I did a little session tonight and it was interesting. My idea was to cement in her mind that she needs to keep telling me until I get my heiney over there and pay up...
I set up two identical boxes, one with odor and one without. We did 7 hides where I'd move them around and change up which one was the one she would get to first, where they were in the room, etc. Obviously I knew which was the correct box, but I purposely waited for her to be more persistent before rewarding her. She was right all but once and that time the boxes were pretty close to each other and I think she was getting frustrated. The next time I made it a little easier. I'll do this some more, though I won't repeat 7 hides in a row - I think that is probably too many.
She wasn't frustrated by doing the nosework or the difficulty of the challenge, more like by being taken out of the room between hides. She doesn't like that interruption and wants to keep playing the game. Sometimes at class after finding a hide if she is off leash she tries to keep playing the game and won't come to me. If she is off lead, I try to get my hand in her harness while I'm feeding her at odor to avoid that issue. Of course, she isn't going to be off leash very often in the foreseeable future.
BTW one thing I forgot to mention in the earlier blog entry was that she nailed the correct box in the practice area both before and after her test.
2 comments:
Have you ever tried more than two? That is a 50% chance. If you had more may be that would replicate what was at the trial. And what you do in class. May be place them around the house.
I absolutely will use more than two, but had a couple reasons for starting there.
1 - As you noted, she had a 50% chance of being right. By setting her up for success, we actually had an 86% success rate. Anything over 80% is the optimal place to be in training, according to Morgan Spector and others.
2 - I needed identical boxes and I only had two that were. Since I'd be shaping her to give me a more persistent indication and knowing Gimme, I figured the boxes would get abused. So I wanted ones that could be taped shut (with odor in one), so they'd be sturdier.
The boxes I picked are ones that I can get more of at work. So as I do, we'll increase the number of boxes in this exercise.
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