How "Capturing" Cute Helped Sitka Stay Safe

Do you ever say “I wish my dog would do that more often!” after a particularly cute thing they do? Well, here’s some manna from heaven: you don’t need to wish anymore, you can actually change the likelihood of behaviour through a fun and easy technique called capturing. Well, although it’s called capturing in the dog training literature, it can feel a bit more like conjuring. Conjuring up something cute, on command! (That was a remarkably satisfying bit of alliteration right there).

So here is how capturing works. First thing, identify the behaviour you’re wanting more of. For example, I found it supremely cute when my greyhound/sled dog named Sitka did this trilling thing she does. Her face is cute, her behaviour is cute, and the sound is cute. It is the full package, and I knew I wanted more trilling. For your own scenario, you might be looking for backing up, howling, huffing, blinking…I mean, who am I to delineate your joy? If you love it and want more of it, read on.

Second, you must think about and identify the context in which the behaviour happens. And here is a preemptive no: it is almost certainly not random. Pretty much every behaviour happens in a certain place, at a certain time, or after a certain other thing happens. For example, Sitka usually trilled at me when she came in from outside. Not every time, of course, but occasionally. And when I started to pay attention, I noticed that she was more likely to trill when I was looking at her and leaning in a bit of a bow, waggling my head back and forth.

Third, you need to make the behaviour much more likely to happen. And here is where glorious, wondrous, oh-so-helpful reinforcement comes in. Reinforcement makes behaviour more likely to occur, it’s literally the definition of the word. You need to provide reinforcement right after the cute thing happens…which means you must, like the little girl scout that could, be ready to reinforce.

When I decided I wanted Sitka to trill on cue, I put a canister of delicious treats on the table by the door. This meant that treats, the easiest reinforcement to use, were immediately at hand in the exact place I needed them. With the treats easily available, I was able to reinforce Sitka every single time she trilled.

In the beginning, I would only get maybe one trill a week. I tried my leaning in and head-waggle thing, and had some success, but not a lot. I just carried on, reinforcing her after every trill, and in time, I found (to my delight) that what was once a rather rare thing started, at first imperceptibly, to happen more often. After a few months I noticed that Sitka was trilling almost every time she came in, and I was also able to get her to trill in other locations, by doing my leaning-head-waggle thing. Since her behaviour was now predictable, it was time to add the cue.

Fascinating aside: this is a fancy little window into what cues are, for those who like learning about dog training. Cues are signals to our dogs that let them know this:

if you do x, you’ll get y

In other words, cues don’t make behaviour happen, even though from the outside of the dog’s brain, it certainly looks like they do. They just let the dog know that the opportunity for reinforcement is available. I decided, perhaps regrettably, perhaps whimsically, that my cue for Sitka to trill would be me trilling. To help her make the association between her old ‘cue’ (some combination of coming inside and human leaning oddly and behaving like a curious chicken), I followed the proper cue-adding technique: new before old. I trilled, then I prompted the behaviour (or I slipped in a trill before she trilled, if it was obvious that she was about to). Every single time I used my new cue, I reinforced her for trilling with a treat afterwards. I didn’t want her learning a rule like “when the human trills, it means there is likely no reinforcement, so don’t bother”. Nay, I wanted her to learn the right rule, at least from my perspective: it’s always worthwhile to keep an ear out for the human’s random requests.

A few dozen repetitions (ok maybe more than that, but give me my patina of professionalism here), and Sitka was putting it together. Me trilling predicted the conditions that made her want to trill. We were off to the races: I trill, she trills; I’m thrilled, she gets a treat. It is probably my most favourite thing I have trained my dog to do, full stop. (Not convinced? I’ll direct your attention to a short video of Sitka trilling before we move on to the next, useful and healthful, way I used capturing.)

Capturing Safety

Recently, I used capturing to help keep Sitka safe. In a particularly hot and muggy spell a few weeks ago, she experienced serious heat stress. We were out on a walk, and she trembled and fell over a few times. My vet indicated that the humidity and temperatures were working together, and recommended that we both keep our walks shorter and rely more upon swimming than racing through the underbrush. I had a slight problem on my hands, though: Sitka did wade into the water and swim a few strokes, but only very rarely. And Sitkas do not fetch nor chase sticks, balls, toys, or anything of the like, any of which I could use to get another dog in the water. So what did I do?

I captured swimming.

I noticed that Sitka only went in the water when a few conditions were met. It was in one of only two places, and when there weren’t a lot of other dogs around, and…you get the picture. There were conditions I could re-create that made it more likely that Sitka would wade out and paddle along for a bit. I did re-create these conditions as best I could, and I added reinforcement as well. Sitka doesn’t come cheap, so I started (and let’s just be upfront about reinforcement here: I continue) with five treats after each swim. Although we’re early in the process of conjuring a nice little dip on cue, I can usually get Sitka to go for a swim before our walks these days. She’s as cool as a perfect little cucumber, in more ways than one.

What are you capturing these days?