Training Dog To Put Rubbish In Bin

[tigger000]

hey guys,

I was wondering how you would go about teaching a dog to put rubbish in a bin?

I have started the training with my dog and i am training him via shaping. This has worked really well so far! To begin i put a milk carton on the ground, rewarded him everytime he looked at it and slowly built it up until he was picking it up in his mouth.

After he was reliably picking it up i introduced the cue "rubbish". so now, when i give the command, he goes and picks it up.

The bit i am unsure of how to do is...how to get him to put it in a bin.

At the moment he doesnt bring the milk carton to me, he just picks it up and drops it.

Would the next step be teaching him to bring the milk carton to me?

Then once he's reliably doing this, bring in a large basket (eg washing basket) and put my hands near it....then slowly take away my hands so he is putting it straight in the basket?

and then from there reducing the size of the basket to the size of a rubbish bin?

Has anyone else got other methods or ways of training it?

Cheers!

[poodlefan]

Has your course introduced you to the concept of back chaining?

I'd be teaching the drop into a bin or basket with the carton in the dog's mouth. Then I'd be encouraging the dog to take the carton and work on getting the dog to take the carton off the ground.

No point in putting the behaviour on cue until its reliably established.

[BMAK]

he only gets rewarded for holding the rubbish for longer periods of time. p.s keep him on lead that way you can stop him from moving away. or play a game with him throw the rubbish he may be more inclinded to hold it for longer if he thinks it's a game which it should be anyway but he may pick up on it being more fun chasing something. that way you can mark the hold and reward.

[Kavik]

I taught this by teaching a few different steps and then backchaining.

I taught a hold/retrieve (for obedience initially)

I taught her to put her head in the bin via shaping. Then I held the object over the bin, got her to hold it, then put her head in the bin and release object (I used toilet paper rolls for this). Then held object a little further away from bin so she had to hold object, go to the bin, put her head in and release. Then placed object on the ground next to the bin so she had to pick it up and carry it to the bin, put her head in and release object. Then add more distance.

[Staranais]

The steps I used were similar to Kavik:

Teaching her to hold object, & to drop object, on cue

Holding object above bin & asking her to take it, then asking her to drop it (clicked when it went into the bin)

Holding it a few cm away & shaping her dropping it into the bin (as opposed to just dropping it anywhere)

Throwing it away & getting her to put it into the bin

[Dxenion]

I used voice clicker training.

Prereq: Shake hands on cue as it taught him to put his paw in my hand. By doing this, I was creating a behaviour that I could trigger and then reward.

I then transferred the focus to the pedal of the bin by triggering him to use his paw to try and touch my hand which I had under the pedal. As soon as his paw touched the pedal which was in the way, he got the reward.

Once he was reliably opening the bin by putting his paw on the pedal, I then taught him to retrieve the target item to me. I opened the bin and placed my hand over the opening so that he would put the item in my hand. I then started removing my hand as he was releasing the item and eventually didn't put my hand out at all.

When he could reliably open the bin and retrieve the target item to the 'bin' I cued back in the pedal and linked the tasks together.

I now point to an item and say 'rubbish' and the dog will pick it up, open the lid and put the item in the bin - if only I could get my OH to do that!

[piper]

I'm another that taught things in different bits and linked them together.

A retrieve and release was taught first.

A go to a location was also taught.

A foot target was taught and then taped to the rubbish bin pedal.

A put your head in something was also taught.

Then I started with a low open container and getting her to pick up an item and release it. I only clicked and treated when it went into the container. I then played about with containers of different sizes and shapes and made put something in something a very reliable behaviour (we also worked on putting toys in a little red wagon and then bringing the wagon to me). Once she could do that I put the pedal bin in. It took her awhile to connect the 2. She would hit the pedal, step off of the pedal and then release the item so it landed on the lid or bounced off as the lid came down. Then she finally worked it out and I got really excited and threw a party about it and as I bent down, she jumped up and hit me in the face casuing me to shout and she decided the bin was evil and not to go near it.

At that point I left it for awhile, when I went back to it I changed what I did. I put food in the bottom of the bin so that she started diving her head into it as she hit the pedal to get the food. That worked really quickly so I then I gave her a ball to hold and sent her to the bin and she continued the behaviour of hit pedal and dive head in so quickly that she did not release the pedal or the ball until her head was right in the bin.

I also then went on to teacher her with a flip top bin. I started by propping it open and reducing the amount of the opening. She got the hang of pushing it with her nose within a couple of sessions.