Shaping involves breaking a training goal down into smaller steps and rewarding your dog along the way to your goal.
Shaping is a training process in which you gradually teach your dog a new action or behavior by rewarding him for small steps along the way. With shaping, you decide on a final behavior, but then break up the actions toward that behavior into smaller parts.
Shaping for advanced behaviors and success
Shaping is almost always involved when teaching complicated behaviors such as agility, service dog tasks, or elaborate tricks, but it can be a helpful training technique for other reasons and situations.
- Shaping is useful for those who are training multi-step behaviors or working on distance training for dog sports.
- Shaping avoids having to fade out a lot of food lures when training because you rely on observation and rewards for the dog’s actions.
- For shy and fearful dogs, shaping can help them build confidence in their environment. For dogs who are shut down out of fear or anxiety, shaping can help them learn that offering behavior is a good thing, and can help them instead of hurt them. Again, because you reward so many small steps, the dog gets many rewards in a short period of time, and that can help with confidence.
- If you train a complicated task or behavior with shaping, and the dog forgets a step or gets off-track, retraining the task is easier. You can then return to the training step that is causing the problem, retrain it using rewards and quickly get back on track.
- For those who want to learn more about dog behavior and body language, or who are aspiring dog trainers, shaping is a great way to hone your observation skills.
- When you’re practiced at shaping, it can be helpful for teaching dogs without frustration, because you reward so many small steps along the way.
Getting started with shaping
The idea with shaping is to begin with a very basic initial action, and gradually build up to the full desired behavior. First, consider what you want the final action to be, and then identify what the smaller steps toward the final action might be.
One example of using shaping is to teach your dog to go to a mat or blanket, placed on the floor, on cue. The general steps for this, using shaping, might be as follows (but remember that there could be even smaller steps between these ones!).
- Have a few treats in one hand and toss the mat down with the other. Your dog is likely to look towards the mat as it lands on the floor. That is your first opportunity to click or use a verbal marker like "Yes!" and toss a piece of food.
- Observe your dog and be ready to click or verbally mark any glance or step toward the mat. If your dog looks at the mat, takes a step toward the mat, or walks over by it, click or mark with "Yes!" and toss a treat near the dog but not directly on the mat.
- If he further investigates the mat by sniffing or placing one or more paws on it, toss another treat.
- If he wanders off, just wait a moment and watch your dog for any signs of interest in the mat: looking at it, walking toward it, sniffing around it. If he does this, immediately toss him a treat for the action of approaching, getting close to, or getting on the mat.
- Repeat this process several times, and ideally, your dog will be approaching the mat on his own, and you will continue to reward him for it.
- You can then go on to shape him for putting all his paws on the mat, then for sitting on the mat and eventually for lying down on the mat.
Shaping tips
- When shaping, always reward the dog for any movement toward the final goal, and never punish, scold, or discourage your dog in any way. For shaping to be successful, your dog has to continue to do something. He will be motivated to continue if he is continuously rewarded along the way. If he’s punished or discouraged or even hears “uh-uh” when he makes a mistake, he is likely to become confused, stop moving, or walk away. And that won’t advance your training goal at all!
- If you or your dog make a mistake in the shaping process, it’s not a problem! Because you work in small steps and use rewards, you can simply back up to a previous step and continue on.
- If your dog gets stuck, the steps might be too big for him to understand. See if you can break the task down into even smaller components, and reward him for smaller bits of progress toward the end goal.
- Shaping isn’t the only way to train something, so if you’re really stuck, consider other training techniques such as capturing or lure and reward. Sometimes you need to use more than one technique to achieve the outcome you want.
With patience and practice, shaping can be a valuable skill for training any dog.
