Using Shaping & Targeting to Overcome Fear in Dogs
Choose carefully the reinforcer you use in each environment. Too low and the dog may not be interested. Too high and the dog may get over excited about the object and there is also a risk that she may be willing to go beyond her threshold to get the food and/or loose trust in the reinforcer. We are ultimately aiming for a neutral to slightly interested response to the object because movement will be later added which will add excitement. In this video, I use cheese squares with Jessie. In the second video outdoors, I use beef heart fat squares as the environment is more distracting.
Tips:
- start with shaping dog to voluntarily interact with object
- then wait for dog to offer paw targeting
- then add cue for paw target
- then change the position of the object
- start movement by pulling object away from the dog
- then move object parallel to dog
- then towards the dog in small increments, but only if she is comfortable
Second video shows how to incrementally add sound of the object