-
Being a Skilled and Generous “Feeder”
When asked what’s most important for newbie trainers to learn, Kathy Sdao’s response was:
“People should learn how to be a skilled, generous, creative “feeder.” That is, they should understand and embrace the fact that their main role, if they want to be a great trainer, is to reinforce repeatedly any dog behaviors they want to see more of.”
➡ What does it mean to you to be a skilled ‘feeder?’ ????
-
9 Replies
-
There are so many components to this topic! One thing I love to teach is the hand-coordination involved with feeding for position. That is, getting the treat to the dog quickly, exactly where the perfect dog should be. Sometimes I have the client practice without the dog especially if they are struggling. … looking forward to what others have to say about this topic!
-
@catherine: YEAH! Teaching the client to feed for position/feed for reinforcement/feed and feed and jackpot for that WOW behavior…such a great thing and I think we, as trainers, cannot reinforce that enough with the human client. Sometimes they are clumsy (so am I! I often use those WHOOPS-es when I’m hand-on to laugh and I jokingly call them “treat malfunctions”. I call myself a giant canine Pez-dispenser that “jammed”. Anything to make the human, who feels like they are performing on stage for me, too get comfortable with putting a treat inside that canine yap, full of toothy-teeth! And, some humans are very worried that they are doing that wrong. I’m giving him too much, right— is usually the concern.
But I personally feed my walking-client dogs for ALMOST everything I like. I love communicating with them and it is mutual. I have gotten so in tune with them that even “reactive” dogs, upon seeing said-trigger will often look at me and I FEED for that look/watch me…90% off the time, they ignore the trigger and just start gazing up at me…It’s such a cool thing. I ask them if they saw that (dog, Squirrel, jogger) and if they look back at it, it’s usually to tell me, “yep, but I’m gonna stay with you.”
What are your favorite ways to teach the human client treat-handling/feeding skills? My mentor trainer has a really great way of teaching this in group classes I watched, when we got to LLW. She would tell everyone to grab 20 small treats in their luring hand at home and demonstrated the mechanics of dispensing one at a time, Rolling it down into your pinched fingers.
I also like demonstrating to my private clients, especially those with mouthy dogs, how to hold your treat with your thumb up against your flat palm and presenting it to “The mouth”. The dog cannot bite or nip a flat surface, so it works great. Also, I toss a treat right above a dog’s nose on our walks, if they are like this, or sometimes just to mix it up and add eye-mouth coordination to the game.
Just curious as to what coaching other trainers give on this?
-
OMD @bernerlabreclectus You have dropped SO MANY great teaching tips here!! I love your use of humor to keep things light for dogs and their people. Such a good reminder too, that our clients often feel “performance anxiety” trying to do the right things in front of an expert. Love it, love it!
-
-
-
Hey there everyone, I’m finally hitting re-start on participating in all the DD amazingness here, after not being ‘around’ for a while. Really missed being part of this excellent group of Positive, Creative, Generous-themselves ‘committed dog folks!’ And, as relevantly, I LOVE Kathy Sdao’s work, and I’m so psyched that you (Virginia) brought a quote from her to us sharing great insight for newbies like me, and others! Now, on to the conversation.
One of the first things I related to of what she said is having PATIENCE & trying to keep being tuned-in to the doggo, trying, in any given session-moment, to see their SMALLER body language indicating something is beginning to interest him/her, (semi-motivated if that’s actually a ‘thing)’ not the most -desired “light bulb turning on” signs, but like (sorry for differential use of the standard behavior mod. term) the dog is stepping on a behavior “bridge”, not sure where it’s going but she’s got some thing sparked from the work…An example (partly a real-life story of a trainer & partly ‘creative writing’): You’re working on shaping a new trick with “Stella”, a collie-germ.shepherd mix,but for all her prior-demo’d ‘brain power’, she’s just not figuring what you want now & is looking frustrated. You wonder how else to clarify the cue (New trick, no verbal or physical cue yet) when you realize that she’s been working so well & pretty hard today, maybe y’all just should quit for now and try another time…O.K. it’s a plan buut… you just will take one more go at it, using a different approach. Somehow Stella senses that you’re ‘pulling back’ the intensity, moving on.. Then when you do that last different try, suddenly- whoa!- Stella starts ‘throwing behaviors’ at you. None of these are the ‘right’ one,of course! but she had returned interest in trying, rather than starting to shut dwn. Reinforceable! Yaay!
Wow-I did really run on there, didn’t I? So SORRY to put you through all that verbiage. But you take my point, right? Aright, I’ll stop here and listen for others’ input/ comments on the quote.
-
@beaglemania , I think you’re bringing up SUCH a good point! ???? In our enthusiasm to ‘get’ a behavior to happen, we sometimes expect too much, too soon. And that leads to doggie frustration. But when we break down our training task into itty bitty steps, we help to create easy successes right away and get the dog’s enthusiastic and focused buy-in. The key to good shaping is to balance the rate of reinforcement with tiny, incremental changes in criterion so that the behavior keeps growing, until we finally reach our goal!
-
@beaglemania Great to see you back here! All of your points are so good. And the Stella story is on point. A good reminder to keep an eye on our dogs’ frustration levels. (German Shepherds are really good for being demonstrative about their frustration, can I get an Amen!????)
And so good of you to think about the social pressure we bring to a training situation – like Paula mentioned, above, the social pressure on the clients to perform – but dogs ALSO FEEL THAT PRESSURE!! By backing off, averting our eyes, changing our body angles to the side, exhaling, relaxing our shoulders, etc., we can lower the pressure the dog is experiencing.
And as Virginia is emphasizing, our training steps should be so itty bitty that there is always something to reward, keeping the dog in success-mode as much as possible.
Ugh I have so much more to say on this topic – including recent research about frustration and training styles – but ya’ll will just have to come to the HoundTable tomorrow on frustration and resilience to hear those insights! haha – hope to see you there.
-
-
Being a skilled feeder, to me, means that you try to keep the dog offering its best behaviors, because YOU SEE IT ALL! It’s being the parent who notices all the little good things their kids are doing, not just punishing for bad grades or getting into a fight.
By doing this, so many people worry that they are offering bribes. And, often clients ask if they have to bring treats with on a walk. If they are parents, they understand the idea that we don’t leave the house on a road trip with children without the diaper bag or “snack reinforcements”, so same can be said of going for a walk with your dogs.
Skilled feeding is catching the moments your dog gives you Kodak moment behaviors, as a camera would, with a positive word and a treat. Or bunch of treats, for the “postcards of Hawaii” moments/behaviors.
-
So well said, @bernerlabreclectus !
Skilled feeding is catching the moments your dog gives you Kodak moment behaviors, as a camera would, with a positive word and a treat.
-
Well put, @bernerlabreclectus –I like your analogy of the camera ‘moment’ because cameras are so precise in their capture of smaller ‘micro-behaviors’, and we do our best at trying to, each according to their individual ‘visual acuity’, to mimic that, absolutely!
-
Log in to reply.