• Objectives
  • What is escape conditioning?
  • Why wait until "Phase 2" to teach it?
  • Why do you want to teach mechanics before phase 2
  • What is a great command structure to use for teaching escape conditioning?
  • When can we move forward from escape conditioning?
  • What do some examples look like?

What is Escape Conditioning?

It is the process of teaching the dog to escape an aversive that we later want them to avoid.

• It focuses on the negative reinforcement aspect of the training, but all 4 quandrants can be involved in the process.
  •  Uses R+ and P-
  • P+ MUST NOT BE FOCUS (if it discourages the dog will not get a chance to learn) 
  • Comes before Avoidance Conditioning - But why?
• Analogy
  • speeding ticket
  • Broken ice/quicksand

Why wait until "Phase 2" to teach it?

• For the most difficult exercises it is easier to help the dog if they understand what we are speaking to them.
• It allows the trainer to gauge if the dog is still "willing to train"
• It ensures that clients are not "forgetting about" phase 1 while continuing to thin out reward schedules.
• Flashback - Life before escape conditioning
  • William Kohler - side effects?
    • Omission of this step is one of the major reasons for handler aggression (fight or flight)!!!!
  • My experience at professional dog training school
    • results orientated - not process orientated
    • side effects - trainer, dog, and especially client problems
      • "three times and a freebie"

Why do you want to teach mechanics before phase 2

• Leash Ninja allows fast and smooth teaching
• Easier to handle rewards and the leash without fumbling
• Easier to stay accurate with minimal amount of aversive (no need to jerk/jolt/etc)

Added benefits

• The lessons double to teach "tactile" cues
• It is negative reinforcement, therefore it can be used as yet another conjuctive schedule of reinforcement for teaching behavior.  This can speed up the process of the dogs learning especially around distractions.
  • The famous 3 D's of dog training "Distance, Duration, Distractions"  - Duration and Distractions can easily be worked on.
  • Distance much easier to work on after we teach our conditioned punisher.  

The process of learning how to escape
It involves using negative reinforcement, but it is not a synomyn

It is not focusing on punishment because we are not discouraging behavior at all. We want the dog to 'mess up'.

Reinforcement means to encourage behavior. So we are going to remove something the dog doesnt like to encourage.

When we think of it in its technical term. Makes it easy to understand why this part of the process of 'correction'. To show what is correct.

Think of this. A dog doesnt know better at this point. You did a great job at teaching what you want and the dog has done a great job at learning those rules

We have done nothing to teach the dog that sometimes we require reliability.

What is a great command structure to use for teaching escape conditioning?

Full command structure

Phase 1 Command Structure

Think of this. A dog doesnt know better at this point. You did a great job at teaching what you want and the dog has done a great job at learning those rules.

We have done nothing to teach the dog that sometimes we require reliability, yet.

Phase 2 Escape Conditioning Command Structure

Quality control is slipping if the dog doesnt want to engage with the lesson. Only correct when breaking. But the dog must volunteer to do another rep.

To correct is to show what is "correct".

Example of Escape Conditioning with a Halti Collar

We are focusing on the negative reinforcement, we actually want the dog to mess up so we are not discouraging anything (also why you want to keep it light).

Halti

Typical Lessons

Down

About 1:14 and 6:00

Sit

Ready to move to the next step