Paws in a Box is a great fun trick to introduce you and your puppy to training through shaping. It’s also useful to develop your pup’s understanding of where their back feet are at they move around. Most pet dogs need to improve in this skill when they first start agility training, as they aren’t used to thinking about it too much – the back legs just tend to follow the front ones.
Shaping Behaviour
A lot of dogs learn how to sit, lie down, and come by following a piece of food in their owner’s hand. There’s nothing wrong with this, but for agility training it is easier if the dog is more thoughtful about exactly what he is doing. We like to use a process called shaping to encourage the dog to invent new behaviours that he can offer to us. If you have used a clicker previously, this can be useful in shaping – if not, you’ll need a verbal marker such as “Yes”, as shown in this video.
One of the important things about shaping is to allow the dog time to offer behaviours, without using your voice or body to guide them. At first it may take a while for your dog to get the hang of this, but after you’ve taught a few different behaviours in this way you will both find it lots of fun. The trick to shaping is to keep the “step” between one level (or criteria) and the next as easy as possible. As an example:
- Looking at box, one paw in in, two paws in – big gaps between each step, easy for dog to lose momentum
- Looking at box, putting head in box, putting head in box and lifting front paw, touching side of box with front paw, lifting front paw into box, putting front paw down in box, putting front paw in box and weight shifting onto it, putting front paw in box and lifting other front paw, putting front paw in box and touching box with other front paw, putting two paws into box – smaller gaps means the dog is more likely to do something that you can reward, which keeps enthusiasm up.
Adjust your criteria to expect just a little more than what the dog has done the last 2-3 times. Your dog may skip some of the steps in the breakdown above (e.g. go straight from putting his head in, to putting his head and a paw in), or you may need to look for even smaller pieces of the behaviour to reward if he gets stuck on a step. Let your dog guide your rate of progress.
There are a few things that I would do differently from Sophia if I was training this:
- I’d position myself closer to the box, and mostly feed the dog in the box. This encourages the dog to add an extra step onto the behaviour (e.g. if I feed them while they have one front paw in, they may then step in with the other front paw). After feeding 2 or 3 times in the box, though, throw a treat so that the dog has to leave the box to get it – this makes sure the dog practises the first step of approaching and putting the first paw in too.
- I would start by placing the box on the ground between myself and my dog. It’s likely that my dog will immediately either shove their head in it to see what it is, or if I’m really lucky, move towards me and put a foot in the box – what a great start! Getting the first few rewards in quickly really helps to keep the dog interested in the training session. If your dog has zoned out, picking up the box and putting it down again can be a good way to press the reset button.
- I’m usually more animated during a training session. It’s important to be quiet while your dog is thinking, and to use the same marker word every time. It’s OK to also smile (otherwise the training session might be a little daunting to the dog, like a silent supermarket during a coronavirus epidemic!) and to add a few more words of praise or pat your dog after your marker word.
Rear paws are harder than front paws, so you may not get to them during your first training session. It’s better to keep sessions short and end on a success, than to push for too much and have your dog get frustrated.
Shaping is not always a linear process, and often you will need to temporarily relax some of your criteria in order to get to the next step. With rear feet, it is often quite easy to get one front and one rear foot in, so reward this a few times and then see if your dog is able to put the pieces together and offer three paws in the box. The last paw is usually the hardest!
Choosing Your Box
Boxes should have fairly shallow sides so that it is easy for the dog to step in. One of the purposes of this trick is to hopefully teach the dog to move his back legs independently – if the sides are too high he will have to jump in rather than stepping in. Even with a low-sided box your dog may jump in at first anyway – don’t worry, we will have other tricks in coming weeks to work on rear end awareness as well.
The first box should ideally be about the right size to accommodate the dog’s four paws when he stands normally (i.e. a little bit wider and longer than the dog’s back). Once your dog has the hang of the trick, gradually reduce the box size to increase the challenge to your dog’s balance and coordination. You can be quite creative about what you use as a box (e.g. Tupperware, mop buckets, desk drawers, cardboard boxes if you cut them down so they’re not too tall), but be aware that the box may get a tad dinged up during your training session.
