Mike’s Doghouse

Per Elena’s suggestion, I’m going to teach Mike the concept of SPOT. I decided to not use the word PLACE since it sounds so much like WAIT and STAY. We’ve not started working on this yet.

The following is all mind wandering thoughts as I work through this new command/cue/whatever.

To teach something using operant conditioning (aka positive reinforcement aka clicker training), I need to first break it down into little steps.

I want Mike to go to his SPOT, sit or lay there, and stay there until I release him. That’s three steps. He already knows SIT fairly well and he knows WAIT pretty much, too. So I need to break down going to his SPOT so I’ll break that part down further.

He needs to know what and where the SPOT is and he needs to know to go there.

To know what and where, he’d need to either link that to a particular place, thing, or area. Beside my chair? A bed in the corner? A towel on the floor? He already has his crate so a bed in the corner would be redundant. He knows “go in your box” means to go into his crate. Shoot, does box and spot sound too much alike? Vocal tone will be important here. Beside my chair is not necessary since that’s what HEEL is for (as well as several other tasks/commands he’ll learn later). So I’m thinking I’ll go with the towel or similar thing on the floor. This would be something we take with us and he’d always have the same SPOT no matter where we are.

I tried to teach Joella this but decided she was so big that a mat for her would just be too large in the public setting. But as I learned more, I realized it needn’t be that big. Just big enough for her butt print, or Mike’s butt print in this case. We’ll start with a large towel and work down to something manageable as we go along.

At meal time, the dogs know BACK UP means to go further away from the feeding area. We used to have dog blankets in there that they had to sit on. Jake, our Dalmatian, would back up, sit, back up, sit until her butt touched the first itty bitty piece of the blanket and there she would stay. The dogs we currently have aren’t as good about this I think because there’s no longer a dog blanket for them to use as a marker. But I digress.

Mike gets fed last (as the current bottom dog in our pack) over by the back door. I think a towel there would be the best place. We’ll be getting him a raised feeder soon and that will help him with knowing where to be.

I’ll take him to it, tap the blanket, and tell him to SIT. Once he is sitting and staying there reliably, I’ll add the cue word, SPOT. I’ll start adding distance and tell him “SPOT”. The idea is to tell him SPOT and he go there on his own.

Proofing the command/cue will be him doing it away from the kitchen. Will he go there in the living room? Will he go there the next time we are out and about?