Do you or your students struggle with appropriate criteria shifts while shaping? Or isolating the movement you want to mark? Does your dog become frustrated and throw behaviors or give up during a shaping session?
While shaping is considered a critical skill for dogs and handlers, it can be challenging to apply. Many trainers struggle with timing or appropriate criteria shifts, ensuring the rate of reward is high enough to prevent frustration and provide meaningful information for the dog. This can cause many to give up on shaping as a viable communication method and never improve their skill.
In this presentation you will learn different ways to apply shaping while structuring the environment with props and antecedent arrangements to provide our dogs with supplemental information. This gets us closer to errorless learning and creating a high rate of correct responses, producing greater results in less time, all while lowering frustration in both dog and handler.
This presentation is geared toward trainers looking to create more effective and efficient training sessions while maintaining a shaping paradigm and bettering their skills. Come and explore the creative use of props and “shaping the environment” to enhance your training and better your dog’s understanding for more productive training sessions.