Training Fronts

With clicker training, it is important to break behaviors into pieces, especially when fine-tuning them. A "front" isn't a cued behavior but a piece that is coupled onto other things, like come and retrieve. It is trained separately to fine-tune the positioning in a way the dog and trainer can understand.

The final goal is to have the dog approach the trainer to sit dead center in a formal sit position (with the hips tucked appropriately and the body straight) then make eye contact with the trainer. That's what I understand anyway. It only needs to be really really perfect if you intend to compete in obedience, but working on the exactness is also good practice for perfecting other behaviors.

To do this in an easy-to-understand and positive way, the Levels Book developer provided this diagram. The A line runs right under the tips of my toes out to both sides. The C line is dead center perpendicular to the A line--it goes out in front of me from right between my feet. The B lines are half way in between A and C on both sides. Adding extra lines in between is a help for shaping the behavior slowly.

To be able to see these lines while training, I set myself up so the line between the two carpets is between my toes. To make my A or B lines as needed, I cut a long piece of white string and taped it onto the floor. The picture to the right shows Molly between my strings, which are placed about half way between B and C.

Now Molly picked all this up very quickly. In our first short training session, I had Molly in between lines halfway between B and C and making eye contact most of the time.

After in our second session, I have her with some part of her body over the C line, making eye contact, and lying down. A down is Molly's "default" behavior--what she does when she isn't sure what we want from her--so I will need to shape the down into a sit in our next session.

But to pass Level 3, she only needs to have her body over the line and making eye contact 3 times in a row out of 5 tries. She could probably pass that here in the living room now, but I'd like to try in a few other locations before I consider the test passed. We're also having fun doing it!

I've also spent some time thinking about exactly what I wanted as a front when I consider my mobility issues and service dog work. I talked it through with other level training people (many of whom have SDs) and considered the pros and cons of different possible ideas. I decided to train the dead center front with eye contact as the program describes. I don't plan to do any competing with her, so the points of this training are to learn to train that way and to control where she should be in SD work. With Molly fronting dead center and making eye contact, she will be easy to reach when I am on crutches or walking, the behavior works well with my DH as well, and she is focused and ready for other commands. I can always follow with a "paws up" onto my lap or the arm rests of the chair to be able to reach her better or reach an item better.

Shaping Success

We did another shaping session yesterday with clicking and treating for looking at the chair seat and moving a foot. It didn't get farther than that.

So today I thought about how I could set her up even more for success. I decided to rearrange so she could only access one side of the chair. That way she would be focused on that side and not running from one place to another. I used a stool on the one side, thinking that if she got onto it to get at the chair I could also shape the behavior that direction.

But Molly stayed at the accessible side of the chair. After lots of treats for looking and moving a foot, she pawed at a few treats. I clicked and treated a few treats for that.

Then she did it--paws on the chair up to support herself. I jackpotted. Then I clicked and treated several times for being on the chair.

Then I said "down," a command she knows for getting off the sofa, and treated her for getting off the chair.

Right afterwards, she was back on the chair again! I did another jackpot and lots of clicking and treating for being on the chair. I said down again. She hopped down and I treated.

We repeated several times until she'd been up on the chair about seven times and was going up right away after a down. She got lots of treats and praise.

When she was volunteering the behavior, I did start saying the cue, "paws up," when she was on the chair. I don't expect her to hop onto a chair on command, but I do want her to start associating the words with the act.

Once again Molly has made us very proud with her progress. She actually got a special dinner tonight. We were out running errands and got some liver for her. So she got cut up pieces of liver mixed with a little kibble. She was very happy.

More Shaping

In a second session tonight, I was clicking when Molly paid attention to the seat of the chair and moved a foot. Then suddenly she had her paws up on the chair. I jackpotted.

Then she hopped down. A few looks later, she did it again. Another jackpot. Then we quit for the night.

I'm so proud of her!

Shaping a New Behavior

I have a new thing I want to teach Molly. Bending down to put her harness on her isn't comfortable for me, so I want to teach her to put her paws up on a chair to make it easier for me to put it on her. It is going to take a while to train and I'm not expecting her to be doing it reliably soon, but we have to start somewhere.

First, we need a chair and somewhere to train. I picked the living room because we train most often there. This one seemed like a good choice because it is light and handy. It also usually has a cushion on the seat, so if her nails scratch it a bit in training, no one will notice.

I took the cushion off. If I had left it on, Molly might start interacting with it instead. I thought it better to take a pure item.

You may notice the cable wrap on the chair legs. This chair used to be in the kitchen and we wrapped chair legs to prevent chewing when Molly was a puppy. We've never bothered to take it off.

I used a variety of treats. I had some shrimp left from a failed watch session earlier that I wanted to use. I'd mixed some kibble in the make them taste better. She wasn't eating the kibble reliably though. Then I also used some pieces of a sample bag of another kibble that we'd gotten. Mixing it up kept her guessing and interested in training--a little anyway.


At first Molly wasn't sure what to do and she wandered around a bit. So I put her leash on to keep her more restricted to the area around the chair. Then I sat and wait for behaviors to build on.

Shaping builds a behavior very slowly based on things the dog volunteers. If I wanted to, I could have held a treat up over the chair and lured her to climb on it, but I want to work on my shaping skills.

So when she lay down like this and didn't know what to do and kept looking out the window, I started clicking and treating for the slightest look closer to the chair. I needed her to learn that today things revolve around the chair. It took a while, but I did get her looking at the chair. Then she got a bit more interested and got up again.

So once she was up and moving around, I started clicking and treating for looking at the chair and being near the chair. This got her really doing. She'd look at the chair and I would click and treat. She even started touching the chair with her body sometimes and I clicked and treated that. She had a few close sniffs that were almost nose bops. I clicked those, too.

At one point she sniffed standing up with her head over the seat. I clicked and treated. After she'd done it a few times, I started clicking and treating only for interaction with the seat. My goal eventually is to get her higher with paws on seat.

After lots of clicking and treating for stretching herself over the seat, we quit for the day. It was a good session, probably about 10 minutes. I don't want to overdo it too much. We'll see how it goes next time.