Treats and toys are amazing for creating and maintaining behaviors / tricks. Once a new behavior is trained though, we typically want to progress to the point where our dog reliably responds to our cue, even when the treats and toys aren’t immediately available.

It’s not that we want to stop providing treats and toys, it’s just that we want our dog to rapidly and accurately respond to our cues without first checking to make sure we have treats/toys available, and we also want to reach the point where our dog is able to work in a focused and enthusiastic way for longer periods of time without constant access to rewards.

Progressing a behavior / trick / exercise from the learning phase to the next level is a smooth process for some teams, however there are a few common areas where teams can get stuck, these include:

• Moving from “bribing” to reinforcing (i.e. having the trick / behavior / exercise occur in response to our cue, even when the treats and toys are not visible or are placed at a distance away from us and/or our dog).
• Moving from luring to the point where the behavior / trick occurs in response to a verbal cue (or small physical signal) rather than still needing giant luring hand signals to generate the behavior.
• Transitioning a shaped behavior into a polished, verbally cued, trick (i.e. having the end-goal behavior reliably occur in response to a verbal cue only, but also not occurring before we give the cue).
• Fading out props (i.e. having the trick / behavior occur reliably and precisely in the absence of props).
• Shifting to an intermittent schedule of reinforcement in an effective way (i.e. reaching a point where the trick remains enthusiastic, accurate, precise, and reliable even when we are not providing a reward after every performance of the trick / behavior / exercise).
• Adding distance (i.e. having a trained behavior / trick occur reliably and accurately at a distance from the handler, not only when immediately near the handler).

All of the above skills are covered in this class; we will also include strategies for:

• Maintaining engagement, focus, and enthusiasm during a sequence of several behaviors when the treats / toys are absent.
• Maintaining motivation between individual exercises (i.e. being able to end an exercise / trick and then set up for the next exercise / trick in a focused way, without our dog needing access to treats/toys.)
• Training specific “reward events” - to improve clarity, reduce confusion / frustration, and add more fun to our training sessions.
• Working with remotely placed rewards (i.e. having our dog leave treats/toys in an enthusiastic and unconflicted way and return with us when cued to access the rewards).
• Building our dog’s mental stamina, so they can work in an enthusiastic and focused way for longer periods between breaks and before access to rewards.
• Helping our dog build the skills needed to continue to “work” in a focused way even with treats/toys nearby and/or on the ground (i.e. building the skills needed to ignore nearby treats / toys / distractions).

Each week of this class we will focus on a group of skills from the above lists.

Several written topics will be released each week; each will introduce theory concepts that are related to that week’s work. Examples of the theory topics include:

• Cue salience, overshadowing, and cue transfer.
• Stimulus control, cue discrimination, and generalization.
• Habit formation.
• Reinforcement schedules.
• Superstitious behaviors.
• Building mental stamina.
• Reducing reinforcement.
• The difference between rewards and reinforcement.

Approximately 2 – 3 practical exercises will also be released each week; these too will be based on that week’s overall theme / skillset.

Working spots (gold / silver):

Working spots in this class are equally suited to dog sports competitors as well as those who train for enjoyment only, with no plans of competing at all.

Working spots will equally suit beginner trainers looking for a starting point to train new tricks / behaviors, as well as experienced trainers looking to refine their existing skills.

Each team will have the opportunity to work on their own choice of behaviors (i.e. any tricks / exercises they are currently working on or would like to work on).

Working spots will ideally be suited to teams who are feeling a little stuck with some of their current tricks / behaviors / exercises. For example:

• Your dog’s tricks / behaviors are starting to look pretty good but still require a lot of luring or “extended signals”; or
• Your dog’s tricks / behaviors are reliably occurring from a verbal cue, but whenever the treats/toys aren’t visible your dog appears confused or uninterested; or
• As soon as the rewards are placed in a remote location your dog isn’t able to ignore or leave the treats / toys to remain focused on the “work”; or
• You’ve only just started training your dog, he / she seems enthusiastic, but you’re really not sure how to establish any reliable cued tricks / behaviors.

The content of this class is applicable to any dog sport / activity where the use of treats/toys needs to ultimately be reduced / delayed (e.g. rally, agility, obedience, tricks, musical freestyle, heelwork to music, etc.).

The information in this class would also be useful for professional trainers / instructors, whether their clients are pet people or dog sports teams. Several of the theory topics explain the science behind the choices we make when generating a new behavior, or when undertaking the process of reducing reinforcement (e.g. the role of habit formation, the timing for shifting from a continuous schedule to an intermittent schedule, the impact of each dog’s innate traits, etc.), and the practical exercises are simple, systematic, effective, and well-suited to all types of dogs.

Auditing (bronze) students:

We have a very experienced and well-credentialed Teaching Assistant (TA) in this class, so all bronze and silver students will be able to access personalized feedback on their videos in the Facebook study group.