Generalising / Raising Criteria / Proofing
"We only get what we believe that we deserve. Raise the bar, raise your standards and you will receive a better outcome." Joel Brown
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What:
Raising criteria is the process of teaching a dog to perform a known behaviour in various situations and under different parameters.
Generalising allows us to use the behaviours our dog knows in the real world.
Why:
- It helps dogs learn that the behaviours are important in any situation, not just at home.
- It helps your dog succeed and avoids unwanted behaviour.
- It helps reduce the likelyhood of failure, prevents frustration or the need for a correction.
- It builds clarity in the dogs mind and increases their confidence.
- It allows you to use the training that you do at home outside the house.
- It improves obedience
How and when to raise criteria:
- Raise criteria only when you are 100% sure your dog understands what the behaviour means and looks like. You can reliably get multiple repetitions of the same behaviour on different days.
- When you raise criteria, and the dog doesn't offer the behaviour, it is probably too soon. Go back a step or 2 and improve understanding and motivation.
- Always increase only one parameter at a time, and when doing so, decrease the other. For example, reduce the distance or duration if there are more environmental distractions.
- If you push criteria too fast, you can undo all your hard work, teach your dog bad habits, or cause frustration and even make them dislike the behaviour you are trying to teach.
- When raising the criteria, sometimes raising the stakes and offering your dog a higher-value reinforcer can help. (Avoid luring for overexcited dogs)
Click on the image below for some pro tips on building excellent training progressions, fading out food lures, and much more from Dog Training Excellence.
Distraction: Teach the animal to repeat the learnt behaviour in distracting environments or when other reinforcers compete with the one we use to train the behaviour. Use different reinforcers, such as treats, toys, and activities your dog may enjoy, like sniffing or exploring.
Distance: Can the dog repeat the learnt behaviour far away from you and even when you may be out of sight. A calm marker can help slowly increase distance without increasing exitement or anxiety.
Duration: Teach the dog to perform or hold the behaviour for longer. Slowly increase the time between the marker and the reward. Increasing the time between the action being performed and the marker sometimes helps.
Precision: Teach the animal exactly what it is that they are ment to do and only mark and reward them when they preform the task or action perfectly.
Speed: Teach the animal to perform the action or the patern as fast as possible. Good rehersal and muscle memory helps with this.
Latency: Reduce the time between the the cue and the behaviour being performed. Marking the instant the animal starts to perform the action can help improve latency.
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