Drinking From the Toilet: Real dogs, Real training

Hannah follows up last episode's hot take on training speed with a deeper dive into the matching law, the behavioral principle that describes how learners allocate behavior in proportion to reinforcement schedules. She covers the original pigeon experiments, what decades of follow-up research have complicated, and how understanding this equation (without actually doing the math) can make you a more thoughtful and effective trainer in real life. Key Takeaways: The matching law describes behavior as proportional to reinforcement, but real life is messier than the original equation suggests: Variables like reinforcer quality, difficulty of the behavior, and delay of reinforcement all affect outcomes in ways the simple version of the law doesn't account for. Reinforcer value matters as much as reinforcement rate: A less frequent but more valuable reinforcer can outweigh a higher rate of a less valuable one. You can use this intentionally to load one side of the scale in your favor. If your dog prefers an easier behavior even when the harder one pays better, your criteria may have jumped too fast: Dogs, like students given two stacks of math problems, will gravitate toward what's more fluent. That preference is useful diagnostic information. Delayed discounting is real and shows up in training: The longer the gap between behavior and reinforcement, the less influence the reinforcer has. Getting the treat out of the jeans pocket slowly is not the same as getting it from your hand quickly, and your dog's behavior reflects that. Matching law doesn't excuse us from timing and mechanics: Understanding the principle is useful. Using it as a reason to stop troubleshooting your delivery is not. — About the Host Hannah Branigan is a teacher, trainer, podcaster, and author of Awesome Obedience and its companion field guide. She is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT) and a faculty member at the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior. Her work is grounded in applied behavioral science and focused on helping serious dog trainers build better skills through positive reinforcement. Keep up with Hannah and find all her work and resources here: Website: hannahbranigan.dog Podcast: hannahbranigan.dog/dog-training-podcast/ Program: hannahbranigan.dog/z2cd/ Instagram: instagram.com/hannah_branigan/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPh-msUZUNJksIAu2zDTQhQ

Somewhere on the internet, someone is arguing that using a leash means you aren't really a force-free trainer. In this solo episode, Hannah unpacks the difference between impact and intent, explains why force-free training is a set of values rather than a guarantee of perfection, and gets into the mechanics of how a leash can function as a neutral tactile cue trained entirely through positive reinforcement. If you've ever felt defensive when someone questions your training tools, this one gives you a more grounded way to think it through. Key Takeaways: Force-free training is an aspirational value system, not a pass/fail test: Holding that value means you're always asking what you can do better, not claiming you're already perfect. Impact and intent are both real, and both matter: The learner's experience of a leash always deserves your attention, and your intentions about how you use it shape what kind of trainer you're becoming. A leash can be trained as a neutral tactile cue through positive reinforcement: Leash movement doesn't have to carry any aversive weight to be a functional signal your dog can learn to respond to. What you do after a training error is the most important part: A force-free trainer's response to an unplanned correction is to figure out what needs to change, not to incorporate that correction into a training plan. Where you are in your training journey is less important than the direction you're headed: A willingness to examine your methods and stay open to new strategies is what earns you a seat at the table. — About the Host Hannah Branigan is a teacher, trainer, podcaster, and author of Awesome Obedience and its companion field guide. She is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer (CPDT) and a faculty member at the Karen Pryor Academy for Animal Training and Behavior. Her work is grounded in applied behavioral science and focused on helping serious dog trainers build better skills through positive reinforcement. Keep up with Hannah and find all her work and resources here: Website: hannahbranigan.dog Podcast: hannahbranigan.dog/dog-training-podcast/ Program: hannahbranigan.dog/z2cd/ Instagram: instagram.com/hannah_branigan/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPh-msUZUNJksIAu2zDTQhQ

In this episode we discuss: Speed vs. Latency: Speed is how fast a behavior is completed from the time it starts. Latency is the response time, or the time elapsed between when the cue is perceived and when the behavior starts. Motivation: While motivation is essential, it is just one piece of the puzzle. Overemphasizing motivation can lead to frustration, which might not always yield the desired outcomes. Natural Behavior Efficiency: Given a stable training environment, behaviors naturally trend towards faster, more efficient performance over time. Training Environment: The importance of considering training conditions (e.g., environment, timing, footing) to ensure optimal speed without inducing frustration. Pay attention to when, where, and under what conditions your dog already moves faster For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/186 This episode is supported by Patreon: www.patreon.com/DFTT

In this episode we dig into the concept of drilling, and how it applies in dog training. It's pretty common for most of us to have an emotional response just to the term itself - for good reason! But is there any baby in this bathwater? Drilling is significant for skill acquisition in various contexts beyond dog training, our emotional responses to drilling are shaped by personal experiences and the nature of the activity, a good drill should isolate core components of skills for focused practice and efficiency, coercive drilling methods that ignore the learner's needs lead to negative associations and even hinder learning, repetition alone is insufficient for learning; reinforcement and iterative adjustments are critical, deliberate practice involves observing, learning, and modifying activities based on feedback, mindless repetition without feedback and adjustment does not lead to improvement, continuous improvement requires proactive engagement and measured adjustments based on outcomes, and seeking help and guidance when progress stalls is essential for effective skill development. For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/184 This podcast is supported by MET Conference 2024: www.metconference.com/

