The other day my client’s granddaughter was with us during our training, and, as I enjoy doing, I included her in our lesson – sometimes as the distraction (since she is a distraction to their dog in real life, after all) and sometimes learning how to use positive reinforcement to teach Sassy how to do behaviors.
After teaching her how to see, mark and reinforce behavior, the little girl was able to keep Sassy focused on touching her hand (hand targeting). Then I asked her to pick up a toy and move around while I worked on a down/stay with Sassy and while we were partnering on that exercise, I also was aware to see, mark and reinforce the little girl for doing what I asked and being a great helper. When I first got there, she was shy and did not want to participate in the training but with success and positive reinforcement for her own behavior, she too was clearly very interested in being an active student. It was beautiful to see.
Where we hit a snag was when she asked Sassy to ‘drop’ (meaning lay down). Sassy continued to stand or got distracted. This was a lesson too. I thought of a few things that may help her to have success in teaching this behavior to Sassy. We could give her higher value food to use. Possibly my training Sassy ‘drop’ before asking her to try, may have affected Sassy’s understanding of cues from the little girl so there could be more time spent with Sassy learning from different people the cue ‘drop’. Also, we could immediately begin the lesson with her asking for the ‘drop’ without me practicing first. We (meaning me and my client, and adult) could also work on teaching Sassy a new hand cue for ‘drop’ in addition to the verbal cue. Then and adult could stand behind her, and after she says the word ‘drop’, the adult could give the hand cue – then the adult’s hand cue could be faded out.
We did not practice having her asking Sassy for a ‘drop’ for more than a few repetitions since the behavior was breaking down (and Sassy would fluently go into a down when I asked for it), so that we could work on the changes to that lesson. To keep the little girl still feeling good about participating, we went back to having her be the distraction (and me reinforcing her for good behavior) which she was happy to do.
In the end, both Sassy and the little girl enjoyed participating…and learned. As did I!
Getting kids involved with the training has the potential to be great for so many reasons. They learn they can affect behavior by using a positive approach. They learn how to be an effective AND positive teacher to their dog; and in so doing, their dog will want to spend more time around them and do things they cue, since there will a history of positive reinforcement from doing that. Plus it is a real confidence booster for kids.
However, this also means doing your part to help your child succeed as a teacher. It is a win-win for everyone!
