[NAGDU] Seeing Eye training techniques

[albert.e.sten_clanton at verizon.net]

I may misunderstand, but are you saying you use a food reward for each down curb and each up curb in your regular work with the dog?  That seems like an endless assembly line of treats just to get around, so I feel like I must be getting something wrong from what I read.

If you mean that it's a beginning aid and that the rewards are tapered off, that makes more sense to me.  Clicker training was an aoption in training with my fifth, current dog.  I seriously doubted the wisdom of bringing food rewards into the business of guidework when I heard of clicker training, but I tried it out and wish I'd practiced it more for the few things I think it's meant to help with.  I tried clicker training for finding our front door knob, and thought I'd done more or less as instructed, but it didn't take long for the absence of treats to decrease both my dog's enthusiasm and accuracy in that job.  I wish I had a recording of the long presentation that Lucas Frank gave us on the subject in my March, 2018 class, so that I'd have more complete instruction, but I so far haven't found a recording like that on the Seeing Eye website.

In any event, I still worry about setting myself up to need food rewards to keep my dog's focus on track during my regular work with him.  I've been happy to adopt some subtle and even less subtle new ways of working with my dogs as the training has evolved, but I'm inclined to think the old way of using praise and affection and no food in the usual course of business makes the most sense.

Best!
Al



-----Original Message-----
From: NAGDU <nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Sean Moore via NAGDU
Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2024 7:57 PM
To: Elizabeth Rene via NAGDU <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Sean Moore <seanmoore87 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NAGDU] Seeing Eye training techniques

I don't  know  if  I should  chime  in  or not.  but  for me gaving gone  through  " Traditional training" with  my  first and  second dogs from  Southeastern and  now  Guide DOgs  for the Blind GDB who  uses food reward as  re-enforcement, Augie  only normally  gets  a food reward  at a  down curb and up curb  to re-enforce  that  they  are Desirable targets.  I use  food reward  for  personal  targets  I always  wnat  him  to stop  at and  I feel like he's a smarter dog with  using the  food reward   In conjunction with his great memory stuff for.


the  clicker is  used  to  Teach new  targets and  then rewarded for finding it that  first  few times.


yours,

Sean Moore  and  Guide Dog: Augie


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