Targeting Duration

[corvus]

So, when I started teaching Kivi to target, I was pretty blase about it and didn't pay very much attention to how precise he was. I have since learnt that regardless of my intentions, lack of precision is just sloppy and I should just put the effort in to begin with to get precision. But in the meantime, I've been finding teaching him duration on his nose targets is a bit slow and I think part of the problem is he's not very consistent about where he puts his nose on my hand and he often moves it around slightly while he's targeting. I give him two fingers as the signal and expect him to target my palm just below them, but I started off letting him target anywhere on my palm.

I'm wondering if I need to tidy up his (my) sloppy targeting before I work on duration, or if I just need to persist and shape stillness into the duration targeting? Or both, maybe?

[Jigsaw]

Decide what is your criteria. :p Do you want him to just keep bumping on your palm wherever for longer or do you want him to stay in one spot on your palm for longer? And if one spot does it have to be a particular spot or just pretty much anywhere on your palm? Break it down - initially when targetting close enough is good enough (so to speak) to get the click and reward, you need to build on that to get a specific behaviour. Persist and don't click/reward when he bumps, you may have to allow some frustration on his part to come in so you get variation on his targetting attempts and you may need to decide (beforehand) if you'll reward say a harder bump rather than repeated bumps. Sometimes your click has to be pretty quick to stop the repeated bumps. If you want him to target a particular spot on your palm try drawing a spot with texta on there so he has something to aim for!

That makes sense in my head but I think I'm half asleep - sorry!

[corvus]

Thanks Jigsaw. I want him to hold the first touch rather than smearing his nose all over my hand. I don't mind terribly where he touches, so I guess I should shape a steady touch.

[m-j]

I want him to hold the first touch rather than smearing his nose all over my hand. I don't mind terribly where he touches, so I guess I should shape a steady touch.

I think you are right. I'm guessing he is smearing his nose over your hand as he is confused by the duration (which is normal) In a sense he is saying will this bring me a reward?..here?..here maybe? If you determine a spot he will know that this is where I touch.... now why aren't getting a reward? Hopefully then try duration or resort to bumping which is one of the reasons I like using an IB, the problem is establishing one.

Kerrie Haines Lovell says it is difficult to get a true duration target with a dog using it's nose, other species are easier. Perhaps getting duration on one of his body targets first may help with the duration concept.

cheers

M-J

[corvus]

Thanks M-J, that makes sense. I'm working on duration for his paw targets, so perhaps that will help. I was doing some more targeting with him this afternoon and I think you're right. He's not sure exactly where to touch so he bops my hand and bops it again. I realised I'm kinda shaping multiple touches rather than duration of a single touch. It looked and felt like a messy single touch, but when I looked at it more critically I think it's multiple touches. I believe some people shape duration from that, but I don't know how!

Erik does it better and he learnt to touch mostly with a perspex target, so I'm thinking maybe that difference in texture and hardness will help us both figure out exactly what a nose target is.

Thanks guys.