Why You're Not Seeing a Lot of Errors (Patreon)

Hey Friends!

So I posted a video on training the down and I got the following comment from a cross-over trainer trying to switch from traditional training to a positive reinforcement/LIMA method. I love that this person reached out with her concerns, as part of the reason I have a YouTube channel is to provide free resources to help trainers understand all of their training options in regard to how to train a behavior, especially those that are interested in using positive reinforcement methods. 

I wanted to post my reply here because I do get the criticism a lot that I don't show my errors. And while there are errors (I'll be posting a video soon of a training sessions where Osa broke her impulse control exercise so you can see what I did) there typically aren't a TON of errors in any given training session. The below question and response should help explain why:

Question/Comment: Hi thank you so much for your videos. What concerns me about most dog trainer creators on YouTube is they do not show the dog breaking the command. For instance this dog you're working with does the down perfectly every time. what I want to know is what to do when the dog doesn't do it perfectly. Also when do you start giving the command? When do you add in the word sit or down or whatever it is you're asking of your dog. I was a dog trainer for 20 years and all of this new positive reinforcement training was not the way people trained back then. So I'm trying to learn what you are teaching and other people on YouTube however it gets really difficult when nobody shows a dog who makes a mistake or who pops out of the down or whatever. Please could you show in your content your dogs not doing things perfectly. That way it's easier to learn what to do when it's not being carried out efficiently by the dog. I have to train a new service dog who will be my service dog and I really want to learn but I can't learn if it's always done correctly. Thank you very much have a great day.

Response:

Hi Kavita - welcome to the channel!

I totally understand your feedback here. Many of us who do YouTube have already well-trained dogs but still want to show how to train certain things. We don't have unlimited access to fresh dogs that have never learned foundation skills like a down. Keeping that in mind, I purposefully used a puppy for teaching this skill to try to show it with a fresh dog (only just 12 weeks old), but this girl has not made mistakes in the down, besides very very occasionally popping up, where I will simply just signal her back into the down and then reward after a few seconds of maintaining the behavior.

But I want to talk about the broader point here: I set her up for success so that the learning is nearly errorless. So I taught her first how to follow a lure around when she was just a baby, that she would be rewarded following my hand wherever it went. Then I lured her into the down. (If she were not able to follow the lure into the down, I would split that behavior down into tiny behaviors like: looks down, head moves one in down, elbows bend, elbows bend more etc. so that she can't fail. Splitting behavior until you can get the full picture is really helpful!) I immediately start feeding in position so there's literally no chance for her to pop up. As she gets better I slow down the feeding in position until I can space it quite a bit out. She knows the food will be delivered to her, so no need to get up. If she were to pop up I would just signal the behavior again. If it happened more than once I know that I either progressed too quickly or have been running my training session too long. I will do a shorter, easier down where she can be successful and finish the session knowing that I need to change my training plan if she is making more than one error on that particular behavior (I typically only do 3-12 reps of anything before moving on to another skill). If my dog is making lots of errors, that tells me I haven't trained the behavior to fluency and have over-faced the ability of the dog. The dog tells me everything I need to know about my own training plan and where I need to do better.

Like @the woof pack mentioned, I do have a patreon that shows more long-form training sessions where errors occur and training plans change so that might be a helpful option for you.

As far as adding a cue, please watch the video that was mentioned in the card on the video. You can find it here:  https://youtu.be/ZyCT17pJJDA We only add a cue to the behavior once we're sure the dog knows the behavior and can do it in a behavior loop.

Hope that helps!

Best,  Laura

Picture: Puppy dragging toilet paper through a hotel room, because she is a puppy, and I am only human and make plenty of mistakes  :)