Generalization
- judisedwards
- Jan 13, 2024
- 1 min read
Sitting here, watching football with Clint, and reading Tom Mitchell's "How to be a Concept Trainer," one of my favorite training books. A couple of quotes:
"....developing your dog to be a keen generalizer is beneficial in getting consistent behavior in both sport and companion dogs...."
"The Generalization Game. In this game, you teach your dog how to interact with an object in a specific way......and then, after he offers the behavior, you throw a piece of food away from him, and before he returns, you switch to another object, similar but different."
Articles anyone?????
Dr Mitchell is a veterinary behaviouralist and competitive agility trainer/handler in Australia
I wonder if this might help with Ilsa. Since TDX she has had no problem recognizing and indicating fabric and leather articles--I'd say she now gets them around 95% of the time. But she is really inconsistent about plastic and metal articles; she'll often just walk past them.
Maybe I'll use a leather article about the size of a switch plate, and then work the exchange using either a metal or plastic switch plate. I need to do it both in grass and on hard-surfaces. Do you think that might work?