Hämtat från http://groups.yahoo.com/group/traininglevels/files/Zen/
”Zen: It surprised me she waited till asked to get the treat. I did reinforce her with a stay cue. She did very very well once I told her to stay.”
Nyuh uh uh – this isn’t Zen. This is stay. Yes, stay is a Zen behaviour, and good the stay is strong enough to keep the dog away from the food, but the point of Zen is that the DOG figures out how to get the treat away from you. The way to get the treat away from you is to stay away from the treat. Say NOTHING. Show the dog the treat, wrap your hand around it to keep it safe, then put it down right at nose level. Do nothing. Let the dog nose your hand, bunt your hand, bop your hand, lick your hand. He can’t get the treat. He can’t even get a TASTE of the treat. Poor doggie! Finally he gets disgusted and gives up. His nose moves away from your hand. Click! And you drop the treat on the
floor. Then you start again and he comes to your hand with renewed vigour. But STILL he can’t get it until you drop it when he moves away.
Suddenly the room lights up with the lightbulb over his head – AHA, the way to get the treat is to stay away from the treat! I’ve GOT it!
Sue Eh?
”She quickly caught on to what I wanted, but each time I presented my hand she would quickly touch it first before leaving it.”
These are the smart dogs that figure this out. On the good side, you’ve successfully taught your dog a chain – bop the hand, back off, get a click. While I do NOT try to teach Zen by keeping my hand away from the dog – the point of Zen being that the DOG stays away from the hand, not the hand stays away from the dog – once in a while you’ll get a dog that develops this unwanted chain immediately, In this case, the fastest way I’ve found to get rid of the bop is simply not to let it happen once you’ve noticed it. So I put my hand down to the dog, she reaches to bop it, I pull it away, she settles back a bit, I put my hand back down, and click her for not being near it. Do this for a couple of days, and she’ll stop the bop.
Sue Eh?
http://www.dragonflyllama.com
” I thought before that if he had a good ‘wait’ that self control would follow with maturity.”
Yes, Pxxxx, it’s difficult to tell the difference between Wait and Zen until you’ve seen them. What I like best about Zen is that from the dog’s POV, the handler has nothing to do with it. I talk a lot about self-control, but in point of fact, it isn’t. A dog that wants
something will do what’s necessary to get that thing. Dogs will climb huge fences, squeeze through impossible holes, mug people, whine, etc to get what they want. What Zen is, really, is just convincing the dog that the way to get what he wants is the counter-intuitive behaviour (like staying away from food) rather than the intuitive behaviour (like jumping up, knocking it out of your hand, and grabbing it). The key point there, though, is that the winning behaviour isn’t the counter-intuitive one because the handler says so, it just is. Like gravity.
Some of these Zen behaviours I call ”gravity behaviours” because I want them that deeply ingrained in the dog. For me, loose leash walking is a gravity behaviour. The leash isn’t loose because I’m paying attention and commanding it, it’s loose because God made these weird leashes that only go forward when they’re loose. The fact of wearing the leash is the only cue the dog ever gets that God is expecting LLW.
I’d compare that to a Wait command where the whatever isn’t available because *I* said so, where, for instance, the dog would ordinarily be free to eat whatever she happens to find if she’s loose in the car, butI’m transporting a birthday cake and I need to get gas, so I tell her not to touch the cake while I’m pumping the gas.
Sue Eh?
”I like the idea of having the dog target my fist, and beginning Zen is taught with a closed fist. According to the ‘Zen’ keeper file, Zen should be a gravity behavior, and not cued – Great! But how on earth is the dog supposed to figure out when you are shaping Zen (DON’T touch closed fist) and when you are shaping targeting (DO touch closed fist).”
If you look at discrimination training, e.g training birds to peck different coloured targets, it’s reasonable to start teaching to peck one colour then change colour half-way through a session.
And if you think about it, every time you shape you’re deliberately changing the rules – frequently!
So don’t worry about it, your dog won’t be. Just be clear in your own mind exactly what you are shaping in each and every session. Set some definitions, and stick to them, one criteria at a time.
Regards,
Aidan
For the initial stages of hand Zen, I use my fist with the fingers down. I never use
this particular configuration for a target. If I wanted to use a target fist, I’d have my fingers up or thumb up – just so it’s different. When I say Zen should be a gravity behaviour – well, a sandwich in my hand, that’s a gravity rule. Scuba’d have to have a lobotomy before she’d think of grabbing food from my hand that she wasn’t offered. Food on coffee table, same thing. Don’t even think of asking. The fist configuration, though, quickly gives way to a cue like Leave It.
Sue Eh?
”His exuberance on first realizing that someone is going to LOOK at him, and even TOUCH him is just too much for him to handle without almost breaking his spine in two with the wiggles.”
I really like Zen for any part of ”stand for examination”, whether it be the formal one or greetings. Define an appropriate behaviour for greetings – whether it be a staid formal stand, four-on-the-floor, sit, whatever. Then train your greeter. They look at him from a distance. If he’s giving the behaviour you want, they go to the next level. If he’s not, they turn their backs on him until he’s giving the behaviour again.
If he was giving the behaviour when they looked at him, they can take ONE step toward him. If he’s still giving the behaviour, they can take ONE more step toward him. If he’s not, they turn their backs and go back to their starting place.
Just explaining Greeting Zen to him. He has to control himself in order to get what he wants.
Sue Eh?
See http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002c/song.htm for Sue’s Song of the Sheep story – not to be missed!!
Doggy zen is based on the idea that to get what it wants the dog must give up what it wants. It places the responsibility on the dog to control itself rather than on the handler to manage. In practice it would be a puppy learning to sit and wait for someone to approach him rather than jumping up… or leaving food on a table alone if it isn’t offered… or walking to a tree on a loose leash in order to be able to check out and add to the peemail… or offer eye contact before being released to go outdoors… or to proceed quietly to the sheep pen with attention on the handler in order to earn the right to work the sheep. If you think about it you can come up with other examples. A dog who is responsible for his own behavior is so much more fun to live with than one that you’re constantly fighting to keep it from behaving impulsively.
Judy Stoodley
