Shaping Behavior One Click at a Time

Doesn't he look innocent?

Today Whisper and I went for our first “Behavior Modification” lesson at the vet school.  He has been on the puppy Prozac for over two months now, and there seems to be a positive result from that. He is not particularly mellow, being, after all, a young border collie. But he is not so quick to lose his mind, so to speak, and he does seem a tad less anxious around the house.   My husband had told me that Whisper got a little aggressive towards a woman who came up to the car at the grocery store the other day; probably he was being protective of the car--his daddy's car, but it was the first time Mike had seen that Cujo attitude come out. His reaction? “Don’t you have a muzzle?” I believe it frightened him a little….I don’t know that he had really believed me before that Whisper could get so scary.

When we arrived at the vet school a large, hairy German Shepherd Dog walked past us, about twenty feet from where we walked. I have seen the time when Whisper would have lunged at him, no matter how far the distance from us. Today he was definitely anxious, he whimpered, he whined, he trotted on his tip-toes, but he also looked at me instead of zeroing in on the other dog. I clicked and treated for all I was worth, giving him a “Good Boy!” as often as I could and gave him enough cheese (his treat of choice) for a medium pizza as we made it past the other dog and entered the building, Whisper continuing to watch me for guidance, me continuing to click and treat and “Watch me”-ing, and “Good Boy!”-ing, and the other folks keeping control of their dog as well. I was over the top proud of him; he knew he had done well, I think, because he certainly had done himself proud.

In the waiting room, people passed us, and he would move to greet them—really greet them in a friendly way. I would call him back to me and treat him before he could remember that he, on occasion, tried to eat people. He must have been friendly to ten people today, both before, during, and after our lesson.  He never completely relaxed, but he never lost control, either.

In the lesson, the trainer brought a vet student and an assistant who was, I believe, studying to be a trainer as well. Today’s lesson was working on getting Whisper to accept the basket muzzle willingly. She set the muzzle on the floor and did classic clicker shaping with him:  at first as he made any move that could slightly be interpreted as showing an interest in the muzzle, she clicked and gave him a treat. If he sort of looked at it, click, treat. Eventually, of course, he kind of got the idea and looked at it more frequently to get a treat.  Then I was given the chance to practice with him and the muzzle. I am not unfamiliar with clicker training, so she was trying to hone my timing and make sure I understood the point. Because we know that the dog can play me like a fiddle, it is good to have someone watch as I try to train him and make sure I am the one training him, and not vice versa, at least about this issue. The idea is to make him comfortable enough with the muzzle that if a situation arises where anyone is worried about his behavior—like when he semi-attacked the vet tech during his annual vet visit—we can put the muzzle on and he will be happy about it because he associates it with happy things, people around him will be happy because they will not think he will bite them since he is wearing a muzzle, and everyone will be more relaxed.

Our homework is to practice a couple of times a day clicking and treating with the muzzle—not putting it on, but getting him happy to look at it, perhaps touch it, and get his treat. In a couple of weeks, we will come back and hopefully progress to the next step. We should also continue our basic training.

Not one time today did I see any sign of aggression. He was anxious, but it was a new situation. Even Millie, my therapy/service dog who went everywhere with me, would have been a little nervous for awhile, I believe. Whisper was such a good boy today. The trainer said to me, “He really does look to you.” That does seem to be the majority opinion. Yes, he is my dog.  And today gave me hope for more progress in the future. There is much work yet to do, but I feel optimistic that Whisper can learn he can trust me, that other people can be trusted as well, and that he need not be so anxious all the time about everything. 

Baby steps.