Free Shaping
Free Shaping is shaping a behavior without prompting/luring/compelling your dog to do anything.
Overview
Shaping involves slicing the behavior you want your dog to do into small steps, successively marking and rewarding each “slice,” until you have built up the finished behavior you want to train.
Free Shaping is where you do not use any form of helping your dog to do something. You just wait until they start to do a movement that’s a correct first “slice,” and then you mark and reward. Slowly building up to the behavior you are looking for.
You can also free shape without anything in mind, if your dog happens to look at you, or go to their bed you can mark and reward that behavior, which makes it likely to occur more in the future.
Free Shaping is about getting the dog to learn behaviors without needing to be lured. This helps create an operant and more reliable dog. Free Shaping is slower but more reliable long-term.
If you always need to show them a treat first then they will wait for that to do a behavior, that’s why it’s important if you are luring with food in your hand to try to remove that from the equation as soon as possible.
How Shaping Works
Imagine you are looking at a frame by frame motion picture of your dog picking up a ball. The first frame would probably be them turning their eyes toward the ball. Then staring at the ball. Then lowering their head towards the ball. Followed by more frames of their head getting lower and lower towards the ball. Then touching ball with nose. Followed by opening mouth. Putting mouth on ball and then closing mouth. Finished with a handful of frames of them lifting their head.
Each of these frames or “slices” is called an approximation, a small step towards the finished behavior. To teach a dog to pick up a ball using free shaping then you would progressively mark and reward all of the “approximations” that were described above.
Free shaping is a great approach for more difficult or independent dogs. It’s important when free shaping to not lure, prompt, or compel your dog to do anything. They will learn to offer to do things for you without you having to ask. Offering to do things is not something that comes naturally for all breeds of dogs, but it is something you can train.
Free shaping helps teach your dog to have a work ethic. Some dogs naturally are going to look to you for guidance on what to do next, but some breeds are more independent and seek to solve problems another way. If your dog has a “don’t care about you” attitude then free shaping will help them realize that certain things they do will get a reward out of you and they will start to work to see what they need to do to get you to activate with a mark and reward. This is how you can shape Engagement/Automatic Attention
Box Game
Only start to work on free shaping once you know your dog is conditioned to the reward markers.
The goal at the end of this game:
You will be fluent with your marker timing so you are able to mark desired behaviors with some accuracy.
Your dog will have opened up and starts to offer behaviors continuously.
The focus of this first lesson is on you and your ability to pick out and take a picture of a behavior with your marker. We start by playing a game so you don’t get hung up on trying to teach a useful behavior and “getting it right”.
You are going to use an empty cardboard box or something similar that doesn’t have too high of edges so they can step in it if they want. You are essentially going to be playing the kid game Hot & Cold. The object of the game is to have your dog interact with the box in any way, sniff, bite, pick up, step on, etc. It doesn’t matter what the behavior is.
Lay out the box on the floor. Anytime the dog looks at, move towards, or interacts with the box you will mark and reward. Do not prompt them. Just like in the “warm, warmer” game, you are restricted to using your markers to tell the dog if they are getting close.
Do nothing if your dog is getting colder. This game is about your dog figuring it out on their own and you practicing your timing.
After the dog has offered any interaction with the box you can start throwing the treat in the box to reinforce the box is the “hot” area. Make sure you mark first THEN throw the treat.
If your dog just stands there staring at you, wait it out for a long time. If it’s taking far too long you can walk around to see if they will move towards the box so you can mark and reward.
You can try putting your hands behind your back so they don’t get fixated on the treats and it can become a cue for them to start offering behaviors, rather than waiting for you to tell them what to do.
Continue marking and rewarding for any interaction with the box for the entire session - a glance, a sniff, a lick, or a paw in the box, mouth on the box, anything at all!
Keep this session short 5 minutes or so is enough. Try to do it 1-3x a day.
Advancing the Box Game
Once they start offering behaviors as soon as you put down the box and you feel confident in your marker timing, you can start free shaping a specific behavior. It could be having them put their paws in or grabbing with their mouth, it’s up to you! Make sure you start shaping this behavior by marking and rewarding the approximations (slices) working up to the finished behavior. Try to feed the reward at the box.
This game works because they learn that a head turn (towards the box for example) gets them treats, they remember that and offer it. If you reinforced it enough times then they will keep offering the head turn, even if you stop reinforcing it. Dog’s tend to be hopeful creatures, and, when they figure out that a head turn does not get them treats anymore they may offer “improvements” on the head turn, like a head turn with foot movements. Your job is to catch those improvements and mark and reward them. This is called raising the criteria.
Knowing when to stop reinforcing one approximation (slice) of a behavior and hold out for more is more of an art than a science. If your dog looks like he is losing interest or giving up when you start holding out for more '“improvements,” you have probably raised the bar too quickly. Go back and reinforce the behavior they were last offering a few more times. Once it’s been strengthened by reinforcements you can try again to hold out for the next approximation.
You will start to learn what level of perseverance your dog has and how quickly you can raise the criteria. Every dog is different and some need lots of patience and tiny baby steps in the right direction.
Once your dog has finally completed the final behavior you were trying to shape, give them a big jackpot of treats. 5-10 treats one after another (not all in one clump).
Make sure you say your release “OK” to let the dog know you are done and they don’t need to search for certain behaviors and they can go do as they please.