Snake Avoidance: Week 1 - Self Control vs Correction

Week 1:  Intro to Reinforcement

Day 1: 

Day 2:  Walk Away

Day 3:  What's In The Bowl

Day 4: Adding the Snake; Hula Hoop Leave It

Day 5: Can I Steal It?

Day 6: By My Side

Walk Away

Kate and Badger

OK so I only did step 1 so far - my question is - in the early stages of the food avoidance, as the challenge increased (open treat pouch and visible food), Badger went to go for the food once or twice - also the same with the toy - ideally I would have had a helper cover the food or remove the toy or whatever but as I was working alone and really didn't want him to steal a reward I used an Ah Ah correction - so he is making a choice but it is partly based on "I might get in trouble" as well as "This is how I get the good stuff".. What are the advantages and disadvantages of including mild corrections. How do you create inhibitions/thoughtfulness without some undesirable consequences for a "wrong" choice? Bearing in mind that this is a dog with a fair amount of training history. Thanks in advance!

I definitely understand the dilemma. What we're going for in this class is self control, not human control. Any corrections at this stage will inhibit the dog from learning what the right choices are from his own viewpoint. However, in that learning we can give clues, those clues are in controlling the environment.

In your video, and I don't know how much of the previous work with the games you show on the video, but what I saw was that you were making it difficult by walking far away from both the open treat pouch and the toy. Do this on a gradient if you weren't already. And don't worry if he makes the wrong choice.

There are two things you can do when he goes for the reinforcement on the ground 1) get there first and block his access or pick up the toy/pouch or 2) withhold reinforcement which you did at one point. This is why I suggest that you do this on a gradient. Start with the pouch/toy nearer to you then him. That gives you the ability to control access to reinforcement instead of controlling Badger. Then gradually move farther and farther away from the pouch/toy but still keeping it farther from him then you. When you see that he's actually making decisions like he did at 30. You almost went to him for turning to investigate, but he made a decision right there. That decision point is when you have a party to really cement that that's what you want. Then you can start putting the pouch/toy closer to him as he is understanding the game.

Early with the pouch, he went over to it to investigate and you made kissy noises at him in encouragement to come to you, then you corrected with an "ah ah". But, watch the video again, you corrected after you'd already gotten his attention away from the pouch and he was already returning to you. The timing was such that you were actually correcting him for the return, not the investigation. Also, in a dog that hasn't been trained this way it can cause confusion because you aren't saying "leave it" at the start.

He clearly is a well trained pup :) He actually is making decisions based on his prior training, that's clear in the video. Let him figure it out all the way :)

Video of Day 4 - this went really well, we have done a lot of Leave It previously - I use it to divert Badger from other dogs on walks - he is extremely reactive, born out of frustration - if he sees a dog in the distance he starts screaming, with the screaming getting more frantic as the dog disappears from view (classic frustrated greeter) anyway we have done lots of Leave Its so this was "easy" for him

But I had a dismal FAIL with Day 5 (remove the tug and wait for a sit). I will not include any video as it took him a full 2 minutes to give me a sit so it is very boring viewing!. On subsequent trials he wandered off and laid under a bush. Maybe he was tired/hot - but he had been playing with vigour until I removed the toy. Normally I ask him to Out the toy, then sometimes release back to tugging or sometimes I ask for a sit. Removing it silently seemed to completely throw him. Very interesting response. But similar to the Day 1 game of waiting for an offered behaviour, which he also got "stuck" on. I will have to really work at this game some more. He is far less "creative" than I realised!