Take a look at yesterday’s post about the training steps I use for teaching this exercise. When working on a lesson plan/training plan, my goal was to have it be as much positive reinforcement as possible and minimize the use of negative punishment.
The natural tendency for most people is to push the dogs to the point of making an error and then pick up/cover the bowl. This is especially the case for those who already have the dog wait for the bowl at home and are truly surprised when the dogs can’t do it in class. I don’t like this because the dogs are making errors, because it becomes a P- training process, and because it gives the handlers a false idea of what the dog can do. They see it as “He eventually did stay, see, he can do it.” And they forget that the dog -did- get up, counting as an error. Dog owners like to make the dog leave it alone with a lot of prompting and body language. I want the dog expressing self control. I want the dog doing it without extra help. This is related to a leave it and other self control activities and the owner won’t always be close enough to use prompting and body language to influence the dog’s decision.
The dogs with one of their young friends!
That’s part of the reason I never taught it before. The other reason is that I prefer to encourage students to feed the dog through training, puzzle toys, and other enrichment feeding options. I’m not -opposed- to the exercise, it just didn’t seem like a step to success for many of the families I work with.
But now that we’re teaching a class based on the CLASS program, I’ve had to test some different training plans.
Stage 1: Hold still: We start without needing much of a stay, meaning that even in rolling enrollment classes we can typically start it on the first day of class. My CLASS class is linear, but this training plan allows for the start of the lesson to have a very specific starting point that is the same for all of the teams.
Stage 2: Move a neutral object: If we started with a bowl, the owners would push too far and have the dogs get up. Those who use this exercise at home already will want to show off (and most dogs can’t do it in the new environment). The neutral object makes it easier for the handler to follow instructions and it makes it easier for excited dogs to be successful. I emphasize getting this to fluency. I do not give teams the next step until the dog is doing well.
Stage 3: Empty bowl. When the bowl is empty, owners won’t release dogs to the bowl. This lets us get more reinforcement for staying. Otherwise, handlers really love to release the dogs.
Stage 4: Bowl with food: By this point, teams can follow instructions well. It makes it easier to get the owners to feed the dogs in position rather than releasing the dogs to the bowl. Before giving the bowl, I make a point to say, “We’re not releasing them! Do the same steps you did earlier, the food just makes it harder.”
Stage 5: Train the release: The hardest part is that the handlers all want the dog to stay before releasing. I want to practice the release on it’s own before adding in a position. In the future I’ll start with this step for all dogs, or at least for the less excitable dogs. I’ll probably do it in a completely different context than the bowl exercise to make it easier for the handlers.
Putting it together: It tends to go fairly well. The challenge is to balance out feeding in position for excitable dogs (less release, more treats in position) and release to the bowl (more of this for less excitable dogs and less feeding in position).
At this point, we talk about generalizing location (training steps and practice in different parts of the house and yard) to ‘test’ the dog and to increase the chance of the dog doing well on the first attempt during the CLASS evaluation.
Notes about the video:
This is quickly done and I need curtains to cover the windows. This is also a more trained dog, not a beginner. On the other hand, he’s never done this before. He knows to leave bowls until released, but it’s typically more active behaviors rather than holding one position. With my own dogs, they tend to get food through training and puzzle toys, only in bows if I’m not feeling well or if I’m being extra lazy. I don’t make them wait for the bowls. They’re also not going crazy barking or running around. They run to their crates or places in the room.. After seeing Silvia Trkman present in 2008, I started encouraging more pushy behaviors in my dogs (well…Luna and Griffin, not Blaze!) and I try to get the excited before I use bowls, rather than sitting and waiting. It takes some prompting to get that. If they ever get super excited I might add in sitting and waiting, but we aren’t there yet.