Training Diary: My Journey to Figure Out How To Put a Cone on My Dog (Session One)
Editor’s Note: Rather than a formal guide, this blog is very much in the vein of a journal entry. I may adapt the style a bit as we go, but for now, I went with providing a simple peek into my thinking.
What do you do when you get stuck at the same point in your training every single time? Well, if you’re like me, you might avoid training for a while, but then you eventually go back to the drawing board. If you missed the context for this series, basically I need to get my dog Otis comfortable with wearing a cone just in case he needs to wear one in the future. You can read more background here. In this article, I am showing you footage from the very first session of my “re-imagined” cone training plan and walking you through some of my thinking and observations. This isn’t a “how-to” for getting a cone on your dog (in fact, my best tip is to work on this FAR before your dog develops an aversion). This is what I did for one dog in a specific situation, but I hope that by thinking out loud, it will give you some ideas (whether your challenge is a cone or something totally different).
My Process of Thinking About My Behavior While Trying To Put a Cone on My Dog
Here you can see my rudimentary setup, where my wire “cone” is suspended in my hallway over a blue yoga mat.
In previous training attempts, I spent so much time thinking about the behavior I wanted Otis to do (“put his head into a cone” and “wear a cone”) and very little time thinking about my own behavior. As a great mentor, Laura Monaco Torelli, taught me, very often the behavior we are asking of our dogs is simple. We are just asking them to perform that behavior in a huge range of conditions. Functionally speaking, the behaviors needed from Otis in order to wear a cone are pretty simple.* But what is going to happen around him in the environment is far more complex. So this go around, I focused on every little component piece of environmental events that Otis would experience as a part of “wearing a cone” (just not all at once!).
*At the most basic level, I needed Otis to be able to stand and to eat a treat. However, I did note all of the behaviors I wanted Otis to be able to do while wearing a cone (like walking outdoors, moving through the house, lying down, eating, drinking, etc.) because that would factor into future training.
My Approach to This Cone Training Session
Here’s a closer look at my makeshift “cone” with Otis resting on the couch in the background.
From my prior experience in working with my dog and cones, I identified two big problems that contributed to us getting stuck in our training: 1) Any movement of the cone around his head; 2) Taking my hands off of the cone once his head was in it.
I decided that I wanted to focus on breaking down the two big problems I identified. I knew I couldn’t start with a cone without lumping criteria, so I had to think of a way to break it down. A cone tends to move around a bit as the dog moves, so I wanted him to experience some subtle but unpredictable movements with a less intense object near his head. I decided I wanted my hands out of the equation to start because I wanted to give him as much control as possible (while I’ve tried hard not to force things on him throughout his life, he knew that my hands could move). Otis makes progress much much faster when he has as much control as possible (something that is not unique to just Otis 😉).
So I found an old wire hanger and bent it into a circle. I wrapped the metal circle I made in a towel to make it softer. I made the circle larger than the opening he would have if he were wearing a cone or donut to reduce the intensity he experienced when putting his head through it.
Then I had to come up with a way to hold this circle up in the air without using my hands. I wanted the circle to move a little bit but not a ton. The reason I didn’t want it to be perfectly still is that I wanted him to learn up front that the circle moves a bit and make choices based on that understanding. I attached four small ropes to the circle and rigged up a suspension system by attaching the rope to the inside of doors in the narrow hallway in my apartment. To start, I tried to have as much tension as I could on the ropes to limit movement (knowing that it would move no matter what because of my design).
There are a million ways I could have started the actual training session with him. Two more amazing trainers influenced how chose to start: Kiki Yablon and Hannah Brannigan. I sent Kiki a picture of the absurd setup that I had created and said I was a little nervous that I was going to mess this up from the get-go and have to come up with a totally new picture. She sent me one of Hannah’s videos where she starts a training session by teaching the dog (non-contingently) where the treats will show up for the session. Kiki said she often starts harness desensitization by first teaching the dog that treats show up through the harness. I remember telling her that I was worried about doing that because I didn’t want to create a conflict by making him do something “scary” to get food. As Kiki is apt to do, she reminded me that I could observe and adjust … and that I could stick my hand all the way through the ring to start rather than asking him to bring his head through the ring.
With a plan on how to start, I laid a yoga mat out (so he would have secure footing), set the camera up (so I could re-watch the session and see what to adjust next time), and began.
My Observations From This Training Session
Note: My bullets below that reference times in the video may be off by three seconds or so.
Apprehensive at first - When Otis first approached the circle, he stayed fairly far away. He was reaching/leaning forward rather than just approaching it, and in this context, I read his behavior as showing a bit of concern. I repeatedly clicked and then reached my arm through the circle to give him a treat. I reached far through the circle at first and gradually reached less (I tried not to force him to come closer too quickly).
