Touch the Butt Game: Shaping for Confidence with Novel Objects (Patreon)

I realize that my reference to Finding Nemo that I've been using for a while now is probably outdated. But if you've ever seen the scene where the little fish go to touch the boat (which I will link here), and each gets successively closer and then yell "I'm gunna touch the butt!" ... that's what I think about when I think about confidence building and shaping with novel objects. (You just have to ignore the part where Nemo then gets captured and carted off ... LOL, and honestly this whole thing may be my own brain's little weirdsy, but hey, if it helps you remember to shape novel objects, then I have done my job!). 

In any event, here's another raw training session where we work with Byxbee the 4 month old golden on getting him comfortable with novel objects out in public. The goal with shaping a dog to touch or interact with new objects is that when they see a new object (that could potentially be scary), instead of being nervous, they think "oh wow! the touch the butt game! another opportunity to engage with my human, check it out, and earn reinforcement!". This can build an optimistic dog who sees novelty as an engagement game. 

Overall, I really loved reviewing this session because Eve has some lovely timing displayed throughout the session (thank you again Eve for allowing me to use this not-intended-for-public-use footage!), and it shows that slow is fast. Could we have lured him onto the cart? Probably? 

But would he have learned to take initiative and problem solve? Probably not! 

You'll also get to see some moments where things don't go exactly right, and how we use management and strategic reinforcement placement to help Byxbee be successful. 

If I had one major critique of myself, it's this session was too long at 5 minutes (even with the little break to move the cart). Byxbee would have likely been more successful faster if we played the game for 2 minutes, taken a break to do something else, and then come back to it. But overall, successful session with this little pup! 

Happy Training Ya'll!