Morgan Spector - Clicker Training for Obedience

A Karen Pryor

Clicker Training

ClickBook

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Clicker Training
for Obedience

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Karen Pryor Clicker Training
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Waltham, MA 02453-8345

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Photography: Morgan Spector and Karla Spitzer
Spaniels on cover, and pages 193, 226: Susan Smith
Illustrations: Concepts, Morgan Spector; design, Co-Design

CLICKER TRAINING FOR OBEDIENCE Copyright 1999 by Morgan Spector. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Sunshine Books, Inc., 49 River Street, Waltham, MA 02453-8345 USA.

First edition.
Sixth printing, Spring 2005

Designed by Compset, Beverly, MA.
Cover design by Co-Design, Jamaica Plain, MA.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 97-067794
ISBN 0-9624017-8-1

Foreword

In this wonderful, one-of-a-kind book, attorney Morgan Spector brings you the best current thinking about clicker training and dogs. Morgan is profoundly familiar with the questions trainers ALWAYS raise, when they first encounter operant conditioning. Why cant I just use my voice? What if the dog doesnt obey? When can I get rid of the food? But you cant take the clicker into the ring! He addresses all these familiar bugaboos right away, so we can get on with the training.

And what fun training it is! From the first exercises with a baby puppy, Morgans program is full of happy surprises. Since you arent relying on compulsion, how about teaching that puppy a little retrieve? How about introducing the scent articles while youre at it? And if youve got a crossover dog, trained the old way, and mighty suspicious now, how about working on a drop at a distance while you watch TV?

This is not to say the program is casual; far from it. Morgan has your UDX and OTCh awards in mind from the first little kitchen tricks he teaches you. If you want to compete, he wants you to win. Hell show you how to use the clicker to build rock-solid precision performance at each level. If you want to settle for just getting by, thats fine; but if you want refinement and precision, he wants it too. Again and again youll see clearly, in this book, why shaping with a conditioned reinforcer is the path to success.

Morgan is not giving you just the benefits of his own experiences or opinions. His information is backed up by scientific data and applied behavior analysis. He bases his approach on the concept of fluencies, currently one of the hottest topics in behavioral science. Morgan is scrupulous about the use of scientific terms and principles. He explains them. He makes it clear why he uses them, what they mean, and why ordinary language wont suffice. When he says things a scientist would avoid saying (such as attributing human feelings to an animal) he explains why hes taken the liberty: My dog Sam hated that kind of training. At least, his heeling went into the toilet along with his attitude; I call that hating.

Morgans legal skills make him a careful researcher. He is also one of the most well-read, literate people Ive ever met. His wide knowledge and respect for accuracy show up in many ways. For example he is scrupulous about giving credit for every idea, method, phrase, or explanation that came originally from someone else. Over and over you will read phrases such as In Marian Baileys words... or Gary Wilkes originated the use of... or As Karen Pryor says in Dont Shoot the Dog... or B.F. Skinner wrote about this in Science and Human Behavior.

Morgan also identifies his more casual sources, such as Internet posts, conversations, experiences of students, and his observations of other top trainers in competition. This honesty, this honoring of his colleagues, is more than just good manners. In the tradition of scientific writing, it shows us where an idea began, and where to start digging if we want to learn more on that particular matter. In the tradition of literature, it shows us that Morgan is bringing to us more than his own thinking: He is bringing us the combined wisdom of a considerable group of people working in this field.

Morgan also has a lot of personal experience as an instructor. Clicker training, famously, does not rely on correction, a source of much argument from outsiders. This book will clarify that dispute. Due to Morgans pre-clicker years of teaching traditional obedience classes, he knows the ways people get into trouble in competition: the lagging heels, the crooked sits, the drop-on-recall failures, the mouthed dumbbell, the missed jump, the long sit and long down disasters. From the viewpoint of clicker training he now shows you not only how to avoid those problems (or repair them if you have to) but also why you got into them in the first place. And it wasnt because you were too easy on the dog.

That is a mistaken assumption that even some clicker trainers buy into: Positive reinforcement is all very well for easy stuff, but if you want perfection, you have to get rough. People falsely assume that the choice is, Either be nice to my dog, and settle for pretty good scores, or get tough and get 200s.

Morgan makes it clear that being nice is not the issue. The clicker can give you precision at a level most people only dream ofif you want to compete at that level. The issue is energy: yours. Its not the punishment that makes perfection: its those miles of travel, weekends of trialing, and extra hours of concentrated thinking about how to apply the underlying principles to your daily training events.

While the principles of shaping and reinforcement, like the laws of gravity, are ever present, applications can vary. As I have said elsewhere, there are as many ways to shape a given behavior as there are trainers to think them up. Chapters 4 through 7 describe Morgans meticulous methods for each obedience exercise. They work: his students are winning. But others will use other recipes, other methods. For example, Morgan uses the dogs name in training the recall. Corally Burmaster, editor of The Clicker Journal, prefers to omit it. Both methods have their benefits, and both methods work. Morgan usually establishes the cue by respondent conditioning. I prefer to shape cue response as an operant, because, for me, it seems quicker. Yet both methods develop quick and reliable cue response. What you can count on, with Morgans methods, his step-by-step instructions, is that a) the methods are sound as to the underlying principles, b) each method is free of coercion, with all that implies as to attitude and long retention, and c) these programs will work.

Writing a book of this scope is not a trivial exercise. It turned out to be more than four years work. As Morgans editor and publisher I was privileged to see how his methods were shaped and honed during the four years. He wrote, then taught, then came back and revised or rewrote, then taught some more. At the start of the project, Morgan and his two competition dogs were in the middle of Utility training. To make time for all this work the author had to postpone intensive competition with his own dogs. Before Morgan went back in the ring himself it would be his students, with their unusual assortment of non-obedience breeds, who would be finishing their UD titles and racking up the high scores.