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Positive interruptor
I’ve been watching some videos on positive interruptor cues and I’m really curious to hear how other people on here do or don’t use them! It seems hard to not inadvertently reinforce the behavior one is trying to interrupt. However I do see situations where this could be a very useful tool to interrupt and refocus. What are all of your thoughts?
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7 Replies
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Hi Anna – this is interesting. Could you please explain how you are defining the positive interrupter cue? How is it taught? How and when is it used? I’d like to make sure we’re all talking about the same thing… so clarifying the term is a good first step. Thanks!
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Thank you for this clarifying question. I was inspired by Kikopups tutorial about s positive interruptor. Basically the steps are
1) load a cue (kissy noise, “enough”, click of the tongue, etc)
2) practice the cue with no distraction
3) increase distraction level
4) be able to use it when an unwanted behavior such as barking, rough play, etc is happening to interrupt the behavior and use it to redirect.
An important caveat I use with this is this is simply the “get the dogs attention” cue, after we get the attention we must follow up with an alternate behavior!
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@AnnaBee Thanks for that explanation. How is it different from any other attention cue?
For example, my “Leave It”, trained with positive reinforcement has two parts:
1. Turn away from what you are paying attention to, and
2. Look into my eyes
As with your positive interrupter, it is then my responsibility to give another cue, such as Come, Let’s Go, Stay, or whatever the context calls for.
So… is the kissy noise just another attention cue?
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Yeah I guess so! I dunno I’m a little confused honestly by it but yeah I think basically that’s it
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“Not reinforce the behavior you’re trying to interrupt.” — I can see why you’d say this; you are thinking carefully about not inadvertently creating a behavior chain, right?
You can avoid a chain by watching for patterns. For example, if the dog picks up a slipper and runs around the house, and you reliably make the interrupter noise and pay them for coming when called, it could turn into the dog picking up the slipper to get the treat. In that situation, the fix is to keep the slippers picked up, and be sure that the dog has other things to do instead of looking for ways to instigate the fun! 😉
It’s so good that you are thinking through how behavior chains can get created unintentionally.
Does this answer your question, or do you have other thoughts?
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I think this makes sense! I need to work with it some more and maybe I’ll have follow up questions thank you!!!
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You bet – good luck, and we are always here to dig in deeper if you think of other questions!
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