COMMITTED CANINE

One of the most common tasks that we teach to Service Dogs is the “touch it” command.

This is a task which begins by asking the dog to touch a specific object with her nose. This can be morphed to many different tasks, like turning on a touch light or pressing the Open door button at a business or hospital entrance.

A dog that has been trained to detect a “shift from normal” such as a blood sugar drop or an impending anxiety or panic attack, can be taught to “alert” or “interrupt” her handler using a touch command that has been transferred from an object to the handler’s body. We often swap the command “touch” to “nudge” in these cases. But, the actual word cue is irrelevant as long as it is consistently used.

Because it is such a useful behavior, we typically teach all Service Dogs in Training to perform a touch with its nose. Sometimes, a handler doesn’t actually know how such a behavior can be useful until after we’ve completed the Custom Training and they are back home with their new Service Dogs.

In the case of Nellie, the Labrador Retriever shown in clips below, we received a request to teach her a “nudge” just days before she was schedule to go home with her owner. Her owner/ future Service Dog handler had experienced a new medical issue where a “nudge” would be useful. Fortunately, we had already taught Nellie a “touch” an object behavior. Therefore, we only needed to transfer that behavior to “nudge” my knee, rather than touch the object.

We begin with a small, white, plastic touch light. We present it to the dog as if it’s an object of curiosity and use a similar tone of voice as if we are saying, “check this out!” That often causes the dog to reach forward and sniff it. If the sniff leads to the dog actually touching it, verbal praise and a food reward are offered. Only once the dog is touching the light (presented in the same location) at least 80% of the time, do we begin to move the position of the light slight left, right, up and down. Then, as the dog begins to perform the touch reliably in various positions (at least 80% of the time), we move the object to more remote locations.

Next, we may transfer the command to another object. That typically doesn’t take more than one training session. But, some dogs struggle with the idea. This sort of training requires patience, permitting the dog to experiment and to think. It’s also helpful to go back one or more steps when the dog becomes confused. For that reason, have clear steps is important.

Finally, we remove the connection of our hand holding the object. In this case (video below) we secured it to a nearby chair. That severing of the connection to the trainer can cause the dog to become confused. One way we work through that is by placing a hand on the remote object and slowly moving our hand away as the dog gains confidence. Then, we can move the dog’s starting position further away until he is traveling many feet or across a room to touch the object.

Rugare

We usually do not record early training sessions. These next few clips of Rugare (a Rhodesian Ridgeback that was in for Custom Training during the same session as Nellie was here) were filmed a few weeks after he had mastered the command. These clips show the steps that usually happen over time. It’s important to not that Rugare is a very enthusiastic and motivated student dog that is taking action quickly because he knows the process. These clips don’t represent how the behavior always begins. These videos should not be used to define the complete process of teaching a specific dog to touch an object.

“Touch” the Touch-light that is presented

Touch a different object & touch it in various positions

Touch the new object from a remote position

Full disclosure: The processes we use to train dogs are not hard and fast rules. The act of teaching a dog sits atop the fulcrum of science and art. More often, in my (Tammie’s) humble opinion, forging a working relationship with a dog is far more likely to be reliant upon the “art” than the science or hard-fast methodology that is presented in research papers (especially when the subject is not this absolutely unique species of Dog.) There is a documented “science” to using a “positive reinforcement” method for teaching animals (any animal.) There are people who believe that the “science” must be absolutely controlled and utilized without an understanding that every animal is a unique individual and should be respected and acknowledged as such. Many folks who subscribed to the “click – treat” method hold fast to the ideology that the clicker sound (the “bridge”) provides a very consistent cue which the human voice cannot emulate because they believe that is critical to success. In the videos you will hear me giving my “bridge” words (Good Boy or Good Dog or just Good) in various tones and levels of excitement because, I know that sometimes a dog needs a little cue that she was correct and other times she needs to get a windfall of both verbal encouragement and a bigger treat because she accomplished a feat she had been struggling to perform. Dog training is as much an Art as it is the “science” that some dog training claim as the gospel. My opinions are based on a culmination of 40 years of training, but more so, living with dogs paired with a 20+ year career as a professional scientist. But, surely, my methods will be criticized by the purists. I’m ok with that.

Nellie

Unlike Rugare, Nellie had no initial interest in touching the object we presented. To encourage her, we cut a very thin piece of hotdog and stuck it to the touch light so that, in order to eat it, she had to touch the light. That’s a method that would fall completely outside of the “purist positive reinforcement” process. But, it works and there’s no harm done. It’s a creative approach to training. Nellie received the food reward as soon as she touched the light. That’s all we wanted at that time. The hotdog “lure” was used over a few days until we were able to present the light without the hotdog sliver, but which she assumed would be ‘charged’ with a treat. Out of a habit we had built, Nellie touched the empty light and immediately heard the verbal praise and was given a treat by hand. From that point forward (with a few exceptions), she was willing to touch the light and receive a latent reward following the verbal bridge word of “Good.”

Basic “Touch It”

Transfer from touch light to sticky note pad

Days before the Handler Instruction was to begin, we received a request to train Nellie to nudge her handler on the leg. Our typical method of transferring the dog’s touch of a remote object to the handler’s body is to transfer the object from the plastic touch light, to a pad of sticky note.

Once the dog is touching the pad reliably, we can move it towards our knee,and then stick a single note paper where we want the dog to touch the handler’s body. Once the behavior has become reliable (80% or greater), we can either truncate the sticky note by cutting it in half, or often we can simply remove it and the dog will continue touching the knee because she had been successful touching it for many times in a row and it becomes a habit.

In the second video, note that, after being coached through the transfer process, Nellie was given time to contemplate the command while the handler remained quiet. That’s another component of the “art” of moving from guiding, helping and then patiently waiting for the dog to perform the task without assistance.

In time, the rewards can be reduced and replaced by just the verbal praise. This is especially true of dogs (but not many other species), and even more true of dogs like Nellie and Rugare that ache to work for their people.