Shaping Dog Training

You’re Getting Closer

Shaping dog behavior is another extremely powerful way to teach polite manners. A teacher uses basic learning fundamentals for humans, dogs, cats, fish and snails so let’s discuss how dog owners can use shaping in dog training.

What is Shaping Dog Behavior?

Shaping means rewarding small approximations, or small steps, toward a goal behavior. When teaching complex behaviors that don’t occur naturally, shaping works wonderfully.

Think of shaping as the “hot and cold” game. When a learner is “warm,” you click and treat. When she is “cold,” the learner is ignored. In shaping dog training, reward “warm” behaviors often because we all know how discouraging it is after hearing “cold, cold, cold.” You want to quit, and it’s no longer fun.

Shaping Happens Everyday

If you want to increase the chances of your husband emptying the dishwasher, reward him with control of the remote afterwards. You don’t need to say anything. Just push the remote toward him when he enters the living room after tidying up in the kitchen. 🙂

Works at the Office Too

You can totally shape better behavior at the office. For grumpy co-workers, ignore or limit chit-chat when they’re complaining. Reward smiles and positive comments by engaging in conversations. If he should become grumpy again, disengage. Over time, you’ll notice a happier co-worker even if it’s only with you. 🙂

Bosses are different. We sometimes need to engage when they’re grumpy. Instead of grimacing or blankly staring back at your boss, try nodding often and offering direct eye contact. This will lighten the mood, as your boss is being acknowledged. When you notice the mood lighten even if slightly, smile. You may notice your boss smiling back even just a little toward the end of your conversation. 🙂

Shaping Dog Training Technique

When teaching a complex behavior, such as walking on a loose leash, spend some time figuring out what polite leash walking looks like.

Polite loose leash walking components:

1. Leash is loose.
2. Dog looks back at you (checks in regularly).
3. Dog walks around within three to four feet of your legs/body.
4. Your dog can easily ignore approaching dogs.
5. Dog ignores approaching people.
6. Now, she can ignore movement (bicycles, cars passing by, joggers passing you on walking trails, etc.).

That’s a lot of components, and learning all of these at the same time is like learning to ski or dance in an hour. It’s not going to happen. 🙂

Pick one component and practice during training sessions. Once your dog learns to keep a loose leash after three or four practice sessions, move onto the next component and practice. Now you’re clicking for when your dog looks back at you while keeping the leash loose.

Once your dog can do both at the same time, move to component three. If, at any time, your dog begins pulling on the leash, take a step back and work on “keeping leash loose.” It’s hard doing two things at once. Remember balancing and then squatting down on skis? If you lose your balance, take a step back and refresh.

Slowly add one component at a time until your dog walks politely on leash. Again, take one or two steps back, isolate the component your dog is struggling with, and refresh. Once she’s ready, try adding back the final behavior.

Don’t Get Overwhelmed

Shaping actually prevents that dreaded overwhelming feeling. Keep it simple, split tasks into smaller chunks and refresh often. When working on a complex project at work, you probably wrote high-level tasks in an outline, captured and categorized each task in an Excel sheet, and completed items by category–that’s shaping!

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