CC205: Targeting Fitness

3.1 Clearly cuing to move between movement and stillness

Fitness is a great activity because it’s very high in reinforcement rate, we never have to reduce or remove reinforcement, and we are able to use equipment setup and choice to teach exercises in correct form quickly. 

One of the biggest causes of frustration in fitness is a lack of clarity in if movement is, or is not required. An example is for some dogs, if we are using luring to try to adjust form or positioning they can have conflict over when they should take the treats in the hand and move, or stay still. This can either cause frustration or stress, and/or excessive foot movement. 

Here  you can see the difference in Grid’s movement (and unwanted movement in particular) when luring, vs using targets and clear movement cues. 

The other thing that makes a huge difference in clarity in fitness, and getting stillness and duration in positions is reverse luring. This concept comes from Laura Waudly, and I learnt from Sara Brueske in FDSA classes. 

https://laurawaudby.blogspot.com/2013/02/using-reverse-luring.html

For me in fitness I use this with a visual cue (open palm vs closed palm), and then transfer the concept to the bowl to get a focus forward with stillness. 

Trip and Amethyst learning: 

Deo getting stillness in positions with reverse luring: 

Glitch using reverse luring: 

Sage starting to use focus on the bowl: 

I also use clear cues for when movement is required. I use ‘back’ as a general shift weight backwards cue, specific cues for movement to a target, and target sticks to help with movements with no floor based targets. We can also use verbal cuing of positions to cue movement, such as sit, down, stand. We just need to be very aware that there are different movements into a sit, down, and stand as you can see  in the video below. This means sometimes we need different cues for (for example) a tuck sit vs a sit back sit. 

Your task

 - Do you have a clear cue for stillness? 

 - Do you already have clear movement cues? 

 - What positional cues do you already have, and what are the specific criteria of these cues? For example when you cue a sit is this a tuck sit, or a sit back sit? 

List your relevant skills, and make a list of things you need to work on or add.