Teaching Betsy to think

Lots of people who watch Betsy’s YouTube channel will often ask how I taught her the tricks she knows, and whether I have any tips.

The single thing after training FF is to teach your dog how to think.

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There are many many ways you can do this. I will list them in order of preference.

All four methods use the clicker or marker words.

Remember, clicking your dog is like ‘taking a photo’ of the behaviour, you have to do it as quickly as possible before it “flies off”. 

A click must always* (*initially, until another behaviour becomes reinforcing enough (worth it enough) to replace it) be followed by some sort of reward.

  1. Shaping
  2. Back chaining
  3. Capturing
  4. Luring + shaping

I will explain these more thoroughly in later posts.

 

I am not perfect.

I am not going to claim to be a dog training expert. However, the reason I have set up this blog is because numerous people have said to me both online and real life, that they are interested in how I teach my own dog, Betsy things.

I do not have 30+ years experience neither do I have any qualifications in the field.

Shall I tell you what though, the scary thing is, no one has to have neither if they want to become a dog trainer in the UK. There is no legal requirement whatsoever.

Neither am I going to say that Betsy is a robot (she’s a dog!), but neither am I. Hoomans have limits or scenarios that make things challenging too. I am (gasp, you are really hearing this!) not perfect either.

However, I would like to think that I can share both our achievements and mistakes, and hope at least one other person finds it useful.