# Transition from shaping to queuing



## Tbarrios333 (May 31, 2009)

How and when should you transition a puppy from shaping with a marker to queuing a behavior?

I ask because Kinley will sit in front of me when she knows it's time to train, but she (obviously) will not do it on queue because I have not taught her that.

When I am shaping the heel, I lure her with a treat and I've caught myself patting my left thigh with my right arm to get her to heel with eye contact. I think she is now associating the heel position with that signal. Oops?

I'm rambling. The main question is when do I start to teach her to "Sit, Down" etc. and stop the 'shaping' if the shaping is ever stopped?


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## onyx'girl (May 18, 2007)

I would lure with food til about 5 months and then transition to a tug or ball on string(mixing it still with food, and not tug hard due to teething). If the dog gets what you are training, then queuing should be the next step.

Teaching the sit, down, stand is doable from 8 weeks on....I would also start the rear end awareness young, it is so much easier when the body is short. 
Get a livestock rubber feeder from TC and work on that aspect before the pups body is so big it is more difficult to work with!
There are so many things you can work on while the pup is a sponge, I wish I'd done things differently...no reason to wait to introduce new things!


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## Tbarrios333 (May 31, 2009)

onyx'girl said:


> Teaching the sit, down, stand is doable from 8 weeks on....I would also start the rear end awareness young, it is so much easier when the body is short.
> Get a livestock rubber feeder from TC and work on that aspect before the pups body is so big it is more difficult to work with!
> There are so many things you can work on while the pup is a sponge, I wish I'd done things differently...no reason to wait to introduce new things!


I am going to have to do some research on rear end awareness because I can't say I have the slightest idea of what that is or how to teach it haha. Is that a foundation skill for agility? I'm still learning about the agility aspect of training. 

Hopefully the local agility center here is good and lets me socialize the puppy with the equipment. Too bad the next class is not until July. I wonder if that is too long to wait. She is definitely a sponge, I would hate to waste this time.


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## Dainerra (Nov 14, 2003)

Jane, we were just talking about that in class the other day!


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Tbarrios333 said:


> How and when should you transition a puppy from shaping with a marker to queuing a behavior?
> 
> I ask because Kinley will sit in front of me when she knows it's time to train, but she (obviously) will not do it on queue because I have not taught her that.


Are you talking about shaping or capturing? Capturing would be where you catch her in the act of doing something you want her to learn and marking and rewarding it. To add a cue, you wait until you know she's just about to do it - say the cue right before she does, and then mark and reward. In this example, you know she's going to sit in front of you at training time, so that would be the perfect time to add a cue. If you say it and she doesn't sit for a few seconds or even a few minutes, that's fine - just wait until she does. In order to get a lot of repetitions in, you can toss the treat so she has to get up to get it, and then say "sit" again and wait for her to sit. If you want to teach her that sit means that she's to remain in a sit until released or you give her a different command (vs teaching a stay command), you can mark the sit and release her before tossing the treat. 

Shaping would be teaching something by marking and rewarding small approximations towards the ultimate goal, breaking it down into increments rather than trying to teach the end behavior all at once. 



> When I am shaping the heel, I lure her with a treat and I've caught myself patting my left thigh with my right arm to get her to heel with eye contact. I think she is now associating the heel position with that signal. Oops?


What you've done here is taught her a physical cue rather than a verbal one. Nothing wrong with that at all, but now you want to add a verbal cue and start to phase out the physical cue. Any time you're teaching something new and it's either on a verbal cue or a hand signal or other physical cue, use the one she does not know first, wait a second or two, and then use the other one. The word (that she does not yet know) becomes a predictor for the physical cue (that she does know) that will follow, and will be associated with the behavior you're asking for. 

Do not do them at exactly the same time! Dogs are very adept at reading our body language, so they pick up physical cues very quickly, but most of our verbiage is of no consequence to them and they learn to tune it out. So if you say the word and do the motion at the same time she'll be paying attention to what you're doing and ignoring what you're saying. 

Gradually wait longer and longer before using the physical cue, and only as a reminder, if necessary. Eventually you won't need it anymore because she will understand that the word "heel" means exactly the same thing as patting your leg. Cassidy learned the sit command to the word first but did not know the hand signal. She learned the down command to the hand signal first bit did not know the word. So I used a hand signal and then said "sit", and for down I did the opposite - I said "down" and then used the hand signal.


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## Tbarrios333 (May 31, 2009)

Ah, I think I did both. I captured a lot of sit behaviors and eye contact, but I shaped the heel. Thanks, that was very helpful.

I just got myself a rubber feeder and she is getting the concept of standing on it with two feet. I am working on getting her to face me when she stands on it. Do you put standing up on the perch on queue as well? What is the word for that?


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