023 – a tiny bit of duration and paw curls

Today’s two sessions! I’m now trying to select for paw curls on either side and have stopped clicking for paws on the “wrong” side of the pole. Catching those curls is difficult though – Chai is moving fast!

October 7, 2023: back to shaping after a break!

After taking a few days’ break from shaping, we picked back up with the “Hug an object” trick. In this session, I get quite a lot of variation to select from! I end up clicking the jump-hug once or twice because it’s the first time I get both paws, but then stop clicking it because Silvia has warned us: we don’t want a dog who ends up leaning on the object, but a dog who sits and hugs it independently. You see a bit of confusion in Chai when I stop clicking the jumps. I still have to say: love the variation! Maybe next time, I’ll start out with a sit.

October 10, 2023: 2 sessions!

2 sessions today! We started from a sit.

Session 1

Session 2

October 11, 2023: getting nicer hugs with the pole close and feeding in a sit!

Silvia’s feedback “Very cool! Just yes, put the pole close to her chest so she can’t lie down. If she still does, reward so high that she needs to get up first to get the reward. In general, reward higher if getting a down – and lower if getting sit up.”

Based on their feedback – today’s video:

October 14, 2023: duration!

Silvia suggested I aim for duration next. This is tricky with this behavior because Chai doesn’t offer duration. I wondered whether I should try and shape it the same way I shape duration on a hold with a chompy dog: wait out 2 or 3 re-bites before clicking and hope the dog eventually figures out that they might as well simply keep their mouth closed for the time it would take to open and close their mouth 3 times. I went into today’s session with the plan on feeding every 3rd paw sweesh past the pole. But Chai totally surprised me and gave me duration right on the first try!

The cut in the video is me re-loading my hands with food. Chai didn’t immediately offer the same behavior again, so I counted 3 paw swabs … after a little messiness, she gave me duration again though! WOW! I was so excited I took it and fed all my treats even though she was half-way leaning on my arm. Go puppy! We are getting somewhere!

October 16, 2023: duration gets hard again

I asked Silvia what to focus on when getting messy duration as above. Here’s their response:

“Great – should be easy from here on!!! Just continue like this, focusing on duration. Once you have that consistently, start looking for firmness of the hug – pulling the pole away gently and rewarding for resistance.”

It wasn’t easy for Chai today though: at first, she tried leaning against the pole. I seem to have communicated that that’s not what I want, so she kept sliding off instead … I realized it was partly because she was too far from the pole, but when I try to get dog and pole closer together, Chai has a tendency to scoot backwards, away from it. The video below shows some messy communication between Chai and me!

October 17, 2023: back to looking for deep single-paw hugs

Silvia’s feedback on my last video:

“[L]looks like she is actually confusing it with “sit up with support for front feet”… So maybe focus some on getting just one paw first. Reward lower to encourage that. Look for nice, deep 1 paw hugs to clean up the behavior some before going for duration again.” 

Silvia sees what I see, too. I’m surprised they expected the behavior to smoothly progress from the previous video – that speed of understanding is not what I’m used to with my dogs. I wonder if Silvia typically gets this much understanding this fast! (Not that I’d complain if I got it; it’s just not what I expect.)

In any case – below is our next attempt:

October 18, 2023: continuing (trying) to clean up deep single-paw hugs

The cuts in the video below are me getting treat refills – this was a single session.