Targeting confusion! :P

seebrown

Just an anecdote about training. Cannon had sit really well when he came to us. We added a hand signal and taught him down and rollover, also with hand signals.

I just taught him to target my hand on Tuesday, and now he gets targeting confused with everything. I give him the signal for sit and he's pretty good, but when I tell him down and signal, he pops up and paws at my hand. I tell him down, then rollover, and he pops up and paws at my hand. LOL. I think I need to practice everything separately from now on until he has them better. He sure does like to target.

Corinthian

I think you are getting ahead of yourself. If you only just taught him targeting, then there is bound to be some confusion until the behavior becomes fluent

You may be aware of the (oversimplified) 4 Stages of Learning

1. Acquisition
2. Fluency
3. Generalization
4. Maintenance

I suspect the dog is on stage 1 and is trying to figure out what you want, this is why there is a problem with stimulus discrimination. I suggest you make the target hand a very sharp distinct signal (try the other hand than normally used even the other side of the hand) and do not deviate from that movement for a while.

Mikey

I teach target with a target stick like this -that probably helps for your situation Because then it's not my hand he goes for -I use this one-though the clicker on it stinks; It telescopes too!

Corinthian

I use a dowel, but this could be a nice gift. What website?

POST POST EDIT: Never mind I submitted Clik Stik into Altavista

fawkese1

i made my own too.... i wanted one of those sticks, but they are like $20

i velcroed a clicker to the handle...works pretty well...

seebrown

I'm planning to change my hand signals for clarification like Corinthian suggests. But is it better to target with a stick? I originally wanted to target with my hand because of Cannon's reactivity, and I thought it might be easier not to have to always carry something around with me if I need to have him target in an emergency-like situation.

Mikey

ouch! I got mine for 5$ clearance at petsmart I just checked their site thou-they dont' carry them anymore-so I guess it was a real clearance.
15$ on ebay thou? CLIK STIK Target Stick Clicker for Dog Training Agility - eBay (item 380150808044 end time Jan-16-10 13:45:05 PST)
Not much better I guess


Seebrown-totally up to you. A lot of people do target with hands. I used the stick cuz I had it for the bunnies target training. He does well with it, but other dogs do well with hands. You can make a target stick-you could unwrap a wire coat hanger and duct tape it -2c target stick -just to see if you like it?

Criosphynx

personally IMO...no, except for specific things

Use a pointed finger as your hand signal for targeting...just like they use in agility.

the only thing I can think of that makes the stick superior is when your using it to teach object descrimination or in cases where the dog is short and you don't want to reach so far....

If the stick is just a tool to teach som'thing, that is not ongoing (like you can use a TS to teach a summersault) the stick is better. BUT for moving the dog around, targeting in public or just general stuff the hand is better IMO.

so I guess it just boils down to your goals.

I have the same stick that is pictured already I paid $15 and I never use it LOL