When Gimme gets bored, she gets paper out of the
recycle trash and shreds it in front of me to communicate her dissatisfaction
with life. Interestingly she understands the rule about making messes and NEVER shreds paper unless I'm there to see it. We have an agreement, there is a big difference between making a mess and communication. However, I've
decided its high time for her to start picking up her messier communication. So yesterday I started teaching her to pick up paper and put it in the
recycle.
I planned it poorly, starting
with the tissue paper she had just shredded. It wasn't as easy for her because it stuck to her lips, but she
finally realized I wanted her to pick it up. The second session I balled up paper and tossed it
for her to pick up. I clicked for picking it up and moving toward me. She
would accidentally drop it in the trash, which I'd click and treat. But I don't
think she realized it was falling in the trash.
When I switched to a bigger stiffer piece of paper
and rolled it up, then it was more obvious to her where it was landing. She
would pick it up multiple times and drop it closer to the trash. At the end I
started withholding c/t if it didn't fall in the trash. So she was making bigger
moves toward the trash. After she'd drop it, she'd look to see why I wasn't
clicking, then would try again. By the end she was learning to drop it in the
trash - with flare. It was still with extra steps between first picking
it up and getting it in the trash, but she was getting better.
This video is of the third session. I thought she might pick up where we left off, but wasn't the case. So I started clicking for picking up pieces and then would randomly not-click to get more behavior. She's pretty funny when she's tossing it in the trash. She tried cheating and even got away with it once. I loved the last little segment the best - it shows she was really understanding it was supposed to go in the container.
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