by Grayson Schaffer | on March 31st, 2009 | in Features
Danger Performs "Push"
So while Danger still likes to run away from me and sniff in the bushes when he’s supposed to be retrieving, he loves his service dog work. (I’m starting to think he’s a pacifist in addition to a vegetarian–but of course, I’m supportive of him regardless.) This week he learned his first real service dog skill: Push. To get there, as with all skills, we broke down the task into small parts or criteria, and built up slowly.
1. Targeting: Sue had Danger tap his nose to her fingertips. In general if you hold two fingers out, a Lab will nose them. Click–>treat at the moment of contact. Danger had a bit of trouble targeting the fingertips instead of the whole hand. To gain precision, you’ve got to be careful what you click for. Click for nose to fingertips, not nose to hand or for mouthing your hand. If you need to, you can put a piece of tape on your hand to serve as an actual target. Start it on your palm and then move it to your fingertips.
2. When Danger could do eight of ten targets without missing or giving some other response, we added the cue “target.”
3. Now add a piece of tape to your fingers and have him target the tape.
4. Move the tape to a wall or door and have him target the tape on remote objects. Each of these tasks will take just as many reps as the first nose-to-fingers target.
5. Now get him to push. Sue likes to use a push-on light like the one in the picture. Place the tape on the light and hold it down to the dog same as the initial targeting exercise. Your dog should nose it. Click only when you get a nice firm push (Danger pushed as soon as there was no click–>treat just for nosing it softly). Repeat until you’re getting 80 percent proficiency before adding the command “push.”
6. Now it’s time to generalize. I first placed the target tape on a cabinet that’s easy to close and give the “push” cue. I click–treat as the door swings all the way shut. For more difficult pushes like sticky drawers or heavy doors, you may need to work up to getting them all the way closed. Once Danger figured out what he was supposed to do, he started whipping doors and drawers shut with authority.
Now whenever I open a cabinet door around the house, Danger runs over, slams it shut, and looks up to see if he gets a treat.
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