An ‘Ah Ha!’ Moment, For Dog And Handler

After writing last night about my difficulties in training Maxwell to stop with his hind feet on his dot, I worked the dogs for their dinner. Sadie is slowly coming to realize that I’ve stopped clicking for all four paws on the dot, and is offering hind-only more and more frequently.

Sadie is rather funny to watch. Since the four-on behavior has such a strong reinforcement history, she defaults to that. Then she gives me a bewildered look when no click is forthcoming, and will do one of three things; keep staring at me hopefully (sometimes paired with sitting perched on the dot), get off and give up (lie down, usually), or step off with her front paws. That last one gets a click and a bunch of kibble. She seems to be giving up less often, which is excellent, but the click and hind feet have definitely not been connected in her head.

Maxwell offered the same behaviors I’ve seen for the past several days; nose the dot, walk across the dot, paw the dot, etc. I started the session with clicks for either rear paw landing on the dot. Then I tried to select only the slower walks, which meant the paw-dot connection time was slightly longer. He would walk across it every time, but never pause with even one foot on. Frustrating!

After a few good, slow walks, I decided to see if making it harder to win a click would actually make him pause. The first time I didn’t click a slow walk, he looked at me like WTF? Did you NOT see my awesome walk? Then he pushed the dot around the floor with his nose, then bit it and pawed furiously, then walked over it again. I forced myself not to click just for rear-paw contact.

In what seemed like slow-motion, he stepped onto the dot with his right hind paw, then lifted his left rear to move it forward. As it moved past the dot, he hesitated, paw suspended in the air above the dot. CLICK! Instead on the single pieces of kibble he’d gotten for previous clicks, I shoved a fist-full of food under his nose. Even better? As soon as I clicked, that airborne paw came to rest on the dot!

From that point on he began to offer one-paw-on standing behaviors, with both paws only occasionally. He got a few (2 or 3) bits of kibble for one paw, and a big handful for both. I switched to no clicks for one paw after getting several two-paw behaviors, earning me some very concerned looks from Maxwell. At that point, I will still click if he even moves the non-dot paw.

I think we made a huge breakthrough last night, and am sure he will progress quickly from there. Now, I need to ask all of you to help me out.

What should the verbal cue be for different paw/dot behaviors? Ideally, I’d like to train and name each of the following:

• Front paws on dot
• Rear paws on dot
• Both left paws on dot
• Both right paws on dot
• All paws on dot
• Each single paw on dot (with different names for each paw)

I'm thinking maybe FORE and AFT for front and back paws, respectively. Then maybe PORT and STARBOARD for left and right pairs of paws on the same side. But that still leaves me several cues short!