Part II of II see http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1056 for Part I
Reprinted with permission from http://www.PositivePetzine.com
... "300 Peck" helps us bridge those gaps in a manner which is easy for us
to implement...
Let's use the "sit-stay" as an example. We'll assume our dog has
already been trained to "sit" on cue. So we ask our dog to "sit". Then
we count silently in our head "1-alligator", if our dog is still
sitting, then we click and treat.
Then we ask our dog to "sit" again, as he probably got up when we
clicked (which is fine).
Then we count silently in our head "1-alligator, 2-alligator", if he is
still sitting, click and treat.
The next trial is "1-alligator, 2-alligator, 3-alligator", if he is
still sitting, click and treat. If not, then ask your dog to "sit",
and count "1-alligator". If he is still sitting, click and treat.
The basic rule is that on each trial we increase the count by 1, if our
dog succeeds we click and treat. If our dog fails, we simplt restart
the count from 1.
A typical session might look like this:
sit - 1, click and treat
sit - 1,2, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4,5 - fail
sit - 1, click and treat
sit - 1,2, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4,5, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4,5,6, click and treat
sit - 1,2,3,4 - fail
sit - 1, click and treat
sit - 1,2, click and treat
etc...
Another practical example can be found here: http://www.clickertraining.com/node/596 In the above article we taught our dogs to lie down nicely beside
the dinner table while we ate our meal. You will notice that this is a
long duration behaviour.
Imagine you want your dog to walk on a nice loose leash. You can teach
this literally step-by-step using the "300 Peck" method. 1 step, click
and treat. 1 step, 2 steps, click and treat; etc
Although it is not obvious, in practice, "300 Peck" enables us to
increase our criteria with greater than 80% success rate overall - and
we don't even have to think too hard about it! We just have to
remember what the last count was and add 1 if we clicked and treated.
This method also works by default to set the exact right amount of
difficulty in any given situation. Sometimes there are distractions
which we don't even notice, but our dogs do. "300 Peck" takes the
guess-work out of setting appropriate criteria for the situation and
always pushes for the maximum performance. To quote the oft-repeated
phrase from 'help wanted' ads - no experience necessary!
Helpful links:
http://www.dragonflyllama.com/%20DOGS/%20Dog1/levels.html
http://www.PositivePetzine.com/Recommended.html
