Clicker training and rewards-based shaping works great for prey animals like chickens and pigeons. It works fairly well in closed-cage situations, and it works well for teaching tricks for which there is no oppositional internal code. Where it fails is when it is used, alone, in trying to get a solid performance from a predator in an open field situation where self rewards (squirrels, deer, birds, rabbits, other dogs) are everywhere.
The failure of clicker training and food alone as a tool to stop internally self-rewarding behaviors such as prey drive is why B.F. Skinner and Marian and Keller Breland never made money training dogs, and it's why Karen Pryor could not take her own terrier off-leash in the woods and why she relied on an Invisible Fence to keep her own dogs in the yard.
4 comments:
Too true! If the hunting drive and prey motivation are there, forget the clicker....you'll just have to wait till your terrier is ready to come back. And if he's in a fox den that could be days rather than hours. Been there
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It won't work too well for prey animals in a field condition either. If there's something to run from, a clicker won't persuade your horse not to bolt.
Yet, falconers have used the prey drive to their advantage for thousands of years, partnering with a wild sourced winged predator that really has the ultimate choice of stay or leave. Yet, the trained raptor chooses to stay for the human advantage of having prey animals flushed under them, or providing food treats upon return. It has been well known that fully trained and socialized birds of prey at time drag their deceased prey to the falconer, for both protection from pirating by other predators, and to help them 'break in' and consume the prey. And for the most part, traditional negative (punishment type) re-enforcement is ineffective in training birds of prey. Carefully timed operating conditioning is. A prime example is this: I have a falcon is high energy and jumps constantly from it's block perch. Risking feather damage by being so active. You cannot tell the falcon 'NO' and flick it's beak. Instead, operant conditioning comes into play. I surround the perch with bath pans in a circle. So when the falcon (or hawk) jumps off the perch, they get unpleasantly wet. One English falconer working at a raptor center in the Middle East took it to another level. Placing his falcon's perch on a platform base block perch, in the center of a kiddie pool filled with just 1/2 inch of water. Works like a charm. No bating (jumping off the perch).
yes
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