In this episode, we discuss using concepts around stimulus control to stop demand barking before it stops, how cues create expectations of what reinforcement is available, using naturally occurring events that are already built into your routine to signal when reinforcement is available and when it is not, overly-simplified reminders of including good dog household management, which you already know, but sometimes it's good to hear it again, teaching the stand up-sit down game, and principles to apply these strategies in your own home. For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/182 This podcast is supported by MET Conference 2024: www.metconference.com/

In this episode we discuss the importance of getting really, really good at working with reinforcement, how the topic of reinforcement and using it in training is FAR more nuanced than most trainers recognize, food is probably the most convenient reinforcement but it does require specific conditioning and strategies to use effectively in training, Ashlee's game, Clockwork - a fancy application of treat tossing that specifies where and when to toss for clients, and building motivation for food even when dogs are really just not into it. For full show notes, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/180 This podcast is supported by Zero to CD: www.zerotocd.com

In his 1968 book, The Technology of Teaching, B.F. Skinner wrote: Errors are not a function of learning or vice-versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program. - BF Skinner And that sounds great. It also sounds like a lot of pressure on the dog trainer. Never fear! In this episode, we discuss what errorless learning actually means and how to apply the principles in our real life training sessions. In this episode, we discuss the original research on errorless learning by Dr. H.S. Terrace form 1963, what is the difference between errorless training and trial-and-error trainings?, why we care about training with errors - what's in it for us dog trainers?, designing our training sessions so that we don't rely on extinction as a training tool, and in fact actively structure our sessions to minimize our dogs' experience of extinction, strategies allow us to train more errorlessly (fading in discriminations - early and often, using back-chaining, even when shaping small behaviors, introducing a new element between the click and the treat, setting your minimum criteria to earn a click to behaviors your dog is doing frequently, and avoid raising criteria to something your dog has never done, or only done once). For full show notes, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/178 This podcast is supported by Patreon: www.patreon.com/DFTT

In this episode, we discuss what is stimulus-stimulus pairing and how it works?, what is a "classically conditioned recall" and why might we consider calling it something different, revisiting the differences and interplay between operant and classical conditioning, the difference between describing a procedure and describing a process, and lots and lots of examples of how to apply this concept in different training applications. For full show notes, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/176 This podcast is supported by Patreon: www.patreon.com/DFTT

In this episode, we discuss the most important thing for dog professionals to know about working with families, the importance of understanding developmental milestones, working with and setting expectations, finding ways for children to safely participate in training, and the importance of providing support to families and especially mothers. For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/174 This podcast is supported by Zero to CD: hannahbranigan.dog/z2cd/

When we pair two stimuli together as part of a classical conditioning training plan, it can sometimes be hard to determine when the association has been made between the old stimulus and the new stimulus… the "food" and the "bell", to draw from a popular example. In this episode, I answer a question submitted by a patron with some ideas on what to look for to determine if that association is strong enough and it's time to proceed to the next step. In this episode, we discuss quick review of conditioned emotional response, what happens when you pair a reinforcer with a stimulus in the environment, using this strategy to build a specific, positive CER in a training session, a recap of Lindsay Wood Brown's work on resource guarding, and applying this strategy to stimulus-stimulus pairing with scent. For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/172 This podcast is supported by MET Conference 2023: www.metconference.com/

In this episode, we discuss tradeoffs when using systematic "drills" to isolate specific aspects of an exercise, drills help us isolate specific aspects of an exercise and give us the advantage of Deliberate Practice for expertise, what is meant by "fun"?, play and fun often introduce more variability as well as a dialogue, strategies to protect myself from myself, using "play sandwiches" to break up a session, training overlapping skills in the same session, and using "different-but-not-harder" creatively for novelty and flexibility. For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/170 This podcast is supported by MET Conference 2023: www.metconference.com/

In this episode, we discuss why everything is hard (just kidding, no answers here. Why IS everything so hard?); behaviors, routines, and material acquisitions that are helping take the edge off; behaviors that reduce my daily annoyance level and make it easier to enjoy my dogs (stationing/crating from a distance, putting their own collars on, picking up my ear buds when they fall, especially under furniture, Cavaletti, front and back paw targets); routines (nail trimmers on same hook as leashes, feeding out of slow feeders, Zoom training meetups); and material acquisitions (dry erase sleeves, pony jet, Bissel machine, slime flat tire machine). For full show notes and transcript, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/168 This podcast is supported by Karen Pryor Clicker Training's Brand-New On Cue! Training Treats: clickertraining.com/treats

In this episode, we discuss why we often consider shaping to be an advanced technique, why I think it doesn't have to/shouldn't be that way, why I think how many of us first learned about shaping is contributing to the problem, how the expectations we have around shaping (based on how we were taught) might be getting in the way of doing good training, the two expectations that can get in the way: that shaping is linear and that it should be spontaneous, changing how we think about shaping to consider the whole ABC contingency can allow us to do better training without having to struggle so much, how you can set yourself and your dog up for success and it is still shaping!, there is no cheating in shaping as long as you are being honest with yourself (and your dog), setting up for success means a lot more than just training in a low distraction environment, the shaping staircase is a great model for teaching someone about the concept of successive approximation, but it is limiting in real life application, consider building behaviors from components, the first "step" in your shaping plan may look nothing like the final behavior and it might even seem to be farther away from your goal than where you are now! For full show notes, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/166 This podcast is supported by Karen Pryor Clicker Training's Brand-New On Cue! Training Treats: clickertraining.com/treats