It’s probably been over a year since the last time I taught Yuffie a new trick. I just couldn’t figure out how to motivate her, and when she wasn’t having fun, I wasn’t having fun. So whenever I wanted to try something new, I just trained with Jacuzzi instead.
Well, I finally figured out what I was doing wrong all this time.
What changed? When Yuffie was a puppy, I didn’t know about errorless learning. I did a lot of free shaping with her, but I did it by waiting for her to offer behaviors, and then either rewarding or giving a verbal correction. 🤦‍♀️ That meant she was putting a whole lot of effort into figuring things out, but only managed to earn a reward every now and then. With that inconsistent rate of reinforcement, MOST dogs I’ve trained (Jacuzzi included) will just keep trying, but Yuffie reached a point where she decided it just wasn’t worth it.
So instead, she started offering behaviors that already had a strong reinforcement history. (Mainly lying down, but sometimes also chin rest or “bow.”) None of those behaviors she offered, left much room for movement, and so it was pretty much impossible to shape anything new.
Because she wasn’t opting out of the training session completely (wasn’t leaving), I didn’t realize that the problem came from me.
When I started trying to teach her the rear paw targeting, I started super easy, just getting her to stand on them, or even near them, in any way at all. Then, once she did step on them, I started rapid-firing treats (kibble) at her… and voilà, with such a high rate of reinforcement, her motivation was suddenly back! 🎉 After a few days of working on this trick and seeing her engagement, I decided to try other tricks as well, but this time by setting up an errorless learning scenario to facilitate an equally high rate of reinforcement. I was careful to watch for “mistakes” and made a rule for myself: if she misunderstands the cue even one time, I pause for a bit and watch her until I’m sure she’s ready for another repetition. If it happens twice in a row, I take it as her telling me that she’s bored of this trick, and we either end the training session, or work on something different.
The result speaks for itself: within 2 weeks, we’re now well on our way to learning these 4 new tricks! 👏

1. Rear foot targeting - She was already familiar with pivoting while her front paws were on a platform and I was standing opposite her. After a few sessions of rewarding any kind of standing on the new paw targets at all, I placed them behind the pivot platform, and rewarded her for bumping into them. The first few times were accidental on her part, but it didn’t take her long to add the two things together, and intentionally step on them while pivoting. Then I shaped a hand signal to replace my full-body signal of moving along with her. I crouched, and eventually sat so she would generalize the behavior even when I wasn’t standing.

The eventual goal will be to replace the foot targets with my hands, and have her “give paw” with her rear feet.

2. Holding objects in her mouth. - I had previously, unsuccessfully tried to teach this, but could only get her to nose target it with a closed mouth. When I tried to wait for more, she would only squish her nose into it harder, but not actually open her mouth. I held the object above her head so she’d have to stretch up, and that sometimes resulted in a slight shift in her jaw, which I captured until she was opening her mouth fully. You can’t see, but she actually still isn’t holding it. She’s doing this funny thing where she rests her upper jaw on it and pushes downward with the weight of her head, while not applying any pressure at all with her lower jaw. 😅

3. Barking on cue - never really tried this one before with her. She always talks to me when I get home, so one time I decided to use that excitement and capture the behavior. After that, the first few times I practiced it in a “calm” setting, Jacuzzi helped out by barking (he already knows the cue), which then motivated her to join in. Now, she can do it completely without his help.

4. Lying on her side / “play dead” - This is another one I tried to teach in the past, but eventually gave up on. She absolutely hates being pushed (will straight up leave the training session if anyone dares touch her.) Luring her head around with a treat to set her off balance didn’t work, because she simply got up when the treat was too far to her side. Hand targeting eventually got the desired result when I did it in SUUUPER SMALL increments, just rewarding her for turning the head slightly to the side, then any sideways shift of the hips, etc. I’m open to troubleshooting here. As you can see, she’s still not exactly relaxed while lying in her side. Constantly ready to spring up again at a moment’s notice.