And here we go with the first one. Your questions answered all about shaping.

And wow, did we get a lot of really, really great questions. I'm getting to your questions.

So question number one, should I be using a non-reward marker when I'm shaping?

No. Your antecedent arrangements are arranged in a way that the response you're looking for

is the obvious response. So, no help from you. It is all on your planning, your setting up of the

dog and the dogs offered previously reinforced responses. What is a good exercise to help

a dog to learn to be okay with offering responses? Well, something as simple as the location-specific

reinforcement marker of search and the blanket, as I spoke about in episode number 259,

that exercise will get every dog motivated to offer

paw targeting. And if it doesn't, chances are your reinforcement isn't high enough value to the dog.

I've heard the comment, click for action and reward for positions, do you agree?

You know, that is a great little rule of thumb to help differentiate between are you shaping a stationary

behavior or are you reinforcing a behavior of motion? So, so often people want their dogs to run away

from them and then they click and reward them back at them. But I would click and reward the dog

by throwing something and I wouldn't even click. Honestly, I would just

use a verbal marker like good and throw their reinforcement out there to them. Now, click

for action reward for position isn't always 100% what we do by saying search. We aren't really

reinforcing for position, but we're intentionally reinforcing to create a reset that allows a dog to

do what we're looking for. I try to shape, but my mechanics suck and my dog and I get very

frustrated. So, I've heard shaping isn't for novices. Is this true? So, shaping is for everybody,

in my opinion, because the more you do it, the better you get at it.

If you and your dog are getting frustrated, that comes back to your antecedent arrangements.

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