Video: Shaping Travel Bag – Bad Dog Agility Academy

Video: Shaping Travel Bag

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  • Randy says:
    July 27, 2023 at 2:37 am

    Why is shaping used as a training tool, and when should we use it? Do we use shaping for certain types of behavior we want to train? On a somewhat related note…how do you transport Skeptic when you must travel by air? Does he fly in the cabin with you or do you have to place him in cargo? I have a long-term goal to trial outside my state (Hawaii), which would require air travel (at least four hours), and I wish we had a way to train, or familiarize, a dog to travel in a darkened cargo hold of an airline jet. I know a lot of people must do this, but it still worries me.

    • Sarah Baker says:
      July 28, 2023 at 12:18 pm

      We use shaping to help our dogs learn faster. They think more and are more aware of what they are doing while shaping in a thoughtful manner. When dogs are only lured, they often wait for instructions to do anything and more complex behaviors can be more challenging to train. I definitely lure some behaviors but usually at least have a trick that I am teaching by shaping. I try to shape as much as a can, luring only when needed (like push ups I lure because I want a very specific behavior from the beginning). Skep flies in cabin but really is too big and we have been lucky. I take my young dogs to airports to see and heard airport sounds, to ride elevators, etc. We also do train/bus stations. You could condition air travel sounds and big bangs for sure!

  • cordell.barbara@gmail.com says:
    July 7, 2019 at 8:04 pm

    Are you throwing teats and saying “Release” to get him out of the bag or are you faking throwing treats? I cannot tell if you actually threw a treat but he seems to be searching so maybe you didn’t throw one but just faked it (?) Thanks!

  • Heather says:
    April 28, 2019 at 11:05 pm

    What caused you to decide to change the criteria? For example, when you had two openings and rewarded for facing the way he entered?

    • Sarah Baker says:
      April 29, 2019 at 11:32 am

      I raise criteria when my puppy knows the current criteria. I usually aim for an 80 percent success rate before raising criteria. Sometimes I will raise criteria earlier though and sometimes I wait for almost 100 percent before raising criteria. That is the art of dog training, knowing all the small pieces of the behavior you are trying to teach, raising criteria in small enough pieces that your puppy is mostly successful and knowing when to lower criteria. You will know if you are doing it right because your puppy will be improving. If there is no progress, reevaluate your criteria and your puppy’s current understanding of it. Does that make sense?

  • Collene says:
    April 19, 2019 at 4:50 pm

    Are these all sessions over one day? It seems like your goal is the shape getting into the bag only here.

    But I think this is a common situation where you need your puppy to be OK with ______ in order to take it to do something, but you actually sort of need to be able to do that something NOW, not a week from now. 🙂

    Which creates a tension between trying to C/T all the steps that would come after this : closing the bag with dog inside short amounts, closing the bag with dog inside long amounts, picking up the bag with dog inside, picking up the bag and moving with dog inside, and so on.

    I think I inevitably get about 80-90% of the way there, and then lose a little patience and just punt the rest. Sometimes you get lucky and it works out anyway, other times not so much.

    Do you have any thoughts/advice on this sort of training conundrum?

    • Sarah Baker says:
      April 19, 2019 at 5:53 pm

      Yes, this videos was multiple session on the same day. Correct, my goal was simply to shape him to go in and stay in. If I had a puppy that was unsure about being shut in the bag then yes, I would have done more training, like the steps you mentioned. I would also have tried to not use the bag for real until it was conditioned enough so I did not undo all the training. Luckily that was not needed for Skeptic because he was fine with being in the bag. Similar things can happen with grooming. The puppy is not trained enough but you have to groom them anyway. I try to manage the situation as best I can with the best treats possible. For the grooming example, I would groom little bits at a time while my husband shovels food into the puppy. We do this until I have the puppy trained enough that I can do it on my own. I hope that helps!

      • Patricia Price says:
        April 25, 2019 at 10:30 pm

        Just want to note that “little bits” is critical. I tried the husband shoveling treats while I applied flea treatment, but didn’t break it down enough. Now, dog is totally suspicious whenever one of us approaches with treats and the other with any type of tool!

        • Sarah Baker says:
          April 25, 2019 at 11:02 pm

          And that you need to be careful how you order things. You want the arrival of the flea treatment to predict treats, not treats to predict the treatment. Sometimes we have to do what we have to do though. With work you can undo it. We undid the bad association Skeptic had with us touching his mouth to give him meds. They were so bad tasting the was nothing we could give him in the moment to make it okay…. We just worked on the fallout…

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