[nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?

Applebutter Hill applebutterhill at gmail.com
Thu Jul 2 19:03:42 UTC 2015


Julie,
Thank you for doing such a thorough overview of clicker training. I've heard
of it, but never knew what it was. I wonder if that's what people meant when
they said the schools were training with treats? I am curious as to your
statement about not talking to the dog. You must give a verbal command at
some point.
Donna & Hunter

-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Julie J. via
nagdu
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 8:58 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Cc: Julie J.
Subject: Re: [nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?

Debbie,

I'm kind of confused by your message.  You said that you wouldn't use
clicker training all day every day, but could see it's usefulness for some
specific things.  From this statement, I don't think you understand what
clicker training is and what it isn't.  Perhaps that's why you are upset by
many of the messages about new training methods?

In a very, very, brief summary...clicker training is just that...training.
It isn't meant to be used all day every day.  It is meant as a method to
train the dog or person or dolphin to do something specific.  Successive
approximations are used to teach this.  So if you wanted to teach a dog to
pick up the newspaper, you would click when the dog glances at the paper,
when the dog takes a step toward it, when the dog sniffs it, when the dog
nudges it with  his nose and continuing on until the dog has caught on the
the behavior.  When the dog is going over to the paper each time it is
presented, you no longer click for just a glance.  The dog has to do a
little more,  each time to get the click and the reward.

Food is generally used as the reinforcer that follows the click.  Food is
used because it is universal and fast.  You can use play or petting, praise
or other reinforcers, but they take more time and aren't as valuable to
every dog.  For simplicity and speed, food is the preferred reinforcer.  It
takes me .5 seconds to get a treat to a dog and .25 for the dog to eat it.
I can get in 20 clicks and treats in a minute or two.  If I used petting or
play it would take me 10 seconds to deliver something meaningful and still
longer for the dog to refocus his attention back on the learning exercise.
When I am training something with the clicker, I don't typically talk to the
dog.  It's just click and treat, click and treat as quickly as I can in a
short amount of time.  The dog is only distracted by my talking and
unnecessary body movements because he is intensely focused in on the mental
activity of problem solving the situation.

Dogs who are trained with the clicker know what it is and what it means.  A
dog fairly new to the clicker knows that click means treat.  these are the
dogs who may be distracted by the treats because that's the exciting part.
After a while though, the mental problem solving of the clicker game becomes
incredibly rewarding for the dog.  These are the truly savvy clicker dogs.
You can teach a clicker savvy dog complex behaviors in minutes instead of
days or weeks.  You are actually teaching the dog to proactively think and
to solve puzzles.  I suppose it could be considered to be fluent in the
language of clicker.

Here's the thing that I think a lot of people are missing though, once the
behavior is learned solidly, you don't continue to use the clicker.  The
behavior is already trained, there is no need to continue to train it.  The
treats are phased out.  It might be helpful to randomly reinforce a behavior
with treats, for a dog who struggles with a particular behavior or something
that you are particularly concerned about, but treats are certainly not
given willy nilly for the lifetime of the dog.  If a dog won't work unless
he is being fed every two feet, this isn't clicker training, it's bribery.

Monty will be 8 in a couple of months.  I haven't carried treats with me
when I am working him for several years.  He still works beautifully.
Sometimes in the winter when we all are stir crazy from being in the house,
I will get out the clicker and teach him something new.  He still remembers
and still knows how to engage in the training.   He does not scavenge or try

to take food off the table at a restaurant or any other horrid thing.  There
have been many times we have been walking along and my son or husband will
tell me, "he just took you around half a sandwich on the sidewalk".   I've
had Monty since he was about 10 months old or so.  He used to jump on the
counters, pick up everything including dead birds, snakes, grasshoppers and
I don't even want to think about what else.    He is an incredibly food
motivated dog, which I used to my advantage.

Clicker training is not synonymous with treat dispensing.  I think this is a
large misunderstanding.  clicker training is a specific training method and
just like with every other training method, once the dog is trained, you
don't continue to badger the dog with training that same behavior.  A
properly clicker trained dog should work for the enjoyment of the work or to
please his person.  If the dog will only work for the treats, then either
the training has gone terribly, terribly wrong or the dog isn't meant for
that job.

Leash correction based training does work.  It works faster up front, while
clicker training is slower in the beginning.  However leash correction
training has it's limits,  because you are eliminating all the behaviors you
don't want and what is left are the behaviors you do want.  Like I said
before, dogs get that click means treat right away, that's actually classic
conditioning, but the part that they can influence when they earn the click
comes a little slower.  Once the dog understands that they are in control of
earning rewards the learning speeds up exponentially.  Also because the dog
is actively offering new behaviors, many things can be taught with a clicker
that cannot be taught with leash correction based training.  Things like
yawning, wagging, distance work, off leash behaviors and the like simply
cannot be taught with leash corrections.

I think the guide dog schools teach their students to use leash corrections
because it is an easy concept to understand.  Do something bad get a leash
correction, that's pretty straightforward.  Someone who has never been
around dogs can pick up this concept in seconds.  However clicker training
is not like that.  There is a lot more knowledge base needed to understand
and employ the training principles.  I have talked to people who have
attended the TSE  clicker intro lecture and they don't understand clicker
training.  I don't actually know what is in the TSE lecture, but I imagine
it is accurate information, but people are not coming away with an accurate
understanding at all.   Same thing with GDB.  I have read their clicker
lecture materials on the website and it's all good and accurate info.  Then
I talk to GDB grads and hear stories from this list and it is very clear to
me that folks are not coming away with a good understanding of clicker
training principles.

NLS has a few books on clicker training.  BookShare has quite a few, I'm
told.  There is an incredible amount of information on the internet,
including the blog that Rox mentioned about guide dog training clicker
conference that GDB just did.   I'd encourage people to read a few books to
begin to really understand what clicker is and what it isn't before  coming
to  inaccurate conclusions.

Julie
Courage to Dare: A Blind Woman's Quest to Train her Own Guide Dog is now
available! Get the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXZSMOC
-----Original Message-----
From: Debby Phillips via nagdu
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2015 11:02 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users ;
nagdu at nfbnet.org
Cc: Debby Phillips
Subject: Re: [nagdu] What's up with all the scavenging anyhow?

I know that Seeing Eye does some clicker training, but students are not
required to take part in it once they get through training.  Everybody goes
to the first meeting, I think, and then decides for themselves.  It did and
does help in targeting specific things, like a specific chair in the dining
room, a particular pole, like a pole for pushing the button at a light, or a
bus stop pole, or a particular door.  I certainly would have no problem
using it for very specific things, but never on a day-to-day basis.  I can
see how tempting it would be to use it all the time for everything.  But I
think that's a very bad idea
and I'm glad that Seeing EYE does not do that.    Debby and Nova

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