Yoga mat - While I thought to put a yoga mat out, I didn’t align it correctly, so his back feet slipped on the wood floor. Imagine not being comfortable around something new in your environment. Are you going to feel more or less comfortable around it if you feel like you can’t control your movements? I would argue less.
It moves! – You can see him learn that the circle moves. He was really “jumpy” in response to the circle’s movements at first.
Nose boops - He tapped the circle with his nose a couple of times. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to gather info about the circle or if he was offering a behavior trying to get a treat. In the early stages, I was really trying to non-contingently give him treats through the circle to teach him where the treats showed up. I didn’t actually want him booping it too many times because I didn’t want this setup to cue booping when I knew that later I was going to shape him to put his head through it. I still gave him a treat for the nose boops, but I didn’t mark.
Rate of reinforcement - I chose to speed up my rate of reinforcement to try to prevent the nose booping altogether. Looking at the video now though, I probably fed him too quickly because I was marking before he even finished eating the previous treat. (Mechanics are hard 😅.)
Treat placement - I gradually delivered the treats closer to the circle. I still delivered treats non-contingently for quite a while (aka he didn’t have to do a specific behavior to “earn” the treat). (NOTE: I say this but there is always SOME behavior happening that I am reinforcing. I just wasn’t really selecting for anything yet … aside from maybe eating the preceding treat from my hand through the circle.)
Moved yoga mat - At about a minute, I got smart and scooted the yoga mat so his back feet would land on it too. I tossed a treat away while I moved the mat, and when he returned, he basically stuck his head through the circle!
Offering behavior - He started to offer some movement towards the circle on his own. I think he got a little startled (sharp backwards movement) by the circle moving and stopped offering forward movement towards the circle.
Treat placement - I switched back to non-contingently delivering treats, but this time, I started to deliver them ever so slightly on my side of the circle. This meant he had to stick his head in a little bit to get the treat.
Wonkiness - At around 1:30, the circle moves, he backs up and boops it a few times. I maybe asked too much of him before this. Maybe he was gathering info. I didn’t want to push him, so I delivered a treat on the ground a little closer to the circle. I probably could have just reset tossed away from him. I think in the moment I was worried about him deciding the game was to back up, but with hindsight now, I didn’t need to worry about that.
Adjusting to movement - At around 1:45 and later, he learns how the circle moves when he pulls his head out from it since I was now clearly delivering the treat on my side of the circle. He was super responsive to the circle’s movements – you’ll see his jumpy movements. He also seemed to really look at the circle. I really tried to notice where his attention was going – it gave me data about what cues in the environment mattered most to him. And for a good while, his eyes were locked on that circle (perhaps telling me that circle was a very relevant cue for him). I was non-contingently delivering treats for a bit after switching to delivering them on my side of the circle to avoid raising criteria in more than one dimension at a time.
Contingent reinforcement - At about 2:12, you will see him shift his weight forward towards the circle. I marked that. I started looking for him to offer me some movement towards the circle to mark & reinforce. He was now consistently doing this! At about 2:29, he got a little startled by the movement of the circle, and he pulled his head up and took a step back. Why? My best guess was so he could get a better look at the circle. After this, I marked the moment he chose to learn forward again even though he was farther away from the circle. To me, this was shaping “resilience” around a moving object! At around 2:33, he actually made the choice to stick his head into the circle even though it was moving quite a bit! This was cool! He took a few big steps back at 2:37, so I chose to give him a reset toss away (walking away is ALWAYS an option). After he came back, you will see him become a little less responsive to the movement of the circle, which was what I was looking for. He still had a few reps where he pulled his head out fast and watched the circle move, but more and more, he wasn’t attending to the circle as he moved his head in and out. He backed up one more time, and again, I tossed away to give him the choice to return or not (he returned).
Ending - By the end, he was rapidly sticking his head partway through the circle by choice and is not orienting to the circle every time it moved anymore. Earlier in the session, the circle’s movement was a very salient cue for him to back up and watch the circle move. Over the session, he seems to have learned something about that movement because his responses to it changed. And he recovered quickly if he did need to back away from the circle. From where we started, this was big progress!
What I Learned From Figuring Out How To Put a Cone on My Dog
Within four minutes, Otis went from staying far from the circle and leaning to get treats to sticking his head part way through the circle and not really responding to the circle’s movement around him. I was really happy with this! Because of the trend of his behavior during the session, I was comfortable sticking with the approach of showing him where the treats would appear (I think this sped up the session quite a bit). If his leaning/reaching had gone on for longer or he was not approaching the treats, I would have stopped this approach.
Did I maybe train for too long? Probably, but I don’t know. I will tell you that I thought about ending the session many times during these few minutes. A part of me thought I should end because I know that in general, shorter quality sessions are better. However, I thought that this was something that was going to require some time for him to adjust to the environment. I wanted to give him the space to do that. I worried if the sessions were too short, he wouldn’t have the time he needed to adjust. I honestly am not sure if I made the “right” call or not, but for us, it worked out.
