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Curiosity of cues

Dive deep into the 5 steps of adding a cue

Catja Pedersen Catja Pedersen
Start: 01 Nov 2024
Next: TBA

Auditor:

  • Duration: 6 weeks.
  • Learning materials: Written lessons with video tutorials.
  • Access to other Premium members' threads for additional insights.
  • Certificate of attendance upon completion.
  • Lifetime, 24/7 access to course materials.
  • Join the vibrant Tromplo community.
  • Earn 4 loyalty program points.

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  • Personalized attention: Instructor analyzes 12 minutes of your training videos weekly.
  • Engage in interactive learning with homework and daily feedback.

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The art of making a cue reliable is not the easiest task we have.

Often, adding the cue is something we do in a rush, as we just want to get the response as fast as we can. Adding the cue, and making sure we have good stimulus control, is absolutely not the sexy side of dog training, and it does not make good videos to show our fellow trainers. Basically, if we do it right, it is kind of a long process and nothing super exiting happens while we do it.

Unless.. We actually manage to see it for what it is – an investing in that behavior we have used so much time to teach. An investment, that we can get the interest from, as soon as we have taught he cue really well.

So let´s bring the excitement back to the boring part, that adding a cue often can look like. Often the dog will take the cue from the reinforcement history, rather than paying attention to what we say, and that ends up with us saying 1 verbal cue, and the dog doing a completely different behavior. That is absolute normal and it makes perfect sense, as the behavior that has most recently been reinforced, is the the behavior that is most likely to happen again.

Try cueing spin, spin, spin, sit, spin. It is very likely that the dog will just spin again when you say sit, if you haven’t proofed your cue in every way possible.

Many learners respond well to certain cues, in certain context, while they then look completely clueless in others.

A very reliable “sit” cue can be tested to its breaking point, if we suddenly decide to say the cue in another context than usual. Although the response to “sit” is very reliable in front of handler and on the left side, the dog can seem completely confused, if we cue “sit” when it is on our right side, or 10 meters in front of us. Or even worse, behind us! In this course, we will go through all the steps. From having the behavior offered off cue, to having a perfectly reliable cue, in all the situations we need it. We will work on proofing the cue, so that the dog will know the cue in every context.

We will dive deep into the 5 steps of adding a cue and making sure, that the cue, and only that specific cue, is what prompts the behavior. The goal is to make every cue have the effect off green light. We want our learner to respond, the same way we do, when we get to a green light.

We will discuss:

  • latency,
  • how to structure a cue,
  • how to chose a good cue
  • and most important, when to add the cue!

This course is for you, if you want perfectly reliable cues, and are willing to put in the effort to get it.

Sign up now!

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Lessons:

  • Week 1 08 Dec 2024

    • Welcome!

      Read this before proceeding to the first lesson!…

    • Lets start from the beginning

      Welcome! I would like to take this lesson to talk a bit about what off cue behaviors are. …

    • Lets start with fluency..

      Fluency looks effortless! When we talk about fluency, there are a lot of material online about what fluency could be.

    • But how?

      There are 3 very crucial things we should look at when are trying to get fluency.  Divide it. A…

    • Homework 1

      So now, we have established what off cue behavior is, and what fluency is, and how to get it.  I…

  • Week 2 08 Dec 2024

    • The start of the cue

      I hope you have had a nice few days off Now you have thought about which behaviors you…

    • The next steps

      Yesterday we went over the rough start of adding the cue to a behavior. Time to explore the next…

    • Homework week 2

      You made it through week 2 and we have started working with the cues.  Since we are all working…

  • Week 3 08 Dec 2024

    • Ideas for testing the cue

      When we have successfully added the cue and done the steps described in the previous lessons, we are moving towards…

    • Lets dive a bit deeper in chosing the cues

      Digging deeper..  If we look at last weeks lessons, where we discussed how to add the cue to a…

    • Got the cue, then..

      After the last lesson, where we discussed what to think about when choosing a cue, it is time to look…

    • First step

      Cue chosen, next step! As of last session, where we discussed what thought should put into choosing the cue, it…

  • Week 4 08 Dec 2024

    • Second step

      Step 2! Now it is time to move the cue a bit forward, so instead of only saying it…

    • Third step

      Now its time to start step 3. Test the cue in different situations, gradually increasing the difficulty.  As…

    • Fourth step

      Now – we get to the challenging part.  To recap what we had in lesson 7, lets revisit the…

  • Week 5 08 Dec 2024

    • Fifth step

      If you are following this course and practicing the behaviors with your dog, also as an auditor, I would recommend…

    • Proofing in more ways

      Today I wanted to show you a few videos of ideas for proofing the cue and taking your stimulus control…

    • Why does it work

      For todays lesson, I figured we should science it up a little bit.  We have been looking at the…

  • Week 6 08 Dec 2024

    • Its all good – but what about real life?

      So now we have gone through all the steps of adding the cue. Easy peasy, right?  Not really.. at…

    • What’s on your mind?

      The title says it all  As we are getting very close to the end of this course, I wanted…

    • Final Thoughts: Celebrating Achievements and Continuing the Journey

      Farewell and Keep Moving Forward! Mega Cheers and…

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