Motivation Do's and Don'ts

A friend invited me to write a guest article for her monthly musical freestyle column, so I decided to try it in the form of a list of Do's and Don'ts for motivating the freestyle dog. By motivation, I mean training an enthusiastic, high-energy, focused freestyle performance.

Here's the list I've come up with, culled from years of reading advice on this subject from experts:

DO set your dog up for success before you practice. If she's just eaten, or just finished a rousing play session, or just cuddled with you all afternoon, she's not hungry for those reinforcers. Motivation is all about hunger. Of course stay gentle and loving all day, but bring a dog to practice who is hungry for whatever it is you'll be offering as reinforcement.

DO train enthusiasm as a specific criterion. For example, if you asked for a weave and your dog did a spin, would you click and treat? Probably not. So when you train the weave, gradually stop reinforcing weaves that are physically correct but do not show the upbeat attitude you are looking for. Shaping enthusiasm is just like shaping any other behavior. Start by reinforcing anything that looks like the beginning of what you want, but gradually extinguish the weakest 20-30% of responses. As those weaker responses disappear, raise the criteria again, always reinforcing only the strongest 70-80%. As with any other criteria, only raise one criterion at a time, and relax other criteria at first when focusing on a particular one, in this case, enthusiasm. In other words, if you get an unusually high-energy version of a move, but that move isn't as accurate as you've been seeing, that's fine. That energy is exactly what you want, so be sure to let your dog know it with a reward. Once you've got that consistent attitude, you can go back and work on accuracy as needed. Also, don't be surprised if performance for that criterion occasionally goes the wrong way at times before turning back and reaching new heights.

DO retrain a move from scratch if you don't have an enthusiastic version of it now.

DO use the reinforcers that work for your dog. It might be nice if all dogs would work for praise, or if all dogs loved rough-housing, but that's not the case. It's simple to determine whether an intended reinforcer is helping you build enthusiasm from one rep to the next: After one enthusiastic response, are you seeing that enthusiasm again the next time you cue the behavior? If the answer is no, the dog is not being reinforced by whatever "reinforcer" you're using, whether you think she should be or not.

DO use high-value reinforcers exclusively. If your dog will work for kibble but isn't wild about it, use string cheese or tuna brownies or liverwurst instead, whatever it is that your dog loves. If your dog will play tug-of-war but isn't thrilled about it, use a chase toy or a scratch behind the ears or a cheer instead, again, whatever it is that your dog loves. Better still, combine reinforcers, for example using a cookie and a word of enthusiastic praise. If you want your dog to love freestyle and show it, make it great fun for her.

DO save your reinforcers for behavior you want to reinforce. For example, let's say the dog has just finished practice with a beautiful closing move, and now you and she are walking to the sidelines. Should you give her a cookie just as she completes that beautiful move, or should you wait until you're both halfway across the floor? If your answer is to wait, then expect great, enthusiastic exits and not so great moves.

DO give reinforcers in response to your dog's enthusiastic performance, rather than before she performs a routine or a particular move. You may occasionally want to let her know what scrumptious cookies you have in store for her — known as sampling — but once she knows how great her training sessions always are, the risks of dulling appetite or reinforcing the wrong behavior may be higher than any motivational advantage of sampling.

DO save your cheers for the behavior you want to reinforce. Let's say you've found your dog loves it when you say encouraging words, so you find yourself saying encouraging words throughout your practice sessions, even when your dog is not performing the way you want her to and the way you know she can. This is sometimes called cheerleading. Your intent is to cheer your dog on, but instead, your words of encouragement are actually reinforcing versions of behavior you do not want. "Oh, I see," thinks your dog, "when I move all pokey like this, I get sweet words from my best friend."

DO practice moves until they're fluent before combining them with other moves into sequences. For example, let's say that you'd like to use a sequence of moves A-B-C-D, but sometimes when you cue C, you don't get an enthusiastic response. When you see that happening, go back to training C by itself until you consistently get the response you want. Then gradually begin combining it with other moves, again re-training the individual move if the quality of the response declines.

DO use reinforcement after every correct response when training a new move. If the dog doesn't know what you want yet, and you nonetheless use intermittent reinforcement by reinforcing some correct responses and not others (for example, "two-fers"), how will she know which of her responses are correct? If you are consistent in reinforcing the behaviors you want, and in not reinforcing the behaviors you don't want, the dog will be able to determine what works to get what she wants.

DO consider switching to intermittent reinforcement when practicing a move that has become fluent. If introduced gradually and randomly, you may find that the sense of anticipation will increase your dog's focus and enthusiasm even higher.

DO maintain an appropriate rate of reinforcement. As you begin to introduce intermittent reinforcement, always watch to see whether you are continuing to get the responses you want. If not, you may be seeing ratio strain, where the rate of reinforcement is no longer high enough to maintain the behavior. If that happens, you may have dropped the rate of reinforcement too quickly. Go back to more frequent reinforcement, finding the level where your dog is showing you the responses you want.

DO surprise your dog constantly with good things. Whatever reinforcers you are using, whether food, play breaks, petting, praise, celebration, or anything else that you know from experience works with your dog, present those reinforcers at the most unpredictable times. Of course, a great time for a party is when your dog has shown a particularly good version of the behavior, but don't limit yourself that way. Use a variety of reinforcers, use them in varying quantities, and present them at completely different times from one practice session to another. A motivated dog is a dog who has no idea what wonderful thing is coming next, but knows from experience that it always might be around the next corner as long as she keeps up her end of the bargain.

DO keep your training sessions short. Of course, the term short depends on the dog, but if you want a high level of enthusiasm, you don't want your dog learning to pace herself. For some dogs, it's best to quit after a single great execution of a particular move. Others thrive on repetition since that means lots of cookies, as long as they don't become physically uncomfortable. Watch your dog and see what produces the best results. Experts generally suggest you err on the side of sessions that may seem too short to you. That single key often makes all the difference in motivation.

Well, there's my list of Do's and Don'ts for building motivation. Did you read it and think you're already doing most of those things, but you'd still like to see more enthusiasm in your dog's performance? That's quite normal. Somewhere on that list may be a single item that you're not using -- for example, maybe you're cheerleading, or maybe you've let the rate of reinforcement drop too low -- and that single item is undercutting all the other things you're doing right.

The good news is that your dog isn't lying to you. Her behavior is exactly reflecting your training technique. Read that reflection, believe her, and make the changes she needs you to make so she can learn to give you the enthusiasm you want.

As for the list, sorry there weren't any Don'ts. I hope you didn't miss them.