Making Progress by Asking Less

A while ago I felt that Bandit and I were reaching something of a plateau.  He had made a good bit of progress with everything that we were working on, but it seemed that he had stalled out in many ways.

I really thought that I was going to need to find a way to ask more of him, but in the end I made the decision to ask less.

And the result was astonishing!  He has literally smashed that plateau into pieces and we are flying forward once again.

One example of this is our heeling.  I realized that we had reached a point where I needed to start getting the food out of my hands when we were working on heeling skills.  Any time I tried working with him without food, however, his nose was on the ground at once.

I decided to break down the criteria into smaller pieces, and to go back to a 100% rate of reinforcement.

I set Bandit up in heel, in a sit.  I had food in my hand.  I cued him to heel and we moved forward about 4 feet.  At first I kept that food right on his nose, and he got the treat at about the 4 foot point.

We repeated that a few times and then I moved the treat up away from him so it became a visual target, not a scent target.  Success!

Finally, I did a repetition with the visual target and reinforced, and then did a repetition with no food in my hand.

BIG SUCCESS!

Before long I was able to start asking Bandit to heel between a few signs in Rally class (not all) with no food in my hand.

He is doing a phenomenal job.

We did something similar with inside turns.  He was just not understanding them, so I worked with him around the four corners of a chair.  After doing that a few times, I noticed major improvement on his left turns.

It is counter-intuitive.  Sometimes when it seems like I need to up the challenge, what I really need to do is break it down.

The day will come when Bandit successfully completes the entire Figure 8 Waltz for the Cyber Rally-O Dance Divisions.  First, though, he needs to master some simpler skills.

The plateau has been dispensed with.  We are once again moving onward and upward!