Clean Run Magazine - August 2008 - 61

Hungry for More: Moving to a Variable Reinforcement Schedule Once your dog is eagerly doing two macaronis correctly almost 100% of the time, without hesitation or looking up at you and mugging you for his click, he has the basic behavior of weaving in and out of the poles. Now it’s time to move on to the next step. So far, you have been using what is known as a fixed ratio reinforcement schedule. That means that you click/treat your dog for the same number of repetitions of the behavior, every time. You started by clicking every repetition, then you moved on to every two repetitions. That was great for teaching the basic behavior. But now that your dog has the basic behavior, it’s time to move on to a variable reinforcement schedule. It’s important to understand what that means and why it is significant. (Don’t panic because I used a scientific term—I will make this simple and jargon-free.) Piggy Pointer: If you are interested in learning more about the science behind reinforcement schedules, Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) has a good entry under “Reinforcement Schedules.” is not so. Once a dog understands the behavior and is proficient at it, reinforcing randomly will cause him to perform the behavior more persistently and with greater zeal. Look at the chart. See the blue line? That is the kind of response to training that you will get with a fixed ratio of reinforcement. Now look at the red line. That is the kind of dramatic improvement in response you can get with a variable ratio of reinforcement. See why it is so important to move to a variable schedule once your dog has learned the behavior? There is one more thing you should know about variable reinforcement schedules. Although they are designed to appear random to the dog, in fact, they systematically ask for more and more, but in such a way that the dog cannot tell he is doing more work for the same money. This is done by taking an average number of repetitions that will earn a reward and then successively moving that average upward, which brings us to our next step. Cumulative number of responses VR FR Time You would think that the strongest behavior would be built by reinforcing every single time the dog does a behavior, wouldn’t you? Strangely enough, this Pig-tionary: Training economy is the benefit or usefulness of any particular behavior versus the amount of effort it would take to train a particular dog. Many of the standard agility behaviors in currency are, in my opinion, poor training economies for most Pigs Fly dogs because you just won’t need them and because they would take a huge investment of time to teach. “It’s official: my entire crew loves this toy!” © DOGHOUSE ARTS The Crunch ‘N’ Tug “Most dogs love to crunch on an empty water bottle, others love the feel of a fleecy exterior. This toy has both. I love it because once you remove the water bottle, it folds flat for easy packing. Plus the bungee makes tugging easy on my back (and I’m sure on my dog’s body as well!).” Susan Garrett Twister, Buzz, Decaff & Encore www.dogdreamstoys.com August 08 | Clean Run 61

http://www.wikipedia.com http://www.dogdreamstoys.com

Clean Run Magazine - August 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run Magazine - August 2008