Naming & Cueing Behaviors

Once you have been observing and marking a new behavior with your clicker with some regularity, you are ready to name the behavior or create a cue. In the old fashion method of training you would try fervently to get your dog to perform a behavior after you say a cue. Bridging the gap between the cue or command and the performance of the behavior was hit-and-miss and exhausting. We are not going to do that anymore. From now on, when we give a cue, we already know with 80% certainty that the behavior is going to happen. We will improve that later.

How do I know for certain that the behavior is going to happen? Well for starters you read the first two posts, and you have chosen one behavior to work with. With your spectacular goody bag and clicker always at the ready, you have been watching for and rewarding this behavior every time you have seen it. Dogs are very smart about getting food and once they learn how to push the button that dispenses the food, they will do it at every opportunity.

At this point, it would not hurt to cut back on the regular kibble for a day or two. A hungry dog is a dog that will do back flips to get that cube of cheese. So there you are in your recliner and your beloved pet wanders in positioning herself strategically between Frasier and your eyeballs. Just as she prepares to sit, look at her directly and say 'Sit'. The split second her bottom contacts with carpet, CLICK and TREAT! Make a mild fuss but not enough to make her forget what happened. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Later we will discuss selecting commands and cues for behaviors you are going to ask, but right now this is a learning opportunity for you both and our only objective is to help you learn the rhythm of opportunistic training. No more training times, no more frustration, just observation and marking.

Breaking this training method down in the simplest of terms, you are observing, naming and marking a behavior. Later we will talk about luring and shaping to help speed things along, but it is important to note that right now our focus is on building our dogs desire to pay attention to us, explore behaviors to see what works, or in this case gets the cookie, and getting us in the habit of giving selective attention. Paying less attention to things we don't want and more attention to things we do